Until, of course, my blackfire ended the life of its first victim on my thirteenth riseday.
Our most beloved village elder, no less.
Then the bloodhounds started hunting across all of Edenael Island for me. After half a millennium of trying to keep me hidden, Manmi and Papi had built this manor. When I reached my First Millennia riseday, they threw me a lavish party here... then said I could never leave.
It was for my safety. My own good. The Farasee Order, the demons in pristine ivory priestly robes, would never find me here.
To their credit, they were right. For a while.
Manmi and Papi always came to visit me regularly, bringing me gifts and catching me up on village gossip. Being the Chief Elder and Elderèss of Okapi, they always knew more about the angels of our village, and the island at large, than anyone else. Papi especially loved filling me in on all the juicy details, more so than Manmi. After leaving Okapi Village, I never saw a bloodhound again. My manor was my haven from the tracking dogs of the Farasee Order.
Until three dawns ago.
I looked up from my perch. I’d been standing in this exact spot when the nightmarish memories from all those centuries ago came flooding back. A boneraven had been perched on one hedge of the garden. In its beak, it held an ivory peony with a lavender stem that had an obsidian ichor oozing out of its center. The boneraven had looked me in the eye. Cawed, dropping the peony, and flew away. When I neared the fallen flower, I found the dead carcass of the first bloodhound.
I shook away the morbid memories, glancing up into the sky. Something like consternation tried twisting in my gut, but I shoved it off. My home was not a place where I would become paranoid. I wouldn’t give anyone, not even the Fallen Hèlslords from the Six Hèls, the satisfaction. I lowered my palms, retracting my blackfire back into myself, bending to the ground to unwind the thorns from the ashes.
Then I felt it.
The hair on my arms stood on end. My ears twitched. All seven of my hearts began pounding. Racing. Adrenaline spilled into my blood, a growing hysteria threatening to unravel my mind.
I couldn’t shake the creeping, ominous feeling of being watched.
Of beingtracked.
Still bent over on the ground, I froze.
I listened to the sounds of the garden.
There was none.
The honeyrabbits had grown silent. All the hummingcryers had stopped singing. The ivory stags had disappeared, their iridescent antlers vanishing deep into the forest. The grounds of the manor had fallen into a hush. It was still. Foreboding. Quiet.
Tooquiet.
I flicked my gaze up from where I was bent. My shoulders tensed. My wings snapped tight against my spine as my back went rigid.
Then I saw it. Perched on the same accursed branch like three dawns ago.
Unblinking, beady black eyes pinned themselves on me.
A boneraven.
And in its beak, an ivory peony ending in a lavender stem with black ichor oozing from the center.
Inglorious stars.
I whirled around.
And I screamed.
“Wings high, Nahomie.” A cruel, malevolent chuckle. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Chapter 2
Nahomie
A seaof ivory priestly robes filled my vision in every corner. I’d been so focused on ridding the garden of the dead bloodhound, I hadn’t heard when the Farasees slipped onto the property to ambush me.
