Page 90
And finally, I was alone.
I climbed the stairs, my legs heavy. I passed the guest rooms, the parlor, and the places where Remiel’s presence had been a fleeting, painful dream, heading to my chambers. It was cold, the air stagnant. The bed was made, the sheets pulled tight. A pristine surface that promised comfort I no longer wanted.
No matter how weary and tired I was, I did not go to bed. Instead, I went to the armoire. It smelled of cedar and lavender, a scent of preservation. I opened the heavy doors and reached inside, behind the silks and the wools. My fingers brushed the velvet, and I pulled it out, slowly unwrapped the blade, and folded the velvet back like the petals of a black flower.
There it lay. The history I had tried to outrun.
I lifted the celestial blade. The weight was familiar, a balance my hand remembered better than it remembered the touch of a lover.
I carried it to the vanity and set it down on it. It gleamed in the faint light, silver and deadly, with pulsing etched runes along its length. This was the blade that had severed my wings. The weapon Remiel had used to carve divinity from my back. A tool of severance and ending. It was the only thing in this world to cut the thread of a hybrid soul.
I sat on the stool and picked up the dagger. The hilt was cold against my palm. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, and the woman staring back was a stranger.
I was tired. So incredibly bone-deep tired.
I ran from Heaven and was kicked out of Hell. I had run from the man I loved to save him, and in doing so, I had lost myself. There was nowhere left to go. The map ended here.
I tested the edge of the blade against my thumb. A thin line of blood, dark and sluggish, welled up. It did not sting.
“This is mercy,” I whispered to the empty room. “A hollow mercy.”
I wasn’t afraid. The fear had burned away in the morgue, in the chapel, and in the witch’s hut. All that was left was a quiet, desperate need for silence. For the running to stop.
I adjusted my grip on the hilt, found the space between my ribs—the place where my heart beat its frantic, useless rhythm—and pressed the point against the fabric of my stolen shirt.
The door creaked.
I didn’t turn. I didn’t stop. Just pressed harder, my hand steady.
“Put it down,” a small voice said, but it carried the weight of the earth.
Leta.
I closed my eyes. “Go away, Leta. Please.”
“I said put it down!”
There was scuffling and the patter of small furious feet, and then a weight slammed into my arm. It was enough to disarm me, enough to send the blade skittering across the vanity.
I opened my eyes. Leta stood beside me, her chest heaving and her small hands clenched into fists. She didn’t look like the sprite who polished silver and grumbled about dust. She looked ancient. Her eyes, usually bright with mischief, were dark with a sorrow that mirrored my own. She wore a heavy green traveling cloak, and a pack was strapped to her back.
“Y-you don’t get to leave like this!” she hissed, her voice trembling. “You don’t get to check out and leave the mess behind.”
“There is no mess,” I said dully, reaching for the blade again. “Aldric is gone. You are free. The house will fall. It is clean.”
She slapped my hand away. Her touch was shockingly warm against my cold skin. “You are hollow. I can see it. The light is gone.”
“Yes. I gave it away.”
“And now you want to give the rest away? To let the tribunal win? You want to let them write the end of your story?”
“I-I-I want it to stop, Leta,” I said, my voice cracking. “I am hunted. I am empty. I have no tether. I have no purpose. I am just…waiting to be caught.”
She grabbed my face in her small hands, forcing me to look at her. “Then stop waiting. Stop running.”
“There is nowhere to hide,” I whispered. “They have eyes everywhere. The mortal realm, the spaces between… They will find me.”
“Not everywhere.” Her voice dropped, becoming a conspiratorial whisper. “There are places the tribunal cannot see. Places where their order dissolves into chaos. Places where maps are drawn in water and smoke.”
