Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
The village was carved into the woods like a secret, nestled deep in a hollow.
In it, a handful of buildings stood crooked with age, their stone walls green with moss.
The roofs were a dark slate, slick with rain, and one sagged so deeply at its center that it looked as if it were exhaling a weary sigh.
The rain had worsened in the time it took to get there.
It fell in a steady, frigid sheet, pooling in the grooves of the cobbled path.
Water squelched in Aurelie’s boots with every step, and poor Yuri looked like a drowned bird.
His waterlogged wings sagged behind him, misery pulsing through the bond.
For as divine as angels were, it seemed they had one of the simplest weaknesses of all—water.
So ridiculous was it that she had to fight not to spend too much time looking at him for fear of laughing. It was obvious that Yuri was already tense around her, neither of them knowing where they stood with the other. She didn’t want to make it worse by embarrassing him.
The demon, on the other hand, was having no issue navigating the rain. His wings had been magicked away, his black hair tied back and somehow so much tamer than her unruly braid that was coming undone.
“You said that you can control anything you hear,” Aurelie called to him over the rain. “Can’t you stop this, then?”
“Certainly, if you want to wait while I isolate millions of water droplets individually,” he called back. “The rain is not one sound, but thousands. It’d be done raining before I could make any difference.”
That seemed a rather aggravating flaw in the magic, though it hardly mattered. They’d made it to the village. And, it seemed, to the vespers.
Dozens of the tiny creatures drifted beneath the eaves of the buildings, tucked into shelter or flitting beneath overhangs.
Several peered out from between wooden beams, eyes gleaming like bits of molten silver.
Their chatter grew louder as they spotted Severin, and Aurelie was certain she saw at least several crooked grins.
She instinctively felt for the place on her shoulder where Vex sometimes sat, but the Luminel had disappeared as soon as it had begun to pour.
Because of the rain, or because of the Nyxaris?
The thrum of their energy pulsed through the village, and the hair along her neck rose. Nyxaris were strange creatures. Usually more of a nuisance than a true threat, though in large numbers …
“Keep your guard up,” Yuri warned. “Don’t give them any reason to take an interest in you.”
He didn’t need to tell her twice.
The sign above the inn creaked in the wind.
It was so faded she couldn’t make out the name, just the ghost of lettering long since weathered to nothing.
Rain sluiced down the windows, distorting the golden light flickering within.
She watched as Yuri twisted that light around him, obscuring his wings from view as best he could.
Rain still fell from the feathers in puddles, though hopefully no one would pay close enough attention to notice.
A bell jingled overhead as Severin pushed open the door.
A cursory glance showed that the common room was filled with a handful of travelers, cloaks hung near the door and mud-caked boots resting by a great hearth at the far wall. The air was thick with pipe smoke and roasting meat.
A fiddler played a slow, winding tune in the corner, more for himself than for show.
A pair of merchants nursed drinks near the fire, heads bowed in quiet conversation.
A stable hand slumped asleep at a table, snoring softly.
A few others lingered in corners, wrapped in travel-worn cloaks, their faces half-lost to shadow.
A worker stood on a chair balanced upon a table in the back corner, stretching onto his toes to reach a leak in the roof. Severin’s gaze homed in on the boy, and the miasma around him all but doubled as rage surged.
Aurelie’s body tightened on reflex.
“Severin?” She nearly choked on his name, and when he spared her no attention, she seized his wrist and squeezed until he acknowledged her.
“That’s demon hide,” he spat. “He’s using envyborn hide to patch the roof.”
She hadn’t noticed how bright the leather was until he’d pointed it out. But as she looked closely, there were signs of demons everywhere.
Travelers’ satchels made from hide. Bones fashioned into ornate hairpins. Horns and fangs turned into weapons that sat at the hip, and cloaks that shimmered with iridescent lustborn skin.
Severin must have seen it, too, for it felt as though a great tempest raged within him, threatening to swallow her whole.
Rhovar used demons because they’d been left with no other choice.
Their homes were destroyed, and food made scarce.
They were making do with what they had, and she’d never had a reason to consider this from another perspective.
Yet in Severin’s soul, all she felt was seething anger as he looked around the room, seeing what could have been one dead friend after another.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Yuri warned from behind. “We have bigger concerns right now.”
Severin pulled his hand away, and though he gave no argument, the rage within him festered.
They slipped between the tables toward the front counter, where a heavyset woman stood wiping her hands on a linen cloth.
Her gray hair was tied back beneath a kerchief, her eyes sharp beneath the fold of her brow.
The symbol of the Divine hung as a tarnished pendant around her neck—a single angelic eye with two white wings curling out on either side.
“You’ll be wantin’ a room,” she said before they could speak. Her gaze dropped at once to Aurelie’s left hand, searching.
“Two, please.” Yuri stepped forward. “One for my wife and me, and another for my cousin.” He reached for Aurelie, taking her hand in his.
She blinked, uncertain whether she was more startled by the heat that pressed into her cheeks at his touch, or by the faint shimmer that passed across his knuckle. A ring of light, shaped into a band.
The innkeeper looked between them, satisfied. “Newlyweds?”
Yuri’s smile was thin. “Something like that.”
“Well, we only got one room left, and that’s the one where the cot gave out. Stable boy snapped the leg off it chasin’ a vesper. Fool boy’s got more spirit than sense.” She reached for a rusted key from a row of pegs behind her. “Corner room, warmest in the lot. Bed’s whole, at least.”
Yuri exhaled slowly through his nose. “Fantastic.”
He dropped his arm, and the absence of his touch left Aurelie cold.
The innkeeper held out her hand, palm open, and Severin stepped forward to press several coins into it. Her hand snapped shut around them.
“There’s stew in the pot if you’re hungry. Mind your manners and your tab, and keep your windows shut. You let in a vesper and I’ll be chargin’ you double. I can’t have any more of those little bastards stirring up a fuss.”
The key hit the counter with a soft clink, and the woman turned away to bark orders at a boy carrying a bucket of firewood.
Severin picked up the key, holding it between two fingers. “I call the bed.”
Aurelie scowled at him. “Have you never heard of chivalry?”
“You’re right, my apologies. I will happily share my bed with you.”
It was strange to feel their conflicting emotions warring within her.
The press of Yuri’s resentment and his fierce urge to protect, while Severin was simply enjoying ruffling the angel’s feathers.
Now that she was spending time with them both, it was getting easier to make out whose emotions belonged to who.
The demon’s presence was a fire raging inside her—steady and direct, but burning so hot it felt like her skin might melt away. There was darkness in him, a molten center of a flame too bright to stare at without being blinded. It burned without abandon, always simmering beneath the surface.
Yuri, however, was wind. She felt him always, brushing close only to vanish a second later.
His emotions came in sharp gusts that snapped her to attention but never remained long.
He was guarded, difficult to pin down. She hadn’t the faintest clue who he truly was, but found herself fascinated to learn.
The wood groaned beneath their feet as they ascended the stairs to a hallway lit by a single candle in a rusted sconce.
Shadows danced along the walls, flickering across old portraits so faded that the figures in them had become ghosts.
More vespers had gathered outside. They hovered near the windows in tight clusters, clawing at one another as they fought for the best view inside.
“I don’t like this.” Aurelie grimaced. “Why are they all here?”
Severin, too, was watching them with a frown. “Vespers are drawn to magic, and there’s a good bit of it at Kieran’s camp.”
Kieran. She’d heard that name before, whispered among the vespers. That must have been the demon he’d mentioned earlier.
Aurelie hurried past the window, nerves prickling across her arms. Morning couldn’t come soon enough.
Their room stood at the end of the hall. In it, a single bed sat near the far window, dressed in a faded quilt. A fire crackled in the hearth, two chairs pulled near the flames.
Yuri was the last to step inside, ensuring the door was bolted behind them.
His wings brushed the top of the doorframe as he entered, stretching to their full expanse as he made his way to the fire.
Water still slipped from the feathers in puddles.
His clothes, too, were soaked, plastered to his skin.
Just like hers.
Aurelie grimaced at her own sogginess. She didn’t even want to sit on a chair in her current state, let alone lie on the bed. And Light, did she want to lie on that bed.
Still, Aurelie was a knight. Order was her bones, and routine her blood.