Page 41 of Lost Feather
the night is softly wheeling past.
A feather rests upon the stairs,
your pain and sorrow cannot last.
A brush of wings will close your eyes,
the touch of lips from realms above.
The rush of shadowed thoughts subside,
‘Til all that’s left is love, my love…
and all that’s ours is love, my love.”
When I finished the first verse, our eyes met, and she mouthed the words, “Thank you.” I kept singing, my heart racing for some reason. She curled into a ball, focused intently on the gate, and for a moment, time stopped. I wasn’t certain if I was dreaming or awake; the space around me took on that diffuse quality of a dream, and what I saw next—if it was real—was no reality I could have anticipated.
Feather sat still, but a presence rose from behind her, or within her. My sight blurred, as if I was staring at one of the Great Souls, the ones I remembered reading about when I was a wide-eyed Novice. Stories, from the days when High Angeli visited from the Celestial Realm when they wanted to, coming to teach us songs, teach us our histories, and even play with the younger Protectors.
I squinted as the slender, silvery form drifted around Feather, glided a few feet forward and stood still, staring up at the gate. She was exquisite, her features almost elfin, with plush lips and a chin that promised a strong personality. Her hair fell over her bare breasts, her sweeping wings folded around to cover her below the waist. She opened her mouth—to sing with me?—but no sound emerged. Her brow furrowed, and the edges of her mouth turned down, wings rustling in silent agitation.
I almost stopped singing to ask what was wrong, but her lips were moving with mine. As if she was harmonizing with me, her notes heard only in some distant realm. I would have smiled at my fanciful thoughts, except her brow was still crinkled.
I felt the same urge to comfort her as I always did with the Great Gate, but while I couldn’t touch the gate, I knew I needed to hold her. When I reached out to comfort her, she folded herself into my arms. Our eyes met as I sang, and my heart… took flight.
Like a key sliding into a lock, a weary bird settling onto a nest, a seed bursting from the rich earth in a sharp unfurling of green and possibility, a change that was both unexpected and inevitable altered me to my very core.
This was her. The mate I never thought I’d know. The perfect complement I’d been promised, and lost when the Well was closed. My soul’s other half. My joy and my desire and my completion. It was the only explanation.
A wave of deep feeling thrummed through me. Not only love, but passion. When her lips met mine, I claimed her as my own, tasting her deeply, my hands buried in her golden hair. I pressed her form against mine, feeling the soft press of her breasts on my chest, the silk of her thigh sliding over my hip as she pulled us together, her feathers stroking my arms as she arched her back slightly.
Her shoulders shook with a soundless laugh, wings throwing a crystal web of sparkling light all around us, as she nimbly untied my belt and moved up so that her core was hot and slick against my pulsing cock. To my shock and delight, she rubbed so that the tip breached her narrow entrance slightly. Then she slid deeper, and my melody became a moan. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, mischief spilling out of them with sparkles of brilliant, silver light. After a few movements, I realized she was fucking me to the tempo of the song I was singing.
I had never felt this before. I sang into her ear, speeding up and slowing down, making her chuckle silently. Her eyes poured light into mine, her lips traveling over my face and neck, leaving searing lines of bliss where they met my skin. I almost didn’t notice when my soul began to merge with hers. But she did.
The instant I prepared to speak my name into her heart, she pulled away, her eyes flaring wide, her wide wings beating behind her. She lifted one glowing hand to her mouth, covering it, as if she couldn’t believe her own actions.
“Who are you?” I sang, but she shook her head, stepping back until she reached the dirty Novice. Then a bright flare of light forced my eyes to close. When I opened them, she was gone… but all around me, as I searched for her with my eyes and senses, the air smelled of crushed roses.
And the rancid, sour stench of smut. My dream was gone, replaced by this unworthy, fallen creature.
I stalked toward Feather, enraged that my vision had passed, andshewas what was left. Her presence felt like an insult. I fought to keep my tone civil. “Don’t come back here, no matter what you hear. I’ll sing to the gate this week; it should settle.”
“Can everyone hear it screaming for help, and they’re just ignoring it?” I almost answered her truthfully, almost shared my own indignation that the others who could hear it never sang to it. That the High Angeli who had left us to care for the gate hadn’t told ushowto do so… but she was still talking. “No one else in Sanctuary knows any lullabies?”
“They don’t hear it,” I explained, and warned her away. As I prepared to leave, I noticed her hair was glistening with something unexpected. Feathers. Were they hers? Was this proof that my soulmate had really been here?
I reached for one, horror filling me as I examined it. They were mine. My feathers, falling, but not vanishing. The cool wind that blew from the gate was almost pushing them into her sticky layer of smut, plucking them from my wings and threading them through her clotted hair.
What had she done to me?
I lifted my head, staring into the mirror of the purification chamber and repeated the question aloud. “What did she do?”
My Guide had shaken their head when I insisted on finding Feather and making her spell it out. Force her to tell me, show me, what trick she had used to remove her stains and transfer them to me. They’d said, in a voice dripping with condescension, “It’s better for you to stay far from her. Better for all of us. We will have her Dining Hall privileges revoked: you won’t have to see her at all. Perhaps never again! Once you are purified, I’ll make certain you’re assigned a long mission. With time, your anger will fade.”
For some reason, the thought of never seeing Feather again enraged me almost as much as her original crime, and I twisted the stained cloth I still held in my hand until it ripped. When I’d insisted on an interview with her before my next mission, my Guide had threatened to report my “unusual” behavior to Mikhail. Then they’d had the gall to chide me for my smut. As if I hadchosento be so filthy. Somehow, her smut had entered my soul. Ruined me.
“Righteous, you know that any smut that remains after ritual purification can only remain because you have, in your weakness, allowed it to attach to your soul.” The memory made me scrub harder at my face, my neck. My lips.
