“Blood for blood.”My Nanmiess chanted as I flew through the Beauradèl Wood. “Blood for blood!”
I dipped beneath the twists and bends of colossal trees. The branches were mangled together down to their revolting roots. Most Vainyens had a wood in their backyards that they shared with distant neighbors. Vainyen neighbors often came to signed agreements that each family would tend to the regions of the wood that were attached to their property, which served the overall upkeep of the island itself.
Marcèllian had stopped tending to the Beauradèl Wood. It was overgrown and littered with corrupted roots that gave the depths of the wood a hideous appearance. Flying further away from the small clearing where I’d found the youngling Beauradèls, I flapped my wings as I flew after the last born, my cape fluttering in the light breeze. Island humidity drew sweat to my temples and irritation to my bones, which only stoked my wells of rage even further.
It was one thing to be so angry that your teeth were set on edge. It was another thing to be this angryandhot. Usually, Vainyen woods were cooler. But the Beauradèl Wood felt like flying through the Six Hèls. Taking my time, I leisurely flewthrough the woods. I was in no hurry. I gave young Beauradèl the space and time he needed to get as far away as possible. To make the hunt somewhat interesting.
Flying through the woods, I passed an abandoned chateau, big enough for a family of five. It was cozy, but perfect for a getaway. I knew from memory, not long off was a flowing river that led to a waterfall that provided endless hours of fun. The chateau looked old and forlorn, with gnarled roots and long thorns twisting around the structure, choking it from every side. A shame. It looked like it could’ve been an amazing place to escape to for a few dawns of rest. Now it was a shell of itself and whatever life it had seen in the past.
I was passing a desolate bridge, upheld by old stone over a dried-up river, when I spotted the trail. Tiny, little, sand-colored feathers that tumbled to the floor from a certain youngling who still didn’t know how to use his wings. I chuckled silently, relishing his idiocy.
I blinked, keeping my eyes open as I drew on Soul Bending and opened my Spirit Sight. It was a form of enhanced vision Higherrank Angels possessed if they used and trained it. With my Spirit Sight, I could see beyond bodies. The enhanced vision allowed me to easily see souls within bodily vessels, and their spirits, too.
I looked through the copse of thick trees, searching until I found him.
The spirit of Richard Beauradèl.
Marcèllian’s last-born.
If memory served me well of the Vainyen Lord, this youngling was his pride and joy, beyond his other younglings. As such, it was only fitting that Richard become the first in a wave of harrowing despair in Marcèllian’s pathetic life.
I easily trailed the youngling’s flight through the Beauradèl Wood. Richard flew as fast as he could, but the little angelstruggled. His wings were too big for his back. He couldn’t fly far, nor for long, by himself. He hadn’t grown into his wings fully yet.
Pity.
“Richard,” I cooed.
I reached the youngling and found him resting on a tree root, exhausted from his flight. His cheeks were flushed. His curls stuck to his face from sweat. I landed on my feet with such force that the ground shook. I pushed to my full height, towering over the small male. Richard trembled before me, paralyzed with fear.
“Who... who are you? Wha... what do you want?”
I tilted my head at the boy, watching him for a long time. I remembered being his age, his size, full of hope and excitement. Believing the world was ahead of me. I would sit on his Papi’s lap, as Marcèllian fed me bullrot, convincing me he cared. That he had my back. That he would mentor me and help prepare me for the future to come.
“What do I want?” I chuckled darkly. “Something only you can give, young Richard.”
The youngling swallowed, shuddering beneath the weight of my stare.
“And what’s that?” He asked.
I stayed quiet for a long time. Then.
“The broken, ruinous, irredeemable spirit of the male you call Papi.”
Nanmiess filled the intimate glade, swarming the space until their diaphanous bodies blocked out the light from the suns above. Richard shot to his feet, reeling at the sight of all the disembodied souls.
“Coward,” I muttered. “Just like your Papi.”
“Shut up, monster! You know nothing about my Papi. Get away from me, you beast.”
The boy spat at my feet, stomping a foot into the ground. His wings hung limp, too large for him to do anything but let them hang there.
“He calls me a beast.” I laughed fiendishly. “I’ve done nothing but call you what you are, yet you reject me as if I’ve told a lie. How do you know I’m not here to help you? That I don’t want to be your friend?”
“You’re hideous! Grotesque. Utterly repulsive. I would never befriend a monstrosity like you. Horrifying creature. Be gone.”
The urge to break the little hèlsborn’s neck was all-consuming. The little demon had a way with words. Apples never fell far from their trees, and this spawn of Hèls was almost a carbon copy of his insufferable sire.
My chest constricted at the bombs of his immediate rejection. His accusations. All because of my deformities. To be judged because of what I looked like, before ever being fully known, was a personal Hèls even the strength of my shoulders could no longer carry.
