And there, standing near them, is a hooded figure. Tall and broad, still as stone. I can't see his face, but I know it's Malachi. And I know, with bone-deep certainty, that he's staring directly at me.
Naima’s gasp yanks me back. I turn toward the stage and stop breathing. Casimir and Arlo step closer to Constantine wearing dark green coats with gold brocade at the shoulders. The same gold brocade Constantine wears. The same gold the highest-ranking officers of the Lunarian Legion are granted when they've proven their absolute loyalty to the Council. Gold wings. They've been given gold wings.
“Oh gods,” Naima breathes beside me.
She sounds as horrified as I feel by this sudden promotion. We knew it was a possibility, of course. We figured it would happen eventually, with the way the Council has taken interest in them. But seeing them in those uniforms makes it real in a way I wasn't prepared for. Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Gasps. A few scattered cheers and whistles from Lunarian residents.
“Most of you have had the pleasure of watching Casimir the Handsome and Arlo the Undefeated duel in our amphitheater,” Constantine says, grinning as the crowd roars its approval. “I'm proud to announce that after years of loyal service, they have earned their gold wings.”
Gold wings. The words echo in my skull. The gold wings are not just a promotion. They're a chain.
Once you wear them, you belong to the Council completely. You follow their orders without question. You hunt whoever they tell you to hunt. You kill whoever they tell you to kill.
Arlo and Cas have just become weapons. And the Council now holds the blade. The cheers are deafening. I press my hands over my mouth, unable to look away, unable to breathe.
“Their first task,” Constantine continues, his voice cutting through the noise. “Will be finding the renegades."
Another wave of cheers. My stomach turns.
“Whoever is leaving these hateful messages on our walls, mocking our ideals and threatening our peace, will be punished.” He steps to the edge of the stage, and his pale eyes seem to sweep the entire crowd at once. “There is nowhere on this island you can hide from us. We will find you. We will protect Lunaris!”
The words settle over the square like the Shroud itself, dark and foreboding and inevitable.
He gestures toward Arlo and Cas. “You've seen their skills in the arena. Come the final evening of the festival, anyone deemed a renegade will face their wrath!”
The crowd erupts. The sound is distant, muffled by the drumming in my ears. My gaze flies to the Sages. They're whispering amongst themselves, their expressions unreadable.
Mother's jaw is tight. Freida's hand rests on the arm of her chair, knuckles white. They didn't know. I'm certain of it. They didn't know this was coming.
I look at Arlo and Cas again. My oldest friends. My family, in every way that matters. Cas was my first everything.
My first kiss, my first heartbreak, the first person outside the Estate I ever trusted completely. And Arlo has always been as much a brother to me as Jordi. I would die for either of them. I thought they would do the same for me. Now they stand on that stage in gold wings, and I don't know what they are anymore.
When they became legion guards a few years ago, they swore their loyalty to the Veritas Order would always come first. They promised us. They promised me. But I've heard the stories.
The Council has ways of breaking people. Of twisting their minds until they see enemies in the faces of the ones they love. Until they believe betrayal is righteousness and cruelty is duty. I stare at Arlo and Cas, standing in their gold wings, and I wonder if I've already lost them. If I lost them the moment they stepped onto that stage.
Chapter Eleven
The three of us are split up in the current of people. At some point, I stop fighting and allow myself to move with the herd rather than looking for them. They’ll go to Siren’s anyway. It’s where all the locals end up after the festivities, and where my friends and I hang out most nights.
I'm so lost in thought, replaying Arlo and Cas in their gold wings, that I don't realize I've been walking in the wrong direction until I find myself standing across from the northernmost bridge. I close my eyes and force myself to breathe. The universe, it seems, has other plans for me tonight. I swallow my irritation and decide to make use of the detour.
I stop by the clinic to check on the birds and grab the maps Jordi left behind. I'm not sure what Kage hopes to do with them, or why Draven hasn't provided his own, but my brother would want to help. He always wants to help. The thought of him brings back the image of his face in the carriage window.
That look of determination. As if he knew exactly where he was going and why. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I need to speak to the Sages. If anyone has answers, it has to be them. But then I remember the looks on their faces when Cas and Arlo were on that stage and Naima’s words come back to me.
Between the Reckoning, the sprites, the blood moon we were never allowed to see, I don’t know what to believe anymore. I hear music and people chattering nearby, but thankfully the bridge is empty when I reach it. I tip my head back as I walk, but all I find are the usual thick, dark clouds that coat the sky. Still, I stop at the center of the bridge and rest my hands on the parapet to scan over it again.
Nothing happens, but I stay a little longer, listening to the faint rush of water below, the River of Sorrows murmuring its secrets to the dark. I'm staring down into the darkness, thinking of all the times I met Cas here in the middle of the night to sneak kisses, when a flash of light pulls my gaze upward.
It vanishes before I can track it, but I hold my breath and wait. My breath catches when the lamps around me flicker, and again when a flash of red light splits the sky above the forest. At first, I think Naima is right, it looks like lightning, but when it disappears and returns, what I see are roots. Or branches clawing upward from invisible soil in the sky.
The light blinks out quickly and returns. Six of them now, larger, closer, burning against the clouds like wounds. The lamps around me stutter and dim. The sprites disappear and reappear in a heartbeat.
Bigger. Closer. My pulse hammers against my ribs as I stare. They don't look like roots at all now. They look like limbs. Like red-winged figures suspended in the sky, looking down at me.
This time, when the sprites disappear, they take the lights around me, plunging me into complete darkness. I stand frozen. Barely breathing. Waiting for the sprites to return, for the lamps to flicker back to life.
