“Then, will you do me a favor, young Valor? I’d like to spend my last hours in Sanctuary with my closest friends. Will you organize the paperwork here in my chamber? There are details of a few more assignments I haven’t written out. Would you finish those for me, and then deliver the missions to theProtectors? My replacement will move their things here in the morning, and I’d like to leave it neat as a pin.”
“Yes, of course, Guide,” I promised.
I agonized for hours, I prayed, and in the end, I knew what I had to do. One of the missions on the list of unfinished ones was for Righteous, who was a few years younger than I. His mission was easy, but the sort I knew I was good at. Harder than anything I’d done so far, maybe, but the kind of mission I dreamed of, saving a young prince from an assassination attempt. It took bravery. Valor.
And what I had been assigned? It was exactly the sort of thing Righteous would do best. He could use his righteousness to convince the man not to attack the girl. It was a much better fit. Anyway, it was possible Faith had made a mistake to begin with. That I had never really been the one intended to do this ludicrous, costly mission.
And no one would ever know. I unrolled the scroll with my instructions, placed a blank piece of parchment beside it, and copied the instructions onto the new one. Then I wrote Righteous’s name at the top of the new scroll, and my own on the princely mission that had been assigned —erroneously, I was almost certain—to him. My original mission scroll burned merrily in the old-fashioned fireplace my Guide enjoyed lighting in the evenings, as I finished cleaning the room.
I delivered the missions with a smile, knowing I had probably just made a terrible mistake right, even if there was a growing patch of darkness on my abdomen that itched a little more with every passing hour. By the time I flew to Earth the next day, Righteous was already gone. I sent up a prayer that he would fare well… and I flew to a far more important mission than an orphaned peasant girl.
Even as I raged to know what had happened to cause my sister’s death—that Valor had perpetrated it, through this actof cowardice and delusion, my heart broke at the weakness that had destroyed what had been a good soul. The poison of that moment had eaten at Valor on the inside. He hadn’tdoneanything to earn it. It was what he’d leftundonethat had rotted his soul.
I pulled his smut into me, knowing I would use it to help. Confident that I would be able to control it. All around me, the invisible, judging presence pulsed with anger now. Warning.
I don’t want to use these shadows,I thought, at whatever it was. Whoever was listening, watching. Judging.But if I have to sacrifice myself, my goodness, to save Sunny? Fudge it. I would do it a hundred times.
Fudge it?the judging one asked. I startled to hear the voice in my mind. A strangely familiar voice. Not Rumple. My mind ached with the weight of this voice. I felt a trickle of something warm drop from one ear, and from my nose. Blood?
Yes,I answered.I would sacrifice myself a thousand times over to protect the good, the helpless, and the vulnerable. The truth, and this place. To keep them from stamping out love.
I let my mind turn to Heart and Glory. To Mikhail, Gavriel and Arabella. To all my friends who were trapped. Even to the idiots in this Hall who had condemned me. They were lost, vulnerable, afraid.
Even Tradition, who wanted only to do what was right, and feared change.
Even Valor, who wanted to break down what was good. Who had taken the one I loved first away forever. I was called to protect him as well, though I also wanted to punish him for a while first.
This is why I sacrifice. This is who I must protect.
The presence subsided, uneasy, and I tuned back into the scene before me. The knife was in Valor’s hand, and I was almost there. I had just reached into my soul to grab a handful ofshadows—though I’d decided to think of them as dark chocolate razorblades—to knock it out of his grip, when the doors burst open.
Heart supported Glory as they made their way down to the center of the Hall, walking straight to Tradition. They looked both better and worse. Their hair was lank, their skin fevered and damp, and they’d lost too much weight to appear healthy, but the fire in their eyes blazed as brightly as the sun.
“Tradition, hear us! What is happening here is not justice. It is in fact against the foundational laws of Sanctuary itself.” No one stopped them as they walked up to the base of the podium. The crowd seemed to slump with relief.
“Two of your Guides, Prosperity and Vigilance, and Protectors Fidelity and Valor, held us down and cut my mating feather out without any trial. It was a crime against our realm’s laws, and the love that we bear to one another. A crime against the Goddess of Divine Love, the Singer of All Songs. The one who counseled you, who ordered this brutality, is devoid of love and compassion. He is the enemy, and you have given him the knife again.
“Valor is the tainted one.”
Tradition’s eyes flickered with confusion, though I still wasn’t certain at what. That Glory was still alive? That she and Heart were standing there, stopping his chopping block routine? That anyone had called out the evil he had allowed? “I don’t understand.” His eyes narrowed slightly, and I wondered for a moment what he meant. His gaze on Valor, who still held the soul knife, grew troubled. Maybe he would stop this farcical judgment. But I didn’t trust him to do it.
I knew better than to trust the Guides of Sanctuary.
I know better than to let any of them live.
Wait, what?
Don’t wait. Act now.
Who was talking? Was I channeling a motivational poster?
Strike him. Strike them all down,a dark voice inside me murmured, encouraging me to take the power I’d collected and use it.Kill this sanctimonious, false prophet. Rend his soul into pieces so small they will never find them. They will float around the burned hallways of a ruined Sanctuary until…
“Feather,” Sunny rasped. “Your eyes. You need to chill the fudge out, birch.”
I blinked. When had the world turned red and black, with weird bloody stuff running down all the walls? And down the people, too. Heart and Glory were backing away from me, their eyes wide, shaking their heads.
Glory looked like she might throw up, and when she stumbled, Heart tucked her under a wing, bustling her off the podium and toward a door. Strangely, no one stopped her. Everyone else had stopped moving, and was staring at me in horror.
