The bird took off, and I fought sleep snuggled against her soft feathers and the warmth that radiated from her body.
Chapter 4
The lino screeched. I snapped open my eyes. The world spun as the lino tumbled, flapping her wings, trying to save her life by minimizing the impact on the way down. Nevaeh clutched the bird’s feathers, eyes wide, her expression one of terror. I stared back, pissed I couldn’t do anything about the fall because I had no fucking wings, and I’d have to expend my energy yet again.
“What’s going on?” Nevaeh shouted over the wind.
Someone had attacked my transport. In my territory. In my Court. “Hang on to her and don’t let go.”
“We’re going down,” the mortal said.
I didn’t deny it. We tumbled from terrible heights, and the lino landed hard, hurtling forward, throwing us off. We flew through the air, and I grabbed the girl at the last second and hit a rock, cracked the back of my skull. Blinking, chest heavy, I surveyed the girl sprawled on top of me, my vision darkening as the seconds passed. She lifted her head.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding.” She knelt beside me and started ripping the bottom of my pants with her teeth. I had no idea what she intended to do so I watched her while healing my cracked skull. Because I was distracted by the noise of flapping wings in the sky coming right at us, the repair took longer than usual. I reached out with my power and assessed the lino. A spear through the heart. We were lucky it didn’t pierce the body, or one of us would be dead. Not me. So it would be the mortal, which was not acceptable.
Finally, Nevaeh ripped a piece of cloth from my pants and started wiping my nosebleed, her gaze on the blood I presumed was pooling behind my head.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “Right?”
I smiled.
She kept wiping the blood pouring from my nose. A nosebleed was the least of my problems. Michael trained soldiers, but I trained the medical staff that made his soldiers tick and able to function. My mortals patched his mortals. My mortals fed his armies. Nevaeh had no idea what to do with me because Michael didn’t train medical staff. Besides the basic first aid, his soldiers relied on my Court for their medical needs, in the field, and off it.
I batted her hand away and sat up with a groan. My back hurt. The peeled skin exposed raw flesh. I did a quick patch-up of my body and some superficial skull work so I wouldn’t spill my brains out.
“Find the lino and yank the spear out,” I said.
“Yes, Commander.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t comment. The great thing about mortals from the Court of Command? They had an autoresponse setting. When they heard orders, they moved quickly to execute them.
Standing, I looked around. We landed a half day’s walk from Sunder City, inside the Forgotten Passage, that led to the Exile, a stretch of rough, mountainous terrain named that because it housed people exiled from my Court.
The lino squealed as the mortal yanked the spear out of her chest, and I began repairing the lino’s heart while scanning the skies. Lino anatomy, particularly their heart and lungs, proved extremely difficult to repair, and I had to stop listening for the incoming angels, all my attention focused on my transport. The lino was the best way out of here. Moving on foot would be a suicide mission for the mortal.
There. I’d fixed the lino’s heart.
Nevaeh returned to stand on my left. I started to repair the lino’s lungs.
“I hear them coming,” the mortal whispered.
Silently, I worked on the bird, patching the lungs as the heart pumped blood into the bird’s massive body. Vessels busted. Organs failing. Damn it. I moved on to patching the tiny vessel walls.
“We’re sitting ducks.”
“Quiet, mortal.”
She crouched with her stick poised. I wished I could scoop up the mortal and fly away. If I had wings, I could, but I didn’t, so ducks it was. Even ducks have wings.
Three angels broke cover and appeared before us in the battle armor of my Court, brown cotton with a purple collar. Archers. I knew them all. One aimed his arrow at the mortal, who kept waving her stick as if shooing flies.
If I stepped in front of the mortal, they’d find it odd and question it. It would give me away, and my enemies would use her against me, especially now that I was weakened.
The archer released the arrow. It hit the lino, and she screeched before she died. Still connected with her, I absorbed her pain, felt it as if my own heart had been ripped. I fisted my hands, then breathed through the pain, making sure I didn’t physically absorb her injury as well. Psychological pain resulting from her injury while I was connected with her could transform into an actual physical injury inside my body. And that was how amateurs suffered, why Michael rarely healed others, why many angels could only heal themselves, why the Court of Command preferred the healing baths.
A soft wind lifted the sand around me. I took hold of the wind, swirled it around the angels, and blocked their vision. Unlike Michael, I couldn’t do this forever, but even my primitive development in this power arena proved enough. Sand in the eyes would made an archer miss.
I grabbed the girl’s hand and tugged, but she stood firm.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“We can’t run.”
An arrow whistled, and I ducked. It flew over my head. The sandstorm provided cover, but not for long. We needed to move. Besides, this activity drained the healing reserves I’d have to spend on the mortal to keep her moving and alive. The angels lifted, circling above us, and I adjusted the sandstorm, expanding it. The bigger it was, the harder time I’d have controlling it. The mortal picked up a rock.
“What do you think to do with that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
I tugged again, thinking I’d have to force her to move and further expend energy.
“Soldiers don’t run.”
Michael and his nonsense. Let us reframe. “Soldiers run the best. The Court of Command soldiers, I hear, build up extraordinary endurance and run every morning before dawn. I think that’s a lie. I think the Court of Command soldiers have no endurance, certainly not the way mine do, since in the Court of Sunder, my energy helps them endure longer, faster, better.”
The mortal glared. “That’s not true.”
“Prove it.”
She took off like a rabbit, her feet pounding the sand so fast, I barely had time to keep the sandstorm thick above our old spot so the angels would think we stood in the same position. This would work for only a few minutes, but the mortal’s impressive speed should get us far enough.
I reached out with my senses and detected other mortal bodies not four miles from here. Many mortals, at least a hundred of them, so that was some sort of a dwelling. Perhaps they’d give us shelter. With no wings, I appeared mortal, after all. This thought enraged me, and my power pulsed toward the sky. One angel screamed and hit the ground. Two angels left, but if I hit them with my power, I’d have nothing left and would need to rest again. There was no time for rest. As Michael often said, evil never rested, and neither shall we.
I moved the sandstorm above us and all around us so they couldn’t see. Still, they shot arrows blindly. One might hit the mortal ahead of me. I hated this.
I hated not having wings.