Page 9 of Seraph's Tears
Now I’d grown used to the weight of the sky above me and had learned to use it to my advantage in hiding from humans, often flying above the cloud cover.
It took almost no time at all to arrive at the little cottage on the outskirts of the village. I glanced toward the stone and thatch cottages, and, seeing no one staring at the sky, landed on the rough ground and strode to the two-bedroom cottage. I pounded my fist on the door in the pattern ingrained in all of us by our military training nearly two hundred years ago.
The door swung open to reveal Castiel, the seraph who’d once been my third in command. Surprise flashed in his brown eyes, and his brown wings hitched high above his shoulders. “Captain.” He wore gray trousers and white socks, but his broad chest, a darker and warmer brown than my skin, was bare.
I scowled. “I told you to call me Gabriel. We’re not in a sedge anymore.”
He shrugged easily, stepping back and letting me in. “As you say.”
I ducked my head to not hit it on the stone lintel—humans were shorter than us—and tightened my wings to my back.
The cottage was small, and a fire roared in the hearth. I eyed it, as well as the two stools nearby and the cooking utensils hanging from the rafters. “Turning human, are we?”
Castiel smiled, never one to take offense easily, and shrugged wings and shoulders. “So I like it warm.”
Seraphim kept a higher body temperature than humans so we could fly at great heights without problems, as well as extra blood and ayim in our body to keep us strong and conscious when we had little air to breathe. Castiel didn’t need the fire.
But the housekeeper probably does. The thought struck me. I liked my house cool with a breeze, but she was more delicate than me. I probably needed to keep it hotter. Or buy her a coat.
What if she’d been freezing, and I hadn’t noticed? Weren’t humans susceptible to frostbite? Oh, fuck, what if my housekeeper lost her fingers because of me? Panic stirred in my belly.
Why had I never cared about my previous butler’s warmth?
Castiel turned in a tight circle—the cottage was even smaller now that two seraphim and their wings filled the room—and went back to the tea kettle hanging over the fire. “I haven’t seen you in several seasons.” One of his warm brown feathers fluttered loose, hitting the ground.
He was of common birth. One of the fastest ways to judge a seraph’s social class was by the color of their wings. My white ones signified my noble lineage, and pure black heralded those of royal blood. Browns, grays, and sometimes blues, pinks, and other colors displayed common status among our race.
Castiel, although he had enlisted in the war as a common winged warrior due to his birth in a low echelon, had quickly become an officer through his quick mind and genial nature that never took offense. I was lucky to have him, and before the Fall I’d secretly planned to petition the king to honor his heroism by raising his status.
“Why are you here now? You never visit.”
Guilt twinged in my chest. “You are always welcome at the Hall. It’s much more spacious. No knocking into furniture or feeling like the ceiling will collapse on your head.”
Castiel smiled. “I always love visiting, as does everyone else. But we’re all trying to make the best of this, and some of us need different things.”
Bitterness tasted like ash in my mouth. They were making the best of it because I hadn’t found a way to get my sedge home. Hadn’t even found a way for them to recover their magic, either. I never should’ve been their captain.
“Besides, the humans aren’t so bad. At least these ones aren’t.”
I snorted in amusement. The villagers weren’t so bad because they’d gotten used to us over the last forty years. I didn’t collect rent and in return they kept quiet. Most of humanity knew seraphim and our enemies flew over the earth, but they rarely knew exactly where we were. And I liked it that way.
The last thing I needed was some group of humans intent upon worshipping me as a messenger of a god. Or a god myself. As far as I understood it, humans believed in four gods, but I knew little of them. We seraphim worshipped the natural and magical world around us, not powerful people. But now Fallen from our world, I had little use for worship of anything. I didn’t even have my magic left anymore.
“I’ve a new human,” I announced. “A housekeeper. She wants me to get food. And I need to collect her trunk from the inn.”
Castiel’s eyebrows rose. “What’s her name?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I had no idea. How did I not know my own housekeeper’s name? I knew she had eyes the color of oak leaves turning to autumn with flecks of gold. I knew if she leaned into me her lips would press below my collar bone. I knew her breasts were full and sweet, even though her horrid dress tried to conceal them. But I didn’t know her name.
Castiel waited. His eyes lightened and he threw back his head in laughter. “Captain, do you not know your human’s name?”
“She’s not my human,” I growled. “She’s a human employed as a housekeeper.” My chest pained me. I pushed past the ache to focus on my conversation. “Will you help me?”
He sobered immediately. “Captain, I will always help you. We are bound in blood and ayim.”
“If you wanted to help me you’d call me Gabriel.”
He cocked his head. “Do you still blame yourself for what happened?”
