Page 50 of Lost Feather
One, she was stronger than should be possible.
Two, she was almost positively mentally unhinged.
And three, she wasn’t a simple Novice.
She couldn’t be. The flesh she revealed—after cutting deeper and faster than I’d imagined was possible—was as brilliant as mine had been when I was first created. Maybe even more so.
It was as beautiful as the rest of her muck-covered tiny form was abhorrent. Would she be that way all over when she finished carving away the sin? Would she be able to hold onto her questionable sanity long enough to purify herself?
I wouldn’t tell her, but there was no chance I’d let Mikhail unmake her now. She was a mystery. For the first time in hundreds of years, I felt a hum in my blood. Not the flat, silent wail of despair, but the soft, steady thrumming of curiosity. And maybe something more.
She could still be a spy. But possibly not a spy for the Abyss. There was the chance that she was a spy from the Celestial Realm. Had they planted her here for some reason, placed her on Earth for me to find? Or had a friend sent her to us?
A missing friend. Rafe. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to remember exactly what he’d said when he left Sanctuary so many thousands of years earlier.
“Mik!” Rafe shouted. “You’re not even going to come out to say goodbye?”
I stood next to my truest, oldest friend, trying to memorize everything about him. He was an inch taller than me, but his hair was an even brighter gold. His skin was burnished copper and heavily corded with muscles, even though he was not primarily a warrior. He was a teacher, a scholar and Sanctuary’s finest musician, even now holding his golden harp loosely in one hand, the other one pushing back his tousled hair. His wings were folded behind him, but I knew when he extended them, they would brush the ceiling.
He was the eldest in Sanctuary by far; even the Maker who had trained Mikhail had once said she couldn’t remember when Rafe wasn’t the leader of our realm. He was the First of the Celestial Children, and it showed in every exquisitely beautiful sound he made, and in every graceful movement.
“Think he’s going to make me leave Sanctuary without saying a farewell?” Rafe asked, his lips twisting into a wry smile, his dark eyes reflecting his inner turmoil. It settled my own nerves a bit, to know he wasn’t as calm as he’d pretended.
A month before, an ascended High Angelus—what the younger ones called a Great Soul—had come through the Great Gate, returning from the Celestial Realm, the first one to do so in five thousand years. She had brought a Celestial sword for Rafe, and two even stranger objects with her: knives with blades made of smoke. They were from the Abyss, she told us, and we would need them here in Sanctuary for a coming battle against evil.
Then she had announced that one Angelus was needed to serve in the Abyss, or to be sacrificed to it. She hadn’t explained, no matter how many questions we’d fired at her. “Serving in the Abyss is a Great Sacrifice,” was all she would say.
After all the others in Sanctuary had finished shouting, Rafe had quietly replied with that strange, knowing tone his voice always carried, that he had been prepared to go for a long while. “I’ve been expecting something of this nature,” he’d confided in me later. “I felt it coming. Like a tide, or a storm over a far horizon. I didn’t know the precise nature of where I would be called to go… but I’m ready.”
Mik and I weren’t. The three of us were best friends, even if Rafe was far more powerful. We rarely spent more than a few days apart; when one of us returned from earthly missions, we spent hours retelling the details, sharing our lives. Losing him felt like sacrificing a part of my soul.
“Why do you have to be the one to go?” I asked, for what must have been the hundredth time. “We need you here, Rafe. You’re our leader.”
“No, brother. You are now. I have an adventure, and a task ahead that I’ve been preparing for since my creation.” He pulled me into an embrace, the trembling in his arms betraying his hidden worries. “I’m leaving the sword with you,” he told me, once we had both composed ourselves. “You’re the only one I’d trust to wield it, but train a few others. We don’t know what skills we’ll need for the battle ahead.” I nodded. “I also want you to keep this,” Rafe added, handing me his harp. I’d played it before; I was one of the finest musicians in Sanctuary, though I’d never measure up to Rafe.
“Wait, you’re not taking it—” He waved off my protests.
“I’m not sure it won’t burn up when I pass through the gate. Stars and suns, I’m not sure there’s even music in the Abyss.”
“There will be after you get down there and start whistling and stamping and singing at the crack of dawn,” Mik interrupted gruffly. “If they have dawn.” He folded his massive arms over his chest, his jaw tight and his turquoise eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Walk me to the gate?” Rafe slung his other arm around Mik. No one intercepted us as we went; he’d said his formal goodbyes to the rest of Sanctuary the night before.
“I’ll walk you to the center of the Abyss if you ask,” Mik replied softly. “And stay there, if you need me.”
The way to the Great Gate was too short, and in the blink of an eye, we stood there, three of us in a line, watching the movement in the gold. Faces flashed past, all of them waving to Rafe. He waved back as he always did. “You know, every one of the Angeli who sacrificed themselves to form this gate was a friend of mine,” he murmured after a moment. “I loved them all. That’s why I come down here and sing with them every night.”
“I know,” I said, my voice rough. “You are a faithful friend.”
“Will you be that for me?” His eyes filled with hope. “I don’t think they’ll be able to hear me singing from the Abyss. Will you sing for them? Not every night, if you can’t manage it, but sometimes? It’s important, Gav. You’ll have to maintain the gates from now on.”
I couldn’t answer, my throat swollen with tears.
“You want Gav to torture the gate for you? That’s cold, Rafe.” Mik’s turquoise eyes flashed with humor and pain as we all laughed. “Will it be cold there? Or hot? We don’t know anything of the Abyss. What if you need to take weapons?”
Rafe smiled again, this time at Mik. “You know the nature of a Great Sacrifice is—”
“One that’s made without question,” Mik finished. “I know. But do they have any idea what we’re sacrificing—whatyou’resacrificing? You could be unmade, Rafe. We might not see you again.”
