A muffled curse came from Percy, and a startled laugh from Gavriel. I turned my head at the last second—I couldn’t help it—and in the instant before I vanished through the gate, I saw Gavriel’s face.
He was smiling. I’d almost never seen him smile. He looked younger, even happy, if his eyes hadn’t been so haunted. It transformed his already perfect features into a poem, a song. And the love in his gaze, the tears on his face, told a story.
But not one with a happy ending.
I sang a final note, the part of my name I hadn’t put into words, and now never would. Trying to ignore the immediate, overwhelming searing in my chest, I entered the gate at last.
Chapter 36
Gavriel
Devastation raged like an invisible fire through my soul. I managed to hold myself together just long enough for Feather to slip free of Sanctuary. Then I fell to my knees, keening. My heart pounded, my limbs suddenly lead-filled. And my wings, that had already ached and burned, felt as if they were being pulled, torn away from my back.
I felt as if I were being unmade.
I wished I were.
With Haneul also now gone, I could feel the presence of others again. I sensed the approach of dozens of Protectors and Guides, but I couldn’t face them. Not like this. Not yet.
Gentle hands wrapped around me. Perception. “Where can I take you?” he asked.
“The cell below,” I managed to say. “The one I was…” Perception shushed me, and half carried me to the nearest hall. I couldn’t fly, but the doorway to the cells wasn’t far, and at least no one else was walking this way. We were left alone as I fought to hold the pieces of me together. Why did it hurt like this?
Perception spoke the word to open the door, and we descended together. “Show me?” he murmured. I battled the sudden impulse to run back to the gate and hammer on it with my fists, beg someone to open it, to allow me passage.
“Not yet…” I let out a long, shuddering breath. The pain in my body was excruciating; I just needed to be alone.
“You should not be alone, Gavriel,” Perception answered, though I wasn’t certain if I’d spoken aloud, or if he’d gotten strong enough to hear my thoughts.
I grasped his arm, and used a tiny thread of my remaining strength to bolster his new connection to Sanctuary. “You’re fully ascended now. I should have done that before.”
He stood, his wings extended, the power of Sanctuary coursing through him, weak as it was. Tears of joy fell from his eyes, and I remembered the moment when I had felt that same thing—as if I had found my purpose.
“I should have recognized your potential before today,” I admitted. “You are a true friend, and have the best heart left in this realm.”
“Yours is the best heart,” he replied, his smile dimming.
“I have no heart left.”
I sighed and trudged down the hallway to the door I’d been using for the past day and a half, while Mikhail and Righteous cared for Feather.Cared for very thoroughly.I’d fought not to hear their lovemaking, their emotions echoing throughout the realm. Fought not to listen at the door, to tear a hole in the fabric of Sanctuary so I could see them. Join them. Love like theirs was the reason this level had been created, to grant some measure of peace from the relentless waves of sensual bliss, as well as the sound itself.
I hesitated at the door, dwelling on what was inside. Knowing it was self-flagellation to enter. But it was the only place I could be alone, could let go of the iron control I had on my emotions.
Where I could mourn and suffer without anyone else hearing.
“I’ll wait outside,” Perception offered as I spoke the most powerful word I knew in High Angelic, one rarely used, and walked through the door. I felt his gaze on my side, the deep wounds I’d hidden beneath a shirt and a robe, that still bled sluggishly.
The day before, I’d done the very thing I’d so recently forbidden Mikhail to do. I’d cut pieces of my own form away—small, feather-shaped scraps of flesh that no one might notice as long as I stayed clothed—to muster the energy to reinforce one of the cells below. To make it a miniature fortress within Sanctuary.
To make this place safe for the tiny demon I had grown to love in a handful of days.
No, not just safe. Impenetrable.
The room itself was ten paces square, with a low ceiling strung with gauzy white fabrics. But that was the only white I’d placed in the chamber. Precious deserved a room as unique and perfect as she was. And making it into a tiny pocket of paradisewas a gift I could give her… and perhaps a small way to atone for the way I’d treated her mother.
Hermother. My mind still whirled at the revelation. Perception had approached me the day before and quietly shared the story of Feather’s inadvertent naming of Sanctuary’s youngest Novice. I smiled ruefully at the memory. The One Ring, indeed. Only Feather could have created that powerful, adorable devil by mistake. I had hoped to tease her about it, someday, after she had forgiven me for being the cruelest ass in all the realms.
But now? Now I might never have the chance to apologize to her, let alone enjoy an easy camaraderie. My heart pounded painfully at the thought, and I forced myself to focus on my surroundings, breathing slowly.
