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“Are you fucking sick? Jericho’s mother wasrapedby his father.”
Soreth sneered. “How he came to be is not important. He is an abomination. An insult to our kind.”
“You were going to take me on the night of the blood moon in exchange for Drystan’s safe passage into Nightshade. That was you.”
Soreth chuckled, shaking his head as he paced. “Safe passage. The fool was chasing the wrong piece of the puzzle. He thought your father held the power to restore his wings. Idiot half-breeds.”
“Who is it, then? Who has the power to restore an angel’s wings?”
Still shaking his head, he let out a mirthless laugh. “Seems humans are just as stupid. You, dear fragile, little human, are what is called the Met’Lazan. A healer appointed by the ancient gods, with the ability to access all of the vitaeilem in Etheriusz. Tell me that you understand how absolutely insane that sounds to you.”
My blood turned cold.Me?The whole time? I shook my head, refusing to believe such a thing. “I don’t know how the hell to translate the Omni. I’ve never even seen the sigil! I’ve only heard of it.”
His brows winged up. “Haven’t you seen it, though?”
“Do you not recall the episode of drawing on the walls, Farryn?” my mother asked from behind, but when I turned to look back at her, she still didn’t hold a single ounce of warmth in her eyes. “Or the time you found the bird lying in the backyard. The one the cats had gotten to, remember?”
I stared back at her, the vague images of picking up the bird who didn’t move in my palms. Whispering something to it. Watching it fly off.
I shook my head, more frantically than before. “I … I don’t …”
“You are.” Soreth’s flat tone matched the emotionless expression on his face. “That’s why you’re here. This labyrinth is the design of Jericho’s father. He’s pulling memories from your head and using them against you. He is searching for the memory that will set him free. The heavens want to protect you, Farryn. I want to protect you.”
That made no sense. For months, I’d hidden away from the heavens. “No. I committed a crime against them. I damned my soul.”
He shook his head. “The Infernal cannot lay claim to the Met’Lazan. You cannot be claimed by the heavens, either. Which is precisely why a human should not hold all that power. You are pathetic and undeserving. It belongs to the pure. The righteous.”
Another piece clicked into place. “You’re A’ryakai.”
“I am. And I am going to protect you. So come,” he said, flicking his fingers for me. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Do not listen to him, Farryn.” My mother’s voice held a shaky desperation that set my teeth on edge. “He promised I would go to Heaven. That I would be redeemed by the highest angels! He promised, and he broke that promise. Because of you!”
Before I knew what hit me, she plowed into my side. The gravel floor slammed into my shoulder on a burst of pain that spiraled up into my neck. My mother fell on top of me, wrenching my hair back to expose my throat. Her eyes had turned to scarlet bulbs, and her teeth to sharpened crags that she undoubtedly intended to sink into my throat. She lifted the locket from my neck, the one given to me as a gift from my father that I never took off. In one yank, she ripped it from my neck.
“No! No!” Arms pinned beneath her straddling legs, I couldn’t move, couldn’t reach my blade. Wriggling beneath her proved futile, as she vised my body with an impossible grip.
Vespyr leapt forward and wrapped her arm around my mother’s neck, hauling her backward. She screamed and let go, and my mother bulleted backward into the air, before crashing down into a boulder.
As she scrambled to her feet again, Vespyr drew her blade, holding it in front of her.
I jumped to my feet, nabbing mine, as well.
My mother charged forward, but was, once again, thrown back by an invisible blast.
I turned to see Soreth holding his palms out toward her.
Seemingly unaffected by the knocks against the boulder, my mother climbed to her feet again. Instead of coming for us again, though, she tipped her head back and sniffed the air. Back and forth, her head shifted, as if she were trying to determine the source of whatever had distracted her from attacking us, and her eyes landed on Soreth.
Staring back toward her, he waved us over to him. “We have to go. Now. My disguise is wearing off.”
“What disguise?”
“It masks my vitaeilem from the Mortunath.”
“Mortunath?”
“The creatures that make that strange screeching sound!” An air of impatience colored his voice. “If they bite you, they will infect you. We have to leave. Now! We’re almost to the center of the labyrinth!”
