I jerked backward.
He paused, wings tight against his back and hands up, as if he was soothing a wild animal. “Lilith?”
My heart sank. I couldn’t do this right now. I didn’t want to perform for this fake Herald who tore apart my beliefs. I wasn’t in the mood for teasing. I sniffed again and wiped my face with the back of my hand. “What do you need?”
He stepped closer, moving slowly, until he eased onto the backless bench beside me. Heat radiated from his body, and I wished I didn’t like it so much.
I watched him from the corner of my eye as I stared ahead at the side of my house. Brown vines crawled up the the stone wall, and I studied it as if it held the secret to life.
Castiel, surprisingly, also faced forward. He sighed, making his wings rise and fall. “Lilith, why have you been crying?”
I stretched my lips into a smile and turned my head to look at him. “I haven’t been crying. What can I assist you with?”
He glowered. “Stop that. Stop doing that thing you do with the people here. I prefer your sharp temper over this bland sweetness. Your temper is honest. It might be the only honest thing in this godforsaken neighborhood.”
The smile fell off my face. I didn’t have the energy to keep it anyway. I turned to continue staring at the wintering ivy. “I don’t think I have a sharp temper today,” I mumbled, my voice thick from the unshed tears.
“Your brother,” Castiel began. “I had assumed you weren’t close, but?—”
“We weren’t,” I said quickly, shivering as a gust of wind blew past. The bare branches in the tree above us groaned.
Castiel unfurled one wing behind us, then wrapped it around my back. He didn’t touch me with his feathers, but I was still sheltered from the wind. The warmth of his body and wing made me shiver. It was like the perfectly warmed quilt you snuggled up with at bedtime. My body relaxed by the second, and I feared I might lean against his shoulder if he kept the wing up. It was so…comfortable. No, not just comfortable. Safe.
“Your brother’s funeral was today,” he remarked. “Even if you weren’t close, I imagine it’s difficult.”
I nodded, throat tight and eyes burning. “It feels like it’s just me now. Long ago there were three of us.” My words spilled out before I could stop them. “But she left. There were so many arguments, so much yelling with my parents. It was miserable. But I loved her and she loved me. Until she left.”
“Where is she now?” Castiel asked.
I folded my hands together, squeezing them against the cold. “Dead, most likely. Women, especially very young ones, can’t survive by themselves out in the world.”
Castiel made a humming noise deep in his chest. “Why do you think that?”
I blinked at him. “Because—because it’s dangerous, especially for girls by themselves. We don’t have the skills to survive when half the city are cutpurses and fraudsters.”
“I am not well versed in the human world, particularly cities,” Castiel said. “But have you considered the elders might be exaggerating the dangers of the outside world to keep intelligent women like you under their control?”
“I…” I trailed off. “I have wondered,” I whispered. It felt wrong to admit it aloud. “But why?” At some point my belief in the Church of the Love of His Divine Saints had weakened, but I hadn’t noticed. Whether I believed the elders made little difference in my life—they still had the most power in the community. They still decided my fate.
I was lucky they appreciated my face. It was easy to please men when I smiled and kept my mouth shut. I learned quickly, for after one visit to the prayer closet I decided I’d never return.
“I wasn’t close with my brother, either,” Castiel admitted.
I looked at him in surprise.
“What?” He smiled. “Shocked? You do realize I’m not actually a Herald for Erlik, right?”
I rolled my eyes, the weight in my chest lessening at the sight of his smirk. “I didn’t think about seraphim families.”
Castiel tilted his head. “My parents are farmers, like over half the seraphim in my echelon. My brother will inherit the farm. As the second child I joined the army and ended up enjoying it, for the most part. I wanted to win favor with the royal family so they would grant me the gift of joining the echelon above us. And the only way to do that was to go far above and beyond expectations for warriors.”
Shock rippled through me. “That’s so…limiting.” I flushed at the stupid comment. But I hadn’t really believed Castiel earlier when he’d complained of his echelon. It was unfathomable that someone as majestic as he could be looked down upon, merely because of some ridiculous, ancient rule about families and social order.
Castiel stiffened, his face going blank. “Yes, some would say so.” His voice was neutral, but I understood now what that meant.
I hesitated, then plunged forward. “Castiel, you know that doesn’t matter, right? Your echelon has no bearing on your value.”
He gave me a tight smile.
