Bannik was given the gift of healing anything the Creator made, any race, including demons.
My other brothers, the reading of the stars—astrology, wielding metal, knowing the secrets of the mind—calling up the dead. We all have our purpose.
And right now, it seems I have lost it.
I look back toward the mountain we’ve been guarding and scowl. What is our purpose? To watch? To constantly watch? And what? What the hell are we watching?
Anger like I’ve never known spreads through my veins. I control it momentarily as Bannik’s eyes widen. “Brother—”
“Calm,” Uzza says suddenly. “This has never happened…”
My white wings go from their pure color to darkness and back again to every color of the rainbow.
I focus on my purpose, on what I watch. And I quickly prick a feather from my wing and hand it to Bannik. “Do it.”
He sighs, and then she turns to him, and he loses all ability to say no as he simply slits down his wrist and gathers a drop of purple blood onto the feather and hands it to her. “Tell no one.”
“They will know,” she says.
“If you want to live. You won’t tell them. That is the cost of this blood—her healing.” Bannik stands. “Do you accept it, human?”
“Yes.” Tears run down her cheeks. “Yes.” She grabs the feather; the blood has dried. “Do I just hold it out to her?”
“Oh human…” Bannik laughs again. “The feather will know exactly what to do. Simply put it in her hand.”
She nods again and then turns back to me. “What are your names?”
I grit my teeth. “Too far.”
She looks afraid suddenly. “What? I’m sorry I don’t understand.”
“Child,” Uzza finally steps forward into the circle of three. “You cannot fathom the power of calling our names, do not wish death upon yourself; you’ve already done enough damage being in our presence.”
She nods, tucking the feather into her pack and staring down the large mountain. “I hope I make it in time.”
Uzza squeezes his eyes shut; when he opens them, they’re a pale white. “She lives.”
The human looks over her shoulder. “It takes half the time to get down the mountain.”
A storm suddenly circles overhead as is usual on the mountain.
Azeel makes a noise in the back of his throat then finally hangs his head. “Take her down the mountain, Sariel. We speak of this to no one.”
I’m gentle as I take her in my arms and slowly take flight within the storm so high nobody can see me.
It takes me mere minutes to land behind the rock near the village. Seconds to miss her as I set her on her feet, ready to shoot back into the sky, wishing I could stay there for a few hours and simply watch from above with my friends the stars.
“Wait.” She grabs my wrist and then whispers, “My name.”
I hold my breath as she gets as close as any human has been to me, chest to chest. “Helena.”
I don’t dare breathe it, but I do tilt her chin toward me. “Brave, Helena. Why do you not fear me?”
Tears fill her eyes. “Sometimes, I think I’ve seen you in my dreams.”
“Impossible,” I whisper. “For a human to see one such as me, in their dreams, though dreams are…” Dare I say it? “They are at times a premonition of what’s to come. “What do you see, Helena?” I should never have asked it.
Her name is sweet on my lips, like soaring in the air, then diving into the oceans only to come up for my first breath of air, burning my lungs, setting my soul on fire.
Her eyes twinkle like the stars I no longer hear in her presence. Her laugh makes me smile as she steps up on her tiptoes and beckons me to lean down.
I have no power.
I have given it over.
I lean close to her as she whispers in my ear, “You kiss me.”
My heart takes off into a million beats—more than I can truly count. My blood sings as my wings start to turn from white to orange and back again, going through numerous colors before I can take a breath.
I don’t know what to say.
I know it’s forbidden.
But surely one touch would be permitted; after all, we’ve broken so many rules this day, so many—what’s one more?
I would one day understand that this is exactly how the human race fell into temptation, how we followed, how earth has failed.
By justifying one action with another.
And by looking away from the one purpose given to you.
I was to watch.
And now, I would touch.
FIVE
Helena
He’s as still as the statue I first saw up on that mountain. His lips are so full I ache to touch them, but I also sense danger.
Along with love, power, lust, anger, jealousy.
I sense everything I already feel right now as a human—but he’s not, he’s other, and that means that no matter what I dream of at night.