My intentions weren’t to scold Noah, or have diarrhea of the mouth and voice my frustrations with him, but that’s exactly what I did. Qi thanked me, but I didn’t do it for her. I’m just tired of guys crapping all over the girls who care about them enough to put up with more crap than they probably should.
Still, after my little outburst I noticed Thien became very quiet. He’s mad at me…AGAIN. I knew coming out here with the two of them was a bad idea. So is our team joining forces.
“There it is.” Noah pointed to a town about a hundred yards away.
Creatures scattered about its busy streets to get to their destinations. There were eight buildings total; four on each side of the street, but it didn’t take much to figure out where Gavin may be hiding.
As we made our way through its busy streets, creatures stopped and stared. We stopped just outside the bar Noah pointed to, and while some surrounded the building, the rest of us went inside. “Well look who’s here.” The bartender smiled at Noah.
“Cut the shit Cipher. Where is he?” Noah asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you know who this beautiful creature is?” He points to me as I sit on one of the barstools. I reach over to one of the patrons to my left, smells what’s in his cup and then I take a small sip of some of the local libations. It’s watered down crap.
“No. Should I?”
Before Noah can respond I unsheathe one of my blades and press it against his throat. “My name is Shadow.” I inform him.
At the mere mention of my name patrons begin to head for the quickest exit. Cipher
swallows hard. “Tell him what he wants to know or I’ll bleed you dry and bathe in your blood.” I warn him, taking another sip from the cup I confiscated.
“Oh please give her a reason to kill you. I’ve been dying to see her in action.” Link, code name Sparrow, from Noah’s team, brims with excitement.
Sparrow gets his wish. Cipher pulls a knife out on me, and I slam his head face-first on the counter. The momentum bounces his face off the counter and he crumples to the floor. Conjurers appear out of nowhere and the fight is on. Conjurers are beings that can appear wherever they want or are summoned. In this case…a bar at the center of the In-between. Willow set’s demon after demon on fire, Noah simply absorbs their powers then kills them and Qi shoots arrows with tips containing the wrath of her God Chi at them.
Light on my feet and quick, I perform my best ballet of blood yet. I tossed my bladed through a row of four conjurers and recalled it back to my hand just in time to impale a Majestic. A Majestic is a being that can go from solid to ethereal forms. With a Majestic, timing is key.
The more we fight them, the more conjurers and majestic creatures show up. There seems to be an endless supply of them and they’re coming from somewhere.
After splitting a Majestic that was trying to run from Wake in two, I headed in the direction they were coming from. There was a portal and I needed to close it. I sheathed my blade, held my hands out and sent a shockwave out. It leveled every being I hadn’t put a lock on in a three-mile radius. Only my team and Cipher were left standing. Well…we were standing…Cipher was still unconscious on the floor.
“Wake up!” I lift him up by the scruff of his neck and slam him on the counter. When that didn’t work I slapped him across the face as hard as I could and he flew off the other side of the counter onto the floor.
Cipher’s eyes fluttered open and he quickly sat up. When he saw me coming around the counter her threw his hands up in surrender. “You just missed him by maybe five minutes!” Cipher quickly blurted out. “We saw you coming from a mile away and he got the hell out of dodge.”
“Thank you for your candor.” Noah smiles. He drives his blade through Ciphers chest and absorbs his life force. Its like a drug for Inhibiter’s like Noah. They live to possess ones soul and with it, their powers.
We questioned everyone in the small town, but no one knew anything about what Gavin planned to do next. Satisfied Gavin was probably no longer taking refuge in the In-Between, Thien activated a Vortex that took us back to Petrem. There, he and Noah briefed my father on what happened. We were back to square one.
“I’m sorry we lost Mercy.” Noah’s father tells him. “She was a great soldier.”
“That she was.” Noah nodded. “May Chi bless her soul.”
“You’re covered in demon blood.” My mom walks up to me. We haven’t had a chance to talk since I’ve gotten back. “You were always more Prince than Princess so I guess its only fitting.” She chuckles. I missed her so much.
“Father doesn’t want you talking to me.” I warn her.
“You’re my daughter Aria. My firstborn daughter. Nothing but death could keep me from you and maybe even not then.” She pulls me into her arms.
“I wish you could have seen me in action today. It was glorious.” I smiled.
“Knowing how skilled you are, I don’t doubt that for a second.” She chuckles.
My mother’s kindness has never wavered. I love her for it. Her love was the glue that held me together when my father’s disgust with me ripped me open from the inside out. She was my rock and he knew it. That’s why he does everything he can to keep her from me.
“Ahem.” The sound of him clearing his throat interrupts our moment.
“Marcum-”
“Aziza, go.” He orders.
“I love you Aria.” She manages to say before she leaves.
“I love you too.” I whisper back.
Standing over me, my father stares at me. He still has disappointment in his eyes. He snaps his fingers, motioning for Thien to come over and orders him to take me to my room to get cleaned up.
Thien is the only guy my father is willing to accept in my life. They had high hopes for Noah, they did…but the more trouble we got into. The more they feared he was turning me dark. Once he was sent away, they searched high and low for a replacement. That’s when they learned about Thien and how much power he was able to harness at such a young age. Like me, he’s one of the gifted wings. Handpicked by the Alpha, we were blessed with more than our usual share of power. That’s why we were sent to the House of Muerte. The Republic believes that beings as powerful as we are should protect our kingdoms. So we trained to become soldiers.
I watch as Thien draws my bath and checks the temperature to make sure it’s not too hot or too cold. When it’s ready, he nods to me and exits my room. He doesn’t go far. In fact, he sits just outside my bathroom door and waits for me to finish.
“You said you wanted to talk when we got back.” I call out to him. “About us.”
“Aria-”
“Thien, I want what I’ve always wanted.” I swallow my fears and just throw my feelings out there on the table. “I want to be with you.”
Silence. I keep waiting for him to say something, but there’s nothing but silence coming from the other side of the door. Did he leave?
“Are you there?” I ask.
“Yes. I’m here.” He finally speaks.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes I did.”
“Are you going to say something?” I ask.
“I will…but I want to say it to you…not the walls or this door…YOU.”
A smile spreads across my face. This is it. This is the moment our relationship is finally going to move from the state of limbo it’s in, and we’re going to make things official.
Brimming with excitement I wash and scrub every ounce of demon blood from my body. When I face him, I want to face him as the Princess of the Royal house of Bliss. As his future wife and mother of his children.
I dry myself off and choose something a little less ‘I’ll rip your heart out of your chest’ and more ‘I’m in love with you and want to see where this love goes.’ It’s a white, off the shoulder, bell sleeve and lace peasant dress. My dark brown hair falls in ringlets to my waist and I touch up my lips with Pom. Pom is the oils created from the Pomegranate trees of our kingdom. It taints the lips pinkish-red with an oily substances and it tastes like berries.
Satisfied with the way I look, I finally open up the door and step out. Thien’s eyes wash over me, but he hasn’t said a word. He’s just standing there, staring at me with wide-eyed astonishment. “What did you want to say to me?” I ask.
“Oh…um…” He was so busy staring that he could hardly speak. “Aria, you’re so fucking gorgeous.” He finally speaks. I smile and remove the distance between us, but he stops me before I can touch him. “That makes what I have to say to you more difficult than I want it to be.”
“What is it that you want to say?”
“Aria…I can’t be with you.” His words suck the air out of my lungs.
“What?” I gasp. “Why?”
“You know why.” His words are certain. This is about Noah.
“If this is about Noah, I don’t want him. I want you.”
“And I want your undivided attention, which you haven’t been able to give me.” He spat.
“Thien-”
“No, look…listen…I would love to be with you, but the truth of the matter is I have to do what’s best for my people. Binding myself to a murderer…”
I reel back at his words. Murderer? He just called me a murderer and I’m about to make his accusation a reality, STARTING WITH HIM. “Did you just call me a murderer?” I stared at him in disbelief. “I have never killed anyone I wasn’t ordered to kill or who didn’t deserve it.”
“Did Myra deserve it?”
“I didn’t-”
I can no longer form any intelligent words. I’m STUNNED. Dumbfounded really. The one person I expected to believe in me didn’t. There are no words to describe both the heartache and the disappointment I’m feeling at this moment. I’m speechless.
“If not me, then who?” I ask. If Thien is turning me down it means he already has a replacement lined up. He’s set to give his Yang to someone once he reaches his eighteenth human year of life.
“Katnis Bolton.”
My heart is breaking and I can’t stop it. The Bolton’s hate me because they believe I killed their Queen. How could he align himself with my enemy? How could he…
I turn away from him and wrap my arms around my stomach. It’s all I can do to hold the pain in until I can get to the lounge in my room and sit down. In addition to feeling sick, my legs feel like noodles and I think I’m getting a headache. Or maybe my heartache has spread to my head. “How could you do this to me?” I manage to speak.
“It wasn’t just me Aria. NO ONE wants our union to happen. Not the Magistrate, not the Watch…NO ONE.”
“My parents?”
“Your father agreed with them.”
My powers sparked to life in the palms of my hands, startling us both. My father knows how much Thien means to me. That’s why he’s taking him away from me. He HATES me and he wants to make my life as miserable as I made his when I went to prison.
The angrier I get, the more the sparks in my palms grow. Aria, you have to calm down before you kill someone. I know it sucks and I know it hurts, but if you don’t calm down, you’ll go nuclear and destroy your family’s castle. The last thing your mother needs is for something to happen to Sy or Lucas. Think about them.
The sparks in my palms disappear. I know what I must do, but the words are stuck somewhere between my head and my heart. No…screw this…time to pay daddy dearest a visit.
I climb to my feet and storm around the castle looking for my father until I find him in the banquet hall. He was entertaining guests like he didn’t just drop nuclear warheads on my love life and blow it all to hell. “HOW DARE YOU!” I shout.
“Excuse me?” My father casts me a warning glance. For a moment under his heavy gaze I almost falter, but I’ve had enough.
“WHY DID YOU DO IT? WHY DID YOU PUSH FOR THIEN TO MARRY SOMEONE ELSE?” I demand.
“I SUGGEST YOU WATCH YOUR TONE.” My father spoke to me in a chilling voice. Again, I almost backed down, but if I stop now, I’ll never get this off my chest.
“Was this your plan all along? Dangling him in front of me like you dangled Noah and then taking him away?”
“Thien is going to do great things Aria. He deserves to have someone of equal caliber at his side.”
The room grew quiet except for my mother’s pleas. She was practically begging my father to stop, but the damage had already been done. “Let me guess…I don’t fit the bill.” I surmised, staring at him both shocked and hurt.
“No Aria, you don’t. You stopped being the girl I raised you to be the moment you fell for that demon.” He motioned to Noah.
“I have done everything you’ve asked of me.” I sighed. All of the Readers within the vicinity start to go off. “I’ve groveled at your feet. I’ve obeyed your every command and I’ve tolerated your verbal abuse thinking that somehow…someday you’ll finally see me. But you won’t. You don’t want to. I’m always going to be the stain on our family name, aren’t I?”
“Is there a point to this little speech?” He scoffs, shaking his head.
“Yeah dad, there is…and I PROMISE you…its going to be good.” I reply. “I’ve been killing myself to get you to love me like you used to. To get you to smile at me or be proud of me, but I’m never going to get that am I?”
“No, and I’m glad we’ve both come this understanding.”
The Readers are going crazy now and everyone’s looking around. Suddenly they realize its me. I’m the one making the Readers go crazy. “Aria, don’t!” Thien steps forward to force me to listen to reason. “Look, I won’t do it. I won’t marry her, just please…don’t do this.” He pleads with me.
“NO, GO AHEAD. DO WHAT YOU DO BEST!” My father shouts as my eyes turned jet black with darkness. “SHOW EVERYONE THE KIND OF MONSTER YOU REALLY ARE!”
I intended to. I really did, but his words cut so deep that it fractured my soul. Every ounce of darkness in my body was replaced with sorrow. My silver wings turned black. DEATH. My eyes, which were so full of life, turned a pale shade of grey. SORROW. And my hair turned the brightest color white as tears fell from my eyes. FRACTURE. I suffer what is known in the Angel world as an emotional death.
“No!” My mother shouts, pushing my father out of the way and wrapping her arms around me.
“Listen to me Aria, you have to come back to us. Don’t do this.” Noah pleaded with me, gripping my face in his hands. “If you don’t come back to us they’ll take you away from us.”
The ‘they’ he’s referring to are Snares. Whenever an Angel’s soul is fractured a being called a Snare comes to collect their soul from within their mind. It sends the soul into a continuous loop of emotional trauma that progresses the Angel’s condition rendering them catatonic. In short, they become trapped in their own minds.
ns 15.158.61.46da2