“Are you always this stupid?” he snapped. “For starters, we arenotFallen?—”
“Not Fallen? Yeah?” I cut in. “And I’m a Celestial. Didn’t you know?”
“Cut the bullrot,” he snarled, pressing me harder into the wall. “Since your Manmi loved seeing our blood shed so much, we’ll see how they like it when the golden teardrops that fall areyours.”
In the back and forth, I hadn’t noticed Quazar’s talons curling around his wide frame. Hadn’t seen them lengthen, sharpen,curl. When I did, my eyes widened in horror. I looked back at him, our faces so close our noses could touch.
“No,” I breathed.
He grinned, cruelly. The shadows around us pressed in forcing my star shield to wink out. We were in total darkness except for my starry silhouette shimmering beneath Quazar’s shadows.
“Say hello to your Manmi from the Hèls for me.”
Quazar raised a talon to run me through. I panicked, terrified of the bloody way he’d end my life. Then Quazar stilled. His eyeswere glued to my neck. I remained trapped in his grip, breathing heavily.
“Well, you asheating coward,” I spat. “Get on with it!”
“How long have you had those?” he said, his voice suddenly husky, barely a whisper.
“Had what, ashrat?”
“These inscriptions?”
Rot.
It was then I realized he’d landed a blow I hadn’t felt. And I was bleeding.
Tired and hurting everywhere, I didn’t even realize it so I could heal myself before what lay beneath my skin began to surface and expose me.
I looked into Quazar’s glittering eyes, my entire being consumed with fear. No one could see this. No one could know. And now, here was the one angel I’d hated for as long as I could remember, who’d already spotted the one thing Manmi warned me to hide with my life.
I didn’t answer, working to pull whatever scraps of starfire I could to heal wherever I’d been bleeding. I held Quazar’s gaze as I felt my ethèr—the warm, deep, wells of my angelic power—traveling though my body and blood, knitting open wounds that were bleeding, until they stopped. As they did, I could feel the inscriptions seeping back into my skin, disappearing.
Quazar’s eyes widened. “How in the rot did you just do that?” he breathed, his wings squeezing my trapped wrists.
He pressed closer, his chest against mine, his lips just a small lean away from mine. The heady scent of sandalwood and mint overwhelmed my senses, flooding me with a strange feeling I refused to entertain. I got a bit lightheaded, lost in those demanding eyes.
“I…” I stammered. “I’ve just always done it.”
What in the stars was I doing answering him? I was an idiot for responding. But I couldn’t stop.
“Manmi taught me how to…to keep from bleeding.”
Quazar opened his mouth to respond when something behind him collided. Then exploded. He turned his head, searching through the dark. I wasn’t sure what in the stars he was looking at. I couldn’t see squat.
“Ascendants!”
“Rot,” Quazar cursed quietly. He looked back at me, staring at where my inscriptions had been moments ago. “This isn’t over, Starling.”
Quazar dropped me, floating away as if he didn’t want me to contaminate him. Then he dropped the shadows. I immediately drew on my waning starfire, drawing starry daggers.
“What in the Infinite’s name is going on here?”
Chapter 21
Iswung my head to the side turning to look at who’d spoken. And froze.
Stars.
