by Bea Paige
“You’re sick,” he says, taking a hesitant step towards me. The skin of my cheek tingles with a mixture of both pleasure and pain, and something far more sinister.
“I don’t think so,” I murmur.
My head swims and my legs suddenly feel heavy. I stumble forward and grab the kitchen table for support. Gabe moves forward as if to help me. I’m sick?
Mihr shakes his head, grabbing Gabe on the shoulder. “No, don’t touch her,” he signs.
Underneath the concern, there is a possessiveness in his gaze, and anger, but my jumbled thoughts are unable to process what that means.
Gabe pulls back sharply. “Fuck.”
“You need to leave, Gabe. She can’t be near you now you’ve marked her,” Ether says, gritting his teeth.
Although I hear him clear enough, I don’t seem able to make sense of his words. For now, all I can concentrate on is the firm wood of the chair as I slide gratefully onto it.
“Marked me?”
Mihr holds his hands out, palms upwards, then flicks his fingers in a series of movements. “Now that Gabe has marked you with his touch, the sickness will only increase when he is nearby.”
“Sickness?”
“Yes, you are connected by his touch…”
“But you all touched me. Why do you not have the same effect?”
“Only briefly,” Ether says, his voice defensive, eyes downcast.
“What have you done?” Mihr accuses, rounding on Gabe, who backs away, flinching.
Gabe’s eyes flick to mine, lassoing me to him. My stomach clenches, realisation dawning. He is an Angel of Death, they all are. I am reminded of my father’s death rattle and the singing that accompanied it. I am reminded of that baby boy’s lifeless body and Gabe’s song that drew out his last breath. I am reminded of all the times I have heard death’s chorus at the hospital where I work. How I’ve been surrounded by it, affected by it. But never had it harmed me, until now.
Death no longer lingers about me, it has touched me with its darkness.
I slump further into my seat.
Gabe pounds his fist against the kitchen counter. I flinch from the anger that emanates from him, that settles over Mihr and Ether’s shoulders.
“I should never have touched you,” he says accusingly, as though it’s my fault. Perhaps it was, I pressed his hand against me, after all. I’d wanted his touch.
Gabe backs away from me, and even though he appears horrified by whatever it is he’s done, I get the distinct impression he would touch me again if I asked. That he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. For reasons only known to the deepest, most hidden parts of me, I want him to touch me again too, even if it means the sickness turns to something far more dangerous.
“Go!” Ether growls, his voice sharp with anger and disappointment.
Gabe swivels on his feet, rushes out of the door and leaps off the decking, his wings snapping out behind him as he launches himself into the sky.
Just like that, he is gone.
My reaction is immediate. The light-headedness leaves me, the strange tingling in my face disappears. I can think clearer. I’m still tired, but I can cope with that.
“Would one of you please tell me what the hell is going on?” I demand. I’m not normally so forceful, so abrupt, that isn’t my usual nature, but I can’t seem to help myself. Gabe has been made to leave, and though physically I am better, I don’t feel better at all. I want him to return, even if that makes me sick.
Ether pulls out a chair and sits down. Mihr leans back against the kitchen counter, observing us both. He is watching me closely.
“Mihr, will you join us?”
“No. I will stay where I am. Enough damage has been done.”
“That’s probably sensible,” Ether sighs, returning his attention back to me. He considers me before speaking. “All your life you’ve lived with the sound of Clan Vitae’s chorus, haven’t you?”
“If you mean the singing that accompanies death, then yes. Yes, I have.” My spine prickles with heat.
“Clan Vitae are our people. We live together, within a place called the Shadowlands that exists between here and the realm of Ever Vale. We are ruled by Queen Adrielle, a witch with a bitter, twisted heart and a dark soul. She cursed all of us and now we are her slaves. Our people are her Death Bringers, forced to take life when once we brought it into the world. She took our calling and turned it against us.”
Ether clasps his hands together, his face overshadowed with emotion. He waits for me to speak, to ask questions, but I am struck dumb once again. I don’t know what to think. Curses, a wicked queen, Death Bringers, slaves? What is this? I feel like I’ve stepped into a fairy tale.
When I don’t say anything, he continues.
“You are one of us too, Fern. At least, you were before the curse changed us into these creatures we are now. You are the missing daughter of Clan Vitae.”
My mouth drops open in shock. My vision seems to spot with black stars and I fight the urge to slip into unconsciousness. I’m one of them? I’m an Angel of Death… no, it can’t be true. I bring life into the world… I do not destroy, I do not dish out heartbreak and crush hearts, bleeding them dry.
“NO!” I shout. “I am nothing like you. I don’t take life… I DON’T.”
Mihr steps forward, moving his hands frantically. I feel my chest squeezing tighter on my panic… Death hasn’t followed me, I am death.
Deaf, death.
Deaf, death.
Could that have some meaning? Could my hearing loss somehow be connected? My mother saved me from the curse, but I can hear the Angels of Death even when I am deaf to everyone else.
Death, deaf.
The two words mix into a loud crescendo that beats erratically in my head. My internal voice is so loud I cover my ears from the noise.
“Look at me, Fern. Concentrate on me. Be calm. Breathe…”
I breathe in, taking deep lungsful of air as Mihr’s hands and fingers move, weaving the rest of the story in pretty shapes. The graceful movements force me to concentrate on what he is saying. I watch them, fascinated by the language that is as familiar to me now as my own heartbeat.
“You are not like us, Fern. At least not like we are now. Queen Adrielle’s curse never reached you.”
“How?” I ask.
“Your mother made sure you were safe. She arranged for you to be brought here so you could survive. She saved you from this.”
Words trip and tumble around my head, leaping and weaving over one another as I try to sort out sense from the mess of thoughts.
Angels.
Death.
Ever Vale.
Curse.
Safe.
Home.
Mother.
“My mother saved me?” The pounding in my ears subsides, whilst my thoughts turn from jumbled fear to a spark of hope.
“Yes, Celeste got you to safety,” Ether says gently.
“Where is my mother now? And my father? Eos, wasn’t it? Are they like you too?” Their names are unfamiliar, but being able to say them, knowing they belong to my birth parents, makes me feel better somehow.
Mihr holds his hands out palms upwards, hesitating. Ether glances at me. The truth is staring me in the eye.
Dead.
I hear the word, understand it, even before either men communicate it to me.
Death.
Deaf.
Dead.
My parents are dead.
All hope fizzles out just as quickly as it sparked to life.
“I’m sorry, Fern,” Mihr signs.
I nod my head sharply. I cannot grieve what was never mine. I box my emotions up and tuck them away, never to be opened again. “What happened to them? What is this curse you speak of?” I ask, wanting a distraction.
“You were born to Celeste and Eos of Clan Vitae, our clan, just over a thousand years ago,” Ether begins.
“What?!” I say sharply.
“Time runs slower h
ere. All of Clan Vitae, all of the people in the clans affected, are a thousand years old, give or take their age at the time of the curse. In Ever Vale, where we are from, where you are from, we have all lived a very long time under the rule of Queen Adrielle.” Ether steeples his fingers, pressing his lips against them. I wonder how old he was at the time the curse befell them all. The fact that I am wondering about their age and not even considering my own madness, given what they’re saying, frightens me far more than what I’m hearing.
“This place is not your home. Deep down you’ve always known that, haven’t you? You don’t belong here. You’re one of us. You’re Clan Vitae and your people await your return.”
I look at Mihr, holding his gaze until it is his turn to look away. “But you take life… you are Angels of Death too.”
“We are forced to do so. We did not choose this life…” Mihr’s head drops, his hands falling to the table.
I don’t care that he is remorseful. It makes me feel sick that he doesn’t deny it. Did they take my father too, just like Gabe stole that baby’s life?
“Gabe took that little boy from his mother, just like that.” I snap my fingers, voicing my thoughts. Ether and Mihr flinch. “Her grief meant nothing, that baby’s future meant nothing. Gabe took a chance of happiness, of family, from a woman who had neither.”
“He had no choice,” Ether says gently.
“There is always a choice,” I grind out. I hate him for what he took and yet at the same time I don’t. The words of the song return, slapping me in the face with their honesty, with their sadness.
Conflicted. Confused. The two warring feelings battle for precedence.
“You don’t understand,” Mihr signs, his fingers moving frantically in his haste to explain, to dispel my anger.
“I understand perfectly well. Death has spun a web around me since I was a child. It took my father. My mother believed it was my fault, that, somehow, I murdered her husband. Even though she tries to hide it, she has despised me ever since. I brought death to the only man who cared about me because of who I am.”
“No, you are not an Angel of Death. You, Fern, are an angel of a different kind. Gabe told us what you do. That you bring life into the world, just like we once did. We don’t wish to live like this anymore. We don’t want to take life. We wish to be what we once were, and you, Fern, can help us do that.” Ether takes out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He unfolds it and slides it across the table towards me.
“This is why we are here, and why you are so very important. Queen Adrielle cursed our people a very long time ago. You are the one person who can help us regain what Queen Adrielle took.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Ether asks.
“Why did she curse your people?”
“Because her heart is black, because she cannot bear happiness in any form. She did it for power, for control, to punish us all. She is queen and we are all her slaves, bound to her by dark magic.”
I look down at the piece of paper, its edges curled and torn with age. On it, beautiful gold cursive glints at me. I run my finger over the words, appreciating the artistry, then begin to read.
Chapter Ten
Five sisters born beneath the stars
Neither bound by blood nor kin
Must unify the warring clans
And rid the land of sin
Their lives they are beholden
A curse atop their heads
Broken only by a love divided
Betwixt three allied men
There will be opposition
To peace and harmony
A plan to cause division
Must never come to be
In great danger they will find themselves
Amongst divided lands
Their fate held in the balance
Of their lovers’ hands
A gold band, it will signify
The unity of the clan
And once each ring is worn in place
Five sisters will take command
My hand flicks from the piece of parchment to the ring sitting on my finger, to the men sitting in front of me. Two of the three? Are Mihr, Ether, and Gabe the three allied men?
A love divided.
Love?
I press my eyes shut. That implies something that I’m not willing to think about. The same pull tugs in my chest, but this time I ignore it.
Words swirl once again, imprinting behind my eyelids.
Warring clans? Lovers? Five sisters? Born beneath the stars?
I swallow them down, trying not to choke on them. Breathing slowly, I calm myself as much as possible with two dark angels sitting in front of me. And they are dark. They are death born in the arms of a twisted queen. They are someone’s final breath swallowed in the hollow bleakness of black jaws. There is no light where death is concerned, just like there is no sound where the dead reside.
I want no part of it.
“I can’t,” I say, pushing the piece of paper away.
“You can’t?” Mihr signs. His hands drop to the table when he sees my expression.
“I am not your saviour. I am not the person you need. Find someone else.”
“There is no one else. Our fate begins and ends with you,” Ether says. Guilt pulls at the purple shadows beneath his eyes.
“I don’t want this,” I say, but even as I say it a little voice in the back of my head tells me that is a lie. They may bring death, but you’ve never felt more alive.
Conflicted, that’s what I am.
Mihr narrows his eyes, they burn right into the truth of me. He knows a part of me is lying. “You deny yourself the ability to belong, yet I can sense a part of you is curious. No, it’s more than curiosity…”
“You don’t know me.” I stand abruptly, not willing to listen to any more. “Life is my calling, not death. I have fought death since I was a child. I’ve learnt to live with this curse, but that doesn’t mean to say that I will embrace it now.”
“You misunderstand us. We are not asking you to embrace death, we are asking you to help free us from it,” Mihr signs, standing with me.
I open my mouth to protest but am stopped short when he begins to sing. Right here, in the middle of my kitchen, the silent one sings to me. I didn’t think he was capable. Even Ether is as shocked as I am.
“Mihr…” he says, wonder and bewilderment matching my own.
My reaction is immediate and overwhelming. It’s as though Mihr has speared a knife directly into my heart and twisted it. But his voice is also soothing; the lament of a lover to his beloved, the soft cadence of a man filled with hope. A voice both pure and filled with an unimaginable, painful darkness. Yet, despite that darkness, it soothes me. A lullaby relaxing my muscles, comforting me. I feel safe. He makes me feel safe.
I am struck dumb.
Mihr’s voice is beautiful, perhaps not as heart-wrenching as Gabe’s. I guess it has a different kind of beauty. Even so, it calls to me, to a part I’ve tried to bury, but just like all the times before, my body begins to react. My skin prickles with a dangerous heat, my breathing slows to match the rhythm of his song, and my body sways to the sound. I shut my eyes in a futile attempt to block at least one of my senses, but it doesn’t help. There is no shutting off the sound, I can no more do that than stop my heart from beating. I sense Mihr’s approach, the air crackles with it.
I don’t move, I can’t.
The pull is too strong. I am captured by it.
I cannot move, even when I feel something delicate stroke against the skin of my arm. I fall deeper into the music as another featherlight touch brushes over my cheek.
Mihr’s voice soothes me, moves me. There are no words to the song. This is both a song filled with silence and full to the brim with meaning.
Emotion builds in my chest, cracking open my heart. I don’t know if it is joy or pain, happiness or fear that I feel. I only know that I cannot fight it. That I will only be free when the last note
drops from his lips and even then, I’m not so sure.
For long minutes I allow his singing to wash over me. Slowly, with every note that passes his lips, with every soft stroke against my skin, I accept his gift for what it is. This isn’t just a simple act of him singing, this is so much more than that. A man who refuses to speak has given me his heart-song. He is giving a precious piece of himself to me so that I can trust him in return.
Finally, the song ends.
I open my eyes, swaying on my feet as he stands over me. His wings are wrapped around my body. They are not shielding me, protecting me from the elements like Gabe’s had, but holding me, comforting me. They glisten like a raven’s wings in the artificial light and this time Mihr doesn’t pull away when I touch them. They are soft, so very soft. I trail my fingers over the delicate fronds. My skin tingles.
“I saw you struggling with all that we’ve revealed, with the darkness you sense, but believe me, daughter of Celeste and Eos, missing daughter of Clan Vitae,” Mihr signs rapidly, pointing to me then pressing a finger against his chest. “We do not wish for this death sentence. We need to be free from it the same as you. Will you help us unlock these chains? Will you set us free? Will you help us live again?”
The soft wisp of air passes over my skin as his fingers move in speech. The feathers of his wings ripple almost imperceptibly against my back, yet I feel their touch burn through my clothes like they had beneath my fingertips.
Mihr isn’t asking me to embrace death after all. He is asking me to set them free, to help them steal back their lives. When I look up into his summer-blue eyes, a tentative smile pulls at his lips, two dimples appearing in the apple of his cheeks. Just like his singing, I sense his smile is another gift rarely bestowed on people. It breaks my final resolve.
“Yes. I will help you,” I say. “On one condition.”
“What condition is that?” Mihr asks, unfurling his wings from around me. I watch as they fold against his back.
“That you take me home to Ever Vale. I need to see where I came from.”