Page 56 of Lost Feather
“Friend,” she muttered. “Sort of. Basshole friend. Not as big a basshole as Ry. That dude has some smut.” She hiccupped. “Had.Hadsome smut. Didn’t even say thank you. It was like, wham, bam, gotta scram.” She started singing something that sounded like, “Living in the friend zone, can’t make it out alone,” then passed out again before either one of us could ask what she meant.
“Find Righteous,” Mikhail growled. “He has damaged her.”
“It’s possible he did this… but when I left to find you, Righteous was the one close to death. Swimming in smut himself.” Perhaps he’d succumbed to the taint and fled Sanctuary entirely. Maybe he’d attacked Feather, though that would never result in her being so utterly… tainted. I shuddered to think how the smut must feel on her fragile, almost frail limbs beneath the clotted mass of filth that covered her now. It hung in clumps off her eyelashes, gluing her eyelids shut. How was she even able to speak? Righteous would know, or answer for it.
I’d done no more than step toward the door when Righteous himself appeared, out of breath and followed by another Protector with dark curls, freckles, and wide, frightened eyes.
“Feather!” she screamed, as she landed and raced to her friend’s side. Righteous, on the other hand, stood in the doorway, looking nervous.
Nervous, and more golden than I was. There wasn’t a shadow of soul smut on him. Not a hint that I could see. He was as pure as a Protector could be, shining—glowing!—although his eyes seemed flat and lifeless. “Will she live?” he asked urgently.
“What have you done?” I demanded. “What did you do to her?” I crossed the floor and lifted the man by the throat.
“I don’t know,” the young Protector managed to rasp out. “I woke to find her as she is now.”
“And left? Left her alone, like that?”
He shrugged, his eyes blank. “Release me, High Angelus, and I will speak.”
I dropped him unceremoniously. “If you tell a single falsehood, I will strike you down.”
He swallowed, his gaze on the floor, his mouth in what might have been a sneer. I fought to control my hands, which twitched to wrap themselves back around his neck and wring the attitude out of him. “Apparently, I cut away my own smut before I lost consciousness. You were right; it was extremely painful. When I woke, you were gone, and the Novice was… as you see. I ran to get her escort, Sunny. And now, I will see myself out.”
My jaw worked, but no words would come out at first. “You believe… You believe you removed your own smut. All of it.” I gestured to the back of the room when the idiot nodded. “And that young Novice became even more tainted… preciselyhow?”
Righteous shrugged as if unconcerned, but his eyes flickered nervously. “How would I know? I am not a High Angelus to be granted the answers to all the mysteries of the realms, and I never will be. The best I can hope for is to maintain the balance on Earth, come here, and be cleansed to return again. I have done so for over a thousand years, and I will continue to do so now that I am… purified.” His words were filled with cold anger, but his eyes kept darting to the back of the room, as if he was concerned for Feather’s state.
“You are dismissed, Protector,” I bit out. That title did not describe the being in front of me. “You got what you wanted. You’re clean. Now get out.”
He turned to go, and I saw him pull the sleeve of his robe away from his arm, peeking underneath. There was one patch of his skin that wasn’t pristine. A faint stain in the shape of a boot on the underside of his upper arm. He sighed, then stared at the floor for a moment.
“I said go,” I repeated.
“Will she… Will she be all right?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Are you trying to pretend that you care? Did you know, when the title of Protector originated in Sanctuary, it had meaning and responsibility? To protect every being who was smaller, weaker, less gifted. I wonder—what are you, Righteous? Because I do not see much in you that reminds me of that meaning.” When he sputtered and protested, I gently closed the door of the workshop on him, locking him out.
I didn’t have time to instruct him on his duties. I was needed here. Not that I could do much to save Feather; I was shocked she could breathe and talk at all.
“Can you save her, Mik?” I asked, watching my friend spoon water into her mouth, as the Protector Sunny held her filthy hand and hummed a lullaby.
“I don’t know,” Mikhail finally replied. “If I had her name, her full name, possibly. Until then...”
I finished for him. “The knife.”
Mikhail didn’t answer. After watching him press the soul knife into the tiny Novice’s hand, wrapping her fingers around the handle, and begin the process of carving away handfuls of smut from her body—a task she must have been helping with at least somewhat—I sat, my knees inexplicably weak. I’d seen horrors beyond comprehension on Earth. Crimes and injustices that had made me weep.
But until this long night, sitting vigil as the smallest Novice I had ever seen—who had somehow saved an unworthy Protector—suffered in agony, I had never known true fear.
Not only because I feared for her survival. But also because I feared the emotion budding inside. One I had no right to feel, not for her, or anyone like her. Not for anyone besides my Arabella.
The minutes rolled into hours, and Mikhail carved and hummed. The night passed, yet he never turned away from the task. Sunny, Feather’s friend, came in with food and drinks, and I took a turn so Mikhail could rest for a moment and eat. My hands shook like leaves in a storm as Feather’s breathing stuttered. I cut shallower strokes, and prayed.
Mikhail took back the knife, resuming his patient work. From time to time, he took the blade and set it on his own arm, nicking the skin. Balancing the blood and ichor that welled up, he fed it into her swollen mouth.
The first time he’d done it, I’d protested. Mikhail needed his strength for his vital work, his creating. But each drop seemed to help her breathe, for a few moments at least. And before long, I was offering my own arm, and my own blood, to help her battle while he carved.
It wasn’t enough. “Sing, Gavriel,” Mikhail pleaded. “You remember some of the healing songs, don’t you?” My throat tightened up, and I opened my mouth to deny it, but there was something in Mikhail’s demeanor that made me hesitate.
