Page 5 of Seraph's Tears
And we Fell.
I gasped awake, sitting up so quickly it wrenched one of my wing muscles. Sweat dripped from my temples and my chest. I groaned, wiping my face with one hand. I reached for my magic, and the faint traces in the air slipped through my fingers. Again. There wasn’t enough magic in this world for us to grasp, and even after decades it still felt like a limb had been amputated.
My plan to sleep through the night failed, as it always did.
Angry, I thrust the bedclothes away and jerked out of bed. My chest, slick with sweat, ached. I knew from experience that if I stayed in my rooms I would not sleep. I stalked to the doors that led to the balcony and knocked them open. The cool wind of northern Anglia blew across my face, drying my sweat to my body.
I could go down and practice tight aerial turns in the Great Hall. I remembered the housekeeper. No, I didn’t wish her to see me here, now, still panting and drenched in sweat from a nightmare of a battle long ago—an empty shell of the seraph I used to be.
The moon peeked through a thin layer of clouds, pale and yellow. It was one of the only things I loved about Earth. Our moon was a cold, misshapen lump of black rock. We threatened children we would send them there as a punishment. Here the moon was beloved, and poets often wrote of its splendor.
My wings loosened, stretching out to their full span now I was on the balcony, releasing tension from my body. My feathers rippled in the slight breeze.
I lifted off, greeting the night sky with resigned familiarity. I rarely flew in daylight now and had learned to enjoy my nighttime solitude. My wings cut through the air as I flew above the manor. I went higher, higher, higher, until my skin pebbled with cold and my breath plumed around me. I tucked my wings tightly behind my shoulders and plummeted, closing my eyes for a few heartbeats, pretending I was whole and honorable. I snapped my wings out at the last possible second, above the roofline of the manor. I drifted down, letting my bare feet brush the tops of the dew-wet grass. Then I climbed the sky once more, seeking any distraction I could find until dawn chased the nightmare remnants away.
Chapter Three
Eve
I woke to something on the wind, a whisper or flutter of wings, perhaps. It took a hazy half second to remember where I was—the moors, an old manor house called Mirkwold, a housekeeper for a master who stayed in the shadows, in a musty old bed—and I lurched out of the old-fashioned box bed, opening the wood doors and crawling out into the freezing cold servant’s chamber.
Shivering in my stockings and shift, I threw on my heaviest clothing and tucked my shawl around my shoulders. This place was draftier than a wicker basket. Even the key I wore around my neck was cold.
I had spent the rest of yesterday evening poking around the domestic wing with a brass candlestick, eyeing the layers of dust. I even found mildew growing up one of the exterior walls in the pantry.
Yawning, I tripped down the stairs to the kitchen and started a fire. The pile of kindling was low, and the pile of firewood even lower. How did anyone live in this house without freezing to death? I ended up drinking tea and eating a hard biscuit while huddled near the fire, a screen helping trap the heat. Was I supposed to bring him breakfast? What did the Herald of Death even eat? I sighed, rubbing my forehead. This mission might become more trouble than it was worth.
Once thawed through, I searched the outdated kitchen for cleaning supplies and realized this kitchen didn’t even have a stove. Only a fireplace. I gritted my teeth. My family was by no means wealthy, but I was accustomed to cooking with modern methods.
A moldy potato rolled across the floor when I opened the pantry. I huffed in frustration. Something had to change and had to change today. What was wrong with these people?
I spent four hours cleaning the kitchen and pantries, scrubbing the dust and mildew and decades of old soot. I did find and polish some beautiful copper pots, but had no idea what food to put in them. By lunchtime, I had accomplished one room in this manor. One room.
My stomach growled, but there was nothing to eat but another hard biscuit.
My bedchamber took an hour. I inspected the bed-sheets with a critical eye, and decided I’d have to spend a week boiling and bleaching all the linens in the house. If I wanted to make a good impression on my new master, I needed to focus on the rooms he frequented.
That meant the Great Hall.
After I filled a bucket with soapy water using the pump in the back garden, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows of the oriel in dismay. I had to clean that? It had to be twenty feet high. These windows would take all week.
My fear of the Herald had faded quickly, replaced with baffled frustration. Why would such a powerful and holy creature live like this? Sighing, I considered kicking the bucket over, grabbing my valise, and running away—not back home.
But if I failed, Zor would track me down and punish me before the entire congregation. I needed to please him, and then I’d disappear while he was busy gloating.
My hand drifted to the key around my neck, gripping the warm length out of habit.
Slowly, light shone through the stained glass I had reached. Blues, reds, and greens scattered across the dusty floor. I stepped back to admire my work—less than one tenth of the whole display, but what I’d accomplished looked beautiful. I couldn’t tell what picture the stained glass painted, but the little corner I’d uncovered seemed to be wildflowers in a meadow. A renewed sense of purpose swept through me, chasing away the exhaustion and aching muscles. I could do this; I could make this beautiful again, and it would be my work and it would stay done.
My bucket of water turned gray again. I hefted it up and walked through a side door toward a courtyard hemmed in by the house and two rows of trees. I stepped outside and froze.
There, sheltered under the bare branches of the trees, stood my master.
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t even blink for fear he would disappear.
He was…beautiful. He was angelic.
I hadn’t expected that. My mind refused to accept it while my body couldn’t move on from the realization. I gripped the pail so tight the handle dug into my skin.
