What the fuck was wrong with this place? Floggings, prayer closets, heavy tithes and fines—it made me suddenly grateful for my upbringing, even if I had been low in society. I couldn’t imagine my mother tolerating the behavior Lilith found perfectly normal.
“We shall visit your friends who are not yet a part of the congregation,” I declared as confidently as if I was their Erlik himself.
Elder Nelson struggled to his feet, nodding. “Yes, of course, Herald. In due time.”
I wasn’t waiting one more minute on them. Lilith would help me. I waited for the men to leave, then pushed through the door when I wouldn’t have any witnesses. Then, I went in search of Lilith.
Ten
Lilith
The midwinter wind cut through my shawl. I shivered and hunched my shoulders. I needed to hurry home with the jar of kerosene I begged from Silence’s parents.
I hated asking for help. We should be able to afford kerosene. But Absalom had never made much after Father died, and when he married most of that money went to his new home with Silence. Mother’s eyesight wasn’t good anymore, which meant it took longer to finish the piecework a seamstress hired us to do.
Eve’s parents lived on the very edge of the neighborhood. Her mother was a generous woman, but Eve’s father had been ill for a long time, and I knew they’d spent almost all their savings on doctors. So instead of asking them, I went to Silence’s home.
Silence, not her mother, had opened the door. She always had a half-vacant look in her eyes. For most of our teen years I’d assumed she wasn’t bright, but then I saw her retreat even further after marrying my brother. And I knew that she had fled the world, taking comfort in her own mind. She gave me the kerosene I requested, and as I looked at her, I realized her eyes weren’t quite so vacant anymore. She was not a grieving widow.
I wasn’t much of a grieving sister.
While I hurried through the winter cold, my mother was currently locked in her room, crying herself to sleep. She hadn’t looked at me since the funeral this morning.
I was all alone. I didn’t even miss the family members who’d died, because I’d felt almost as alone while they lived. My knees buckled as jagged pain shot through my chest, and I sank onto a nearby stone bench before I hit the ground.
How did it come to this? Years ago I thought I had everything. When I was sixteen, I thought I’d be the beauty of the community, surrounded by people who loved me and who wanted to be me. I’d had parents who gave me attention through discipline when I was rebellious, two siblings, admirers, and a few friends.
And now here I was. My beauty had grown just as my mother promised, but what had that got me? No loving husband. Reverend Grimshaw had kept me single, even at my age, as sort of a prize for whichever men were most devout and obedient. Both siblings were dead now. My father was dead also, and my mother broken and absent. My looks made older women suspicious and harsh, and the women my age copied their mentors even if they weren’t sure why, so now I had no friends.
A sob tore out of my throat, harsh and painful. I covered my face with my hands against the stinging wind. I had followed the rules as best I could, serving where asked, subduing my looks when I could, pleasing those in power even when the elders and the elders’ wives contradicted one another.
I’d done it because it was true, even if complicated. And yet…the entire foundation of our church, that the fallen seraphim were Heralds of Death, come to bring healing or passing to Erlik’s chosen, was all a misunderstanding. I began to think maybe it wasn’t a misunderstanding, but a lie.
My mind flashed to Eve Lovejoy, when I’d seen her happy and naked in her lover’s bed—before I’d learned my brother and reverend were dead. How had she found happiness? Hot and bitter envy surged through me. She hadn’t followed the rules in the end. Turned out, she had pretended to believe every teaching for years until she got away and found a seraph to love and protect her.
What did she do that I hadn’t? What did she have that I didn’t?
It wasn’t beauty. It wasn’t wealth. It wasn’t the favor of the elders. Had she just been lucky?
I ground my teeth at the thought. Where could I get such luck? I’d prayed to Erlik for years, and all he’d done was take more and more from me.
How had she found the courage to defy the reverend? Had she been fighting them in her mind all the time I’d focused on pleasing them, so their eyes wouldn’t fall on me for too long?
My chest felt like a stone lay upon it, pressing down, down, down, until it would crush me. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a hundred years. I never wanted to smile or refill a pitcher of water again for as long as I lived.
A soft whirring sound broke through my gasping, dry sobs. My body tensed and I pulled my hands down. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of catching me cry.
Brown caught the corner of my eye.
My heart sank. Castiel. I sniffed and wiped my cheeks, relieved to find I’d shed no tears.
The warrior angel landed on the cold, brittle grass, his gaze trained on my face. Those gorgeous wings slowly folded in, disappearing from view, and a little piece of me wanted to cry at the loss.
“Lilith,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
Castiel took a step toward me, and brown leaves crackled under his bare feet.
