CHAPTER22
Gavriel
Iraced through the skies of Sanctuary, searching, calling in my mind and out loud. Doors opened along the corridors as I passed, Guides and Protectors peering out.
“What happened?” a Guide shouted. I didn’t stop to answer. Only Mikhail had the ability to heal the type of wound I’d seen on the young Protector.
If it could be healed at all. But we had to try. Losing even one experienced Protector might tilt the balance in favor of the Abyss.
“Mikhail!”Mikhail, attend!
Gavriel? I’m… I’m with Arabella.His voice was weak, shaky. I flew to him, even faster, shaken by the shame I’d glimpsed in his thoughts. What could Mikhail have done to feel that way?
Perhaps the balance had already been shifted. There were too many strange events occurring, mysteries swirling, and most of them seemed to center around the new Novice.
I’d returned to Sanctuary exhausted, but intent on removing the smut I’d accumulated as quickly as possible—which meant with a blade—so I could return to Earth immediately. I knew better than to stay in this realm for long. I’d almost succumbed to despair the last time I’d seen Arabella. A thin thread of hope was all that tethered me to Sanctuary, in the same way Mikhail had only stayed on this side of the gate for duty.
And for our friendship.
I banked sharply toward Arabella’s door and ran the final few feet into the room. Mikhail stood before Arabella’s bed, but he held a bell over her head. “Is that the naming chime?” I whispered. He’d never taken it out of his workshop before.
He ignored me and spoke my mate’s name. “Arabella, Beautiful One.”
The chime rang loud and clear. Then he did it again. Then he walked across the room, held the chime over his own head and repeated…hername? Not his own. The bell didn’t ring, of course.
“Old friend, what are you doing?” He didn’t answer, though he said something, muttering as he stared at the bell in frustration. “We found blood in the workshop—did you take some sort of wound…?”
Before I could finish the question, Mikhail had rushed across the room and held the bell over my head. “Arabella, the Beautiful One.”
Then, with a glance at the door—to make certain it was closed, I assumed—he softly said my full, true name. “Gavriel Lightbearer, Leader of Sanctuary, Mate of Arabella, The Beautiful One.”
The chime rang out so loud, the walls shook. An answering tremor ran through the floors from the direction of the Great Gate.
“Mikhail, what are youdoing?”
“It works.” Mikhail frowned down at the chime. He seemed lost, vacant.
“Of course it does,” I said, gently plucking the chime from his hands. “Come with me, friend. You are not yourself. You are needed in the Maker Hall.” I had a sinking feeling Mikhail was in no fit state to help the Protector at all. He couldn’t fly, and the walk back to his workshop was a funeral march. We would lose Righteous, possibly already had. I steeled myself against the sharp pang of sorrow, and the crushing burden of knowing I had failed once again as leader of Sanctuary.
Shaking away my self-pity, I led Mikhail toward the workshop. I’d find food for my friend, and dispose of Righteous’s body… Maybe there would be enough of his soul energy left untainted to use it in Mikhail’s work. He would live forever in Mikhail’s creation, and be honored by his cohort.
At the entrance to the workshop, I stopped, unsure how much to explain to Mik in his current state. “There was an accident, Mikhail.”
“Ah, yes,” he muttered, “I cut myself on the soul knife. Stupid of me. It wasn’t deep. I’ll clean it later.”
I grasped his shoulder. “No, Mik. Not that. It was…” My throat tightened on Righteous’s name, and I swallowed hard. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of the remains.”
Mikhail went rigid, as if electrified. “Remains? Did something happen to Feather? Is she hurt?” His face paled, the small scars from his millennia of working with pure soul energy standing out in stark contrast, silver on deep bronze.
“Not her—” I tried to answer, but Mikhail was already through the door, across the room, and kneeling by a slumped pile of smut-covered cloth and filthy limbs. Righteous was nowhere to be seen. And the pile was far too small to be him anyway.
“Gavriel, what happened?” Mikhail was already lifting the unconscious woman in his arms and setting her on top of the table. Her toga was stained with smut and blood—her blood or someone else’s?—and her limbs were… I blinked. I had just seen her clean feet and hands only a few minutes before. But now, she was—
“She’s covered,” Mikhail rasped. He pushed back the sleeves of her overlarge toga to reveal upper arms that matched the rest of her that I could see, all of it thick with smut. I stepped closer and sniffed. She smelled of smut, Righteous, and another scent. One I recognized… but it couldn’t be.
Feather whimpered on the table. “Is that you, Rumple?”
“Who is Rumple?” Mikhail and I both asked the question at the same time.
