I started skimming past eyes and other body parts, celestial feathers, and hair. There was plenty of trinkets, clothing, and such that seemed interesting, but I didn’t have time to read their origins. Drystan would lose his mind in a place like this, lost in the collectables’ endless facts and wonders.
Then, around the next bend of cases, I stopped dead in my tracks. Slammed so hard by a wave of dizziness I couldn’t have prepared for over what I saw.
At the far end, in a big glass case on its own podium, the large black-feathered wings could have been someone else’s.
But they weren’t.
I couldfeelthem.
My blood roared and my pulse sped up. I wasn’t used to this concoctive reaction of outrage and humiliation. I’d fully come to terms with losing my wings, but seeing themdisplayedthere…mocking me…I didn’t need Nightsdeath’s power to lose control to blinding fury.
I glided toward them when I didn’t really feel grounded anymore.
How the fuck did Vermont Lionel, overlord of Volanis, come to possessmywings?
I was going to fucking kill him.
My wrath must have been tangible, as the guard gave a quivering sound, taking a step to retreat. The villain in me won, as I turned to become the last cold set of eyes the guard saw before he could take another step of retreat. I shattered his mind.
I stormed to the guard, pulling a dagger from his belt, and in the same breath it went flying toward the glass case, which exploded into hundreds of pieces.
My shoes crunched over them as I approached the wings, reaching a hand to them. The moment I did, my teeth gritted and my back arched with the eruption of acute phantom pain from where they’d been brutally torn out. I didn’t retreat, reliving that unimaginable agony through tight, hard breaths. My fingers flexed against the lifeless feathers.
There would be no reattaching them. That had never been achieved in history, nor did I think I wanted it. The wings were a brand from Death, and by some miracle and mercy I had Eltanin now to keep flying with Astraea.
Though I wouldn’t let anyone have my wings as a fucking trophy.
Thinking of Eltanin and Astraea, I felt warmth grow under my skin deeper than the heat of my anger. This ran through my veins, and I’d felt it before, briefly in my urgency to reach Astraea as she was being dragged deeper into the ocean. Was it her magick? It felt familiar but in more senses than one. A silver thread wrapped in darkness.
I gripped it, feeling that magick rush to my fingertips and then scatter over the wings. It devoured them feather by feather in an inferno of dark starlight.
A fist in my chest squeezed as I watched them turn to smoke and ash, but in some tragic sense… it was also liberating.
Before they finished burning, my sight cast lazily to the side, finding a tall empty glass case. Somehow I knew what I was going to find as I approached it; the pieces were already sliding together, and I’d been a damned unwitting fool.
They had been checking our blood before we came in.
The guards at this door hadn’t seemed wholly surprised to discover me.
My wings were here… because the trident was gone.
38Astraea
I finished my dance with exhilaration in my chest and lightness in my bones. I’d stepped into the center of the banquet as a trembling mess of nerves, but then the music had started from a violin, lute, and piano ensemble in the corner, and that was all it took for the notes to erase every set of eyes and place me above the clouds among the stars to dance.
For my circus act, I had a lightweight ball I’d performed several tricks with. I threw it in the air while my body curved backward, and it glided seamlessly around my split legs, projecting back up for me to catch when I straightened; that had earned the most awed gasps, one of the few disruptions loud enough to make me aware of the onlookers.
I was beaming, on a high from the adrenaline and the passion the dance had invoked in me. The admiration for my performance beaming through the crowd made me feel proud and I yearned to entertain again and again. I searched for Nyte to share my feelings with, but I quickly remembered he hadn’t been watching. He should have been back by now, but perhaps the trident was farther away than we hoped for. If there were any obstacles, I knew he could handle himself. It was my part to distract and stall when necessary.
There was one set of eyes that tingled a line of tension up my spine: the eyes of Vermont’s son, Kairos. While most smiled at me and talked among themselves, his deep brown eyes were always fixed firmly on me, and it had to be my own paranoia that thought them accusatory.
A guard came toward Vermont, and I turned to leave. I didn’t make it to the doors before guards blocked it and my heart leapt up my throat. But no one came to detain me right away. Looking around in confusion, I noticed them start to gather the circus crew. Those who were in the designated waiting room were brought into the banquet hall with a mix of frightened and confused expressions and I started to sharpen my senses for what might be about to come.
I was pushed with the others, herded into the center of the tables, like we were cattle for the wealthy to scrutinize and bid upon. I stayed calm while calculating every part of my surroundings that I could see from the middle of nearly two dozen circus performers. More guards had been called into the hall, and the guests were various degrees of upset and restless, clueless to the sudden disruption as well, but at least they weren’t the ones on trial.
At last Vermont spoke; his voice grated over me in a croak that sounded like death. “I am informed we are honored by infamous guests,” he announced, silencing the hall instantly.
Every hair on my body pricked.
