Page 92 of Bloodgrove

They continued, but kept silent so they would not miss the voice again. If someone had become stranded in the snowstorm, a carriage stuck somewhere… Perhaps someone needed help.

The sound came again, and this time Eric heard it too. With a click of his tongue, he sent the dogs racing ahead along the coast.

Will and Eric followed, but the calf-deep snow made progress difficult. The dogs barked, and this time the cry was unmistakable.

Breathing hard, they reached the animals at the edge of a small cove cut into the coastline. Wind-beaten rocks dropped several yards to the foaming sea below.

But what made both men stop was the figure stretched between long spears.

“An angel,” Will gasped.

The dogs fell silent. The angel’s cry of pain was barely audible above the breaking waves. Six wings spread from his back, each ending in a ring by which he had been chained to the rock face. His body was human, almost four meters tall, impaled on long poles. Wounds disfigured his skin, his chest lay open, birds pecked at his organs, and the edges of his wounds were crusted with salt. Golden blood dripped into the sea.

Despite the ruin of him, despite the agony, Will could hardly look away. Six eyes, arranged across his forehead like the rays of a rising sun, stared toward the sky with white fire.

“I think we found Wilkinson’s secret weapon. That explains his strange fascination with angels,” Eric growled. “He is bleeding him for the toll. I read rumors about their magical abilities in an encyclopedia last night. But I never thought… that they were real.”

“Neither did I,” Will breathed. “We worship them in the Capitol as bringers of progress, but I always thought they were a metaphor.”

“Like vampires are a horror story about the barbarians of Bloodgrove?”

Will gave Eric a tired look. This was hardly the time to revive their old games.

“We have to free him,” Will decided. A narrow bridge led toward the angel.

“Why? Wilkinson will know it was us.”

“Do you want to leave him there to suffer? I do not think we can report Wilkinson when this gives him so much influence with the Red Hand and the king.”

Eric hesitated. Thoughts raced behind his sharp features, and everything in him seemed to resist the idea of defying the king. “Your heart is far too good. But fine. Wilkinson will defeat all of us with this advantage if we leave it to him.”

Then he drew a dagger.

“What are you doing?”

“Cutting him free. Only these chains and the elements are keeping him here. I have read about it. Supposedly, this is how humans once captured magical creatures.” Eric glanced toward the angel. “Do not look into his eyes.”

The angel did not seem to notice them. His lament rose toward the sky. His voice was as beautiful as sunlight in spring, yet carried the force of a thousand souls. Again and again, Will had to stop, unable to reconcile what he was seeing with anything his mind understood.

“Give me your hand.” Eric pulled off Will’s glove, tucked it away, and cut across his palm. “Concentrate on your blood. Do you feel the heartbeat inside it? Take hold of it and keep it there. It does not have to become a perfect blade.”

Will followed his instructions. The entire scene felt so far removed from reality that he did not question any of it. A moment later, he held a shard shaped from his own blood.

Eric did the same with his, and they set to work. They began with the wings, uncertain how they would ever lift the enormous body from the poles. Vultures circled above them, screaming furiously. Will followed Eric’s instructions, and only when the chains began to fall did he realize that the tears on his cheeks had frozen.

“I read that the Golden Queen commands an army of angels,” Eric said after a while. Sweat stood on his forehead.

“An hour ago, I would have told you that was only a rumor.”

They cut through the final chain.

With one powerful beat of his wings, the angel sent the fine spray hanging over the coast whirling into the air and lifted himself from the poles. His scream pierced through bone. Will clapped his hands over his ears, but nothing could shield his soul from the pain.

Together with Eric, he fled back toward the mainland, but the moment they stumbled into the snow, the angel hovered above them.

“Human, in gratitude for your rescue, I will grant you one answer.”

Will dug his fingers into the frozen ground while the angel’s voice inside his mind threatened to split his skull apart. His body was too small for this consciousness. Great wings beat above him, drawing snow upward in their wake.