“We only stumbled across the secret because Faris was manipulating the sirens, us, and anyone within shooting distance,” I countered. “He tried to use us to expose Zarion’s secret.”
Colonel Fireswift shot me a look that told me I wasn’t helping my case. In his mind, all of this was entirely my fault.
“As far as the Legion’s disaster statistics go, Fireswift, you still hold the record,” Nero told him. “You ride on the heels of chaos.”
Colonel Fireswift turned his glare on Nero. “I’m the head of the Interrogators. Its my job to chase down chaos and put an end to it. What’s your excuse, Windstriker?”
Nero winked at me. “My excellent taste in women.”
I grinned at him. I’d never loved him more than at this very moment.
Colonel Fireswift was clearly not amused. “Sentimentalism does not suit an angel.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m an archangel.”
The reminder that Nero outranked him silenced Colonel Fireswift. Scowling, he pivoted around and walked off toward the magic mirror exit.
“It would be totally inappropriate if I kissed you right now, wouldn’t it?” I whispered to Nero as we made our way to the mirror too.
“Yes, it would,” Nero said in a low voice. “But if you don’t kiss me, I will kiss you.”
The other soldiers were in front of us. No one was watching—well, except for the gods. But they were apparently always watching. If I worried about whether their eyes were on me, I’d never have any fun. I leaned in and kissed Nero on the lips.
“I’m dying to know, Nero,” I said, lingering close to him.
His brows arched.
“Where did you hide Valora’s crown?”
“I thought that was you feeling me up as I lay unconscious on the ground.”
I smirked at him. “Oh, please. I only feel you up if you’re at least half-conscious.”
Nero’s chuckle was as decadent as dark chocolate. “As soon as we got the crown, I shifted it into a sock.”
“You are wearing Valora’s prized artifact…on your foot?” I was nearly bursting at the seams with suppressed giggles.
“It’s the last place anyone would look.”
I snorted. One of those suppressed giggles exploded from my mouth. Indeed, no one would think to look for Valora’s crown on Nero’s foot. It was even more clever than Delta’s hiding place.
“It’s weird that Nyx didn’t see through the spell,” I commented.
“It was a thorough spell,” he said. “But, yes, that was surprising. Honestly, it’s hard to fool her with a shifting spell. I wasn’t sure my plan would work. I can only guess it’s because the First Angel has been distracted lately.”
First, the gods had thrown her into the training with the rest of us. Then she’d learned that her half-sister had killed their father. With everything going on, it was no wonder Nyx was distracted.
“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The hairbrush is Zarion’s. His memories were imprinted on it. But how did Nyx’s memories get in there too?”
“I recognize the brush,” replied Nero. “Once, when Ronan and Zarion were at odds, Ronan stole it from him.”
“Why?”
Nero shrugged. “He knew it was somehow very important to Zarion, and he wanted to annoy him. It worked, especially when Zarion learned that Ronan had gifted the brush to Nyx.”
I laughed.
“Eventually, Nyx traded it back to Zarion in exchange for the Surefire Bow, another immortal artifact,” Nero said, then we stepped through the magic mirror.
We were the last to return to the gods’ hall. Zarion’s challenge had jolted new life into the thunderstorm raging there. And this time it was Zarion and his secret caught in the crossfire. Ronan and Nyx weren’t getting off easily either. The other gods were incensed that they’d hidden a demigod from them.
Nero drew me to the side of the room. “Let’s get some air.”
We ducked out of the gods’ audience chamber. No one even noticed.
“This is a mess,” I commented as we walked through the flower gardens outside. “I’m getting the feeling that this training isn’t about angels, at least not entirely.”
“It’s about the gods,” Nero agreed. “Someone is trying to expose their secrets.”
“But why? And who?”
“Someone is coming.” Nero’s arms folded around me, and he pulled us into a hidden garden.
“Where are Aleris’s glasses?” Faris’s voice demanded beyond the high hedge. “I still need them.”
“I have them,” replied Colonel Fireswift. “I took them from Major Pierce.” He spoke my name with utter disdain.
Faris picked up on that too. “I still need her too. Do not kill her, Colonel. Tempting as it may be.”
The God of Heaven’s Army sounded like he was speaking from personal experience. Well, Faris didn’t hide how he felt about me, how he only saw me as a tool to be manipulated—and later discarded when he was done with me. I’d imagine he thought I was too much trouble to keep around any longer than absolutely necessary.
“As you wish, my lord,” Colonel Fireswift said. “I will refrain from killing the street urchin.”
“Hold on to the glasses, Colonel. When you reach Maya’s item in the next challenge, you must be the one holding the glasses so you can reveal the memories stored there. Just as you exposed Zarion’s secret.”
I looked at Nero. So it seemed Faris had given Colonel Fireswift the task to use the glasses on Zarion’s hairbrush, to finally expose his brother’s secret. Back on the Black Plains, Faris had tried and failed to manipulate us into revealing Zarion’s son to the gods.
Obviously, he hadn’t given up. In fact, he’d only upped his game. First, Valora’s secret, now Zarion’s and next Maya’s. Faris had manipulated this whole training. He’d orchestrated the challenges to reveal the other gods’ secrets. That’s why we’d stolen Aleris’s glasses first. They had the power to expose memories from the gods’ other objects.
Faris was on a mission to divide and conquer the gods’ council, and I wasn’t sure there was anything we could do to stop him.
14
Everlasting
Faris and Colonel Fireswift left the lily garden, their voices fading as they walked away.
“Colonel Fireswift is such a hypocrite,” I said to Nero. “He had the nerve to lecture me for being at the center of chaos, when all along he was helping Faris air the other gods’ dirty laundry.”
“If Faris is manipulating the other gods, turning them against one another, we must be careful,” Nero replied. ‘He is very powerful. And right now, he is busily stacking the cards in his favor, while the other gods still haven’t even realized what the game is.”
My fists clenched. I might have fought dirty, but Faris fought immorally.
“We have to do something,” I said.
But what? Tell the other gods? That would lead to counterattacks. And then Faris would find out that Nero and I had exposed his plot. We’d be caught in the gods’ crossfire.
“We don’t know enough. We need to see where this is leading. Where Faris is taking this,” Nero said. “This isn’t just about exposing the gods’ secrets. He has another move in mind, something to take advantage of the unrest in the gods’ council. We need to watch Faris and Colonel Fireswift. They are your team. Keep them close. Figure out what they are planning.”
He started walking back to the gods’ hall. “I’ll go first. You wait a few moments before you follow. We don’t want anyone to think we’re conspiring together.”
Which we totally were. But, to be fair, so was everyone else.
I squeezed his hand. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
His fingers slipped through mine. I counted out a minute in my head after he’d entered the building, then I started down the path myself. I wasn’t even halfway there when Colonel Fireswift found me.
“Where have you been?” he de
manded.
Definitely not conspiring with the God of Heaven’s Army to expose the other gods’ secret. Unlike you.
“I was just getting some fresh air,” I said.
He looked around, like the trees would start talking and declare me a liar. When they did not oblige, he turned his hard glare on me, probably hoping to compel me into submission.
“Oh, look. I’m not the only one getting some fresh air.” I watched Nyx walk down a path parallel to ours.
Colonel Fireswift made a beeline for the First Angel, as though he’d been seeking her all along. Did this have to do with Faris’s plan? What more had he told Colonel Fireswift after they’d walked out of earshot?
“First Angel, I require a moment of your time,” he said, bowing before her.
“This is not a good idea, Colonel. They are watching.” Nyx looked around. The ‘they’ obviously meant the gods.
Colonel Fireswift was undeterred. “It’s about her.” He shot me a stern look.
Oh goody. This was going to be fun.
“You are not allowed to kill your teammate,” Nyx said.
“Everyone keeps telling him that,” I laughed.
Neither angel laughed with me. Instead they looked at me like I was nuts.
“I want her magic tested,” Colonel Fireswift continued. “The test results will indicate that she belongs in my division.”
Now that was a shock. He’d commented on my siren magic before, surprised that it was strong. I never expected he’d try to recruit me into the Interrogators.
“You can’t stand me,” I gasped, still in shock. “And yet you want me in your division?”
“Personal like or dislike has nothing to do with doing our job,” he said coolly. “You are a tool, Leda Pierce. And your siren magic is a tool—a tool I could make use of.” He bowed again to Nyx. “Give me a few months with her, First Angel, and I will turn her into a proper Interrogator.”
“And what if I don’t want to be an Interrogator?” I demanded.
“Your wishes are irrelevant.” He gave his hand a dismissive wave. “You left your freewill at the door the day you joined the Legion of Angels.” He looked at Nyx again.
“Her magic will be tested,” Nyx agreed. “But only after this train wreck masquerading as a training is behind us.”
Victory gleamed in Colonel Fireswift’s eyes, as though he’d already won this battle I didn’t even know I was fighting. For someone who hated me so much, he sure was eager to recruit me. Maybe he just liked the idea of torturing me, training me, stripping me of my freewill in an attempt to completely and totally break me.
Yes, I decided, he would enjoy breaking me, stripping me of my humanity so he could shape me into a weapon of his own design. That was his job, and he loved it. And now he wanted to turn me into that kind of person too. No. I wouldn’t let him.
“But I can’t guarantee she will end up in your division after the magic tests,” Nyx said to Colonel Fireswift. “General Spellsmiter has also asked for her.”
Wait, what? I hadn’t said two words to General Spellsmiter since the training had started. So why would he want to recruit me?
“She’s clearly siren magic dominant,” Colonel Fireswift argued. “That makes her mine.”
Siren-magic-dominant soldiers often went to the Interrogators; the more siren magic you had, the easier it was to compel someone to give up all the secrets they had no intention of giving up. But siren magic or not, I was not his. Not by a long shot.
“Based on her performance in the last challenge, General Spellsmiter claims she is vampire magic dominant,” said Nyx.
Was I? Sure, I’d handled the bloodlust all right, even sipping from the man with the Nectar blood. But that was because I was stubborn. I’d never demonstrated powerful vampire qualities, at least not any more than others had.
Except… Well, I had drunk from Nero about two seconds after the gods’ first gift of Vampire’s Kiss. If anything, that meant I had the vampires’ desires, their lust for blood. Ravenous hunger—wow, what an awesome power to have.
Colonel Fireswift scoffed at the suggestion that I belonged in General Spellsmiter’s division. “She does not have the constitution for an Elite Warrior.”
As leader of the Vanguard, General Spellsmiter commanded the strongest, fastest, most resilient fighters in the Legion. Even by Legion standards, the Elite Warriors were legends.
“He’s right,” I told Nyx. “I’m not an Elite Warrior. But I’m not an Interrogator either.”
“That is not for you to decide,” Nyx said sharply. “Nor for General Spellsmiter or you, Colonel Fireswift. We’ll run the magic tests after the training is over. Then I will decide where she goes.”
Nyx words were short and tight, like her patience was stretched thin. More than that, she sounded worried. And I had a good idea why. Faris was determined to blow open the gods’ secrets, and he’d already shown he was more than able to do so. Maybe Nyx didn’t know Faris was behind all of this, but she had to realize that someone was manipulating the challenges.
Her and Ronan’s involvement with Stash had already incurred the gods’ fury. Hiding and training him wasn’t their only secret. I knew of a few others, and I was sure there were many more I didn’t know about. As Faris had told me, after so many millennia, you accumulated quite a few skeletons in your closet.
Colonel Fireswift and I followed Nyx back to the gods’ audience chamber.
“Your lover and his old lover are missing,” Colonel Fireswift whispered to me as Nyx left us.
He said it like he wanted me to draw all sorts of conclusions. The wrong sort.
“Do you mind checking all the closets for me?” I said drily.
His brows drew together. “If you are to be an Interrogator, you need to be less trusting.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not going to be an Interrogator.”
“We shall see.”
I did my best to push away my worries. I ignored the image in my head of me as an Elite Warrior in the Vanguard, standing at the forefront of every bloody battle. I tried to forget the vision of me as an Interrogator, feared and hated, forced to hunt down and torture the people I loved.
And the magic tests. Those scared me even more. Would they reveal what I really was? At the very least, they would show I was not really a level seven soldier as I pretended to be—that the Nectar had neither killed me nor leveled me up. That discovery would lead to questions. And a jail cell. Or possibly the execution block.
Nyx was right. This was not the time to think about magic tests. I had to focus on the current crisis. That was life at the Legion in a nutshell: rushing to put out one fire after the other, never having a moment to breathe and prepare for the big fire you could see coming from a mile away.
Nero and Delta had just entered the room. They were talking, but my attempt to read their lips was thwarted by someone hissing at me.
I spun around to face Colonel Fireswift. “What did you say?”
“I said nothing.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion.
So it was just the voices in my head speaking to me. Great. I really didn’t need everyone to think I was going mad.
“Never mind,” I told him. “There are so many people in this room. I must have overheard someone else’s conversation.”
Or I really was crazy. No matter what I’d told Colonel Fireswift, no, I hadn’t overheard someone else. The hissed voice had come from his direction.
Someone screamed.
I zeroed in on Colonel Fireswift’s jacket. The scream had come from his pocket. I was sure of it.
Short, panted gasps followed. So Colonel Fireswift’s pocket was panicking now? This was getting weirder and weirder.
Heavy footsteps thumped against a hard ground. Cobbled. It sounded like a cobbled road. I blinked, and for one terrifying moment, I saw shadow soldiers all around me, closing in.
This was the nightmare I’d had two nights ago. Except I wasn’t sleeping anymore.
&n
bsp; That’s when it hit me. This wasn’t a nightmare. It was a memory, just like the ones stored inside Valora’s crown and Zarion’s hairbrush. And it was the glasses that had exposed those memories, the glasses that were currently tucked inside Faris’s pocket.
But what were the voices I was hearing now? Were the crown and hairbrush close enough for the glasses to be siphoning more memories from them? After all, Nero had the crown with him, and he’d just entered the hall.
But I’d had this nightmare before anyone had stolen any of the other artifacts.
“You look troubled.”
I turned around. Colonel Fireswift had gone off while I’d been contemplating my own sanity. It was the Everlasting telepath who now stood beside me.
“I’m fine,” I told him, smiling.
“No, you’re not.”
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Athan.”
“Well, Athan, I’m exhausted but otherwise fine.”
“It’s about the glasses.” He glanced at Colonel Fireswift across the room, the one who held the glasses.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I can read thoughts.”
I frowned. I’d thought I had been masking my thoughts well.
“You have,” Athan told me. “Your defenses are formidable. They are enough to keep the gods and angels from reading your thoughts, for as long as you remain focused. But my telepathic magic is not as diluted as theirs.”
So he could read everything inside my head? Like literally everything? Shit. I started humming inside my head, hoping to bury my secrets.
“I have no interest in your secrets, Leda Pierce,” the telepath chuckled. “And I won’t expose them.” He glanced at the gods sitting on their thrones. “I don’t answer to them.”
“And yet here you are in the gods’ hall.”
“I am merely paying back a debt. To that end, I was tasked to use my magic to find each god’s most prized possession. No more and no less.”
“Which god do you owe a favor? Is it Faris?” I asked him.
He merely smiled. Yeah, of course he wasn’t going to tell me anything.
Fairy’s Touch: Legion of Angels: Book 7 Page 13