Becoming (35 page)

His expression murderous, Grolkinei ground
out, “Let me be certain I have this right. Of Saraqael’s daughters,
all of whom have enviable powers, the two that I could possibly
have any use for are probably dead?”

The silence in the room was as fragile as the
window glass. Angius and Ryce sat down at the same time, knowing
their lord was about to have another explosive fit.

It was going to be a long night.

Gabriel had forgotten that when more than one
Gloresti at a time felt a surge of protective energy, a mental
alert went out to all Gloresti. He also forgot that any significant
distress experienced by an elder of any class was felt by all of
the other elders. So it was with quite a bit of surprise and no
small amount of relief that he watched the remaining seven elders
hurry into the chamber even as Amber fell backwards into his arms,
unconscious.

“What has happened?” Jabari demanded,
hurrying to Gabriel’s side. His eyes shifted from Amber to Olivia
and James, his expression appalled and disbelieving.

“Skye is also injured,” Malukali announced
after she paused in the room for a moment. Her eyes glowed
brightly, indicating she was using her mental abilities. She lifted
her long, colorful skirt and ran for the dark tunnel leading out of
the room and the coliseum. Her dark green wings appeared as soon as
she was cleared for it.

Ini-herit and Knorbis knelt beside Jabari and
Gabriel and listened as Gabriel quickly related what had happened.
The expressions of the other elders darkened in concern with every
word.

Skye is down. Unconscious. Terrible head
wound. Broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder. She needs to be healed,
Ini-herit.

Malukali’s voice whispered through all of the
elder’s minds, including Gabriel’s. He nodded at Ini-herit, giving
the other elder his agreement for him to leave. Gabriel planned to
help Amber’s healing speed along, and it sounded like Skye’s
injuries were pretty severe. Within the span of a heartbeat,
Ini-herit stood, turned, and ran from the chamber, his silver wings
glistening into existence as soon as he entered the tunnel.

“Amber is bleeding freely,” Jabari said with
a concerned frown.

“I know. I’m going to help her.” Pausing,
Gabriel glanced up and caught the gazes of the other elders in the
room. “This was what we did on the human plane to promote her
healing, just so you know.”

Jabari responded for them all with an
understanding nod.

Gabriel leaned down and pressed his lips
gently to Amber’s. He waited for the strong healing connection to
make itself known, as it had done when she had been attacked by the
wolves. But her lips were cold and unresponsive. His brow drew
together as he tried to deepen the kiss. She remained still and
unmoving, his touch not appearing to make any difference at
all.

“I don’t…” he trailed off, pulling back a few
inches from Amber and looking at her beautiful, lifeless face with
confusion and a deep, spreading alarm.

“She is barely breathing,” Jabari said
quietly. “What manner of blade was used against her?”

His throat tightening with fear as he
processed Jabari’s observation and question, Gabriel responded, “I
have no idea. I wasn’t—I wasn’t here.” He suddenly pulled Amber
against him in a fierce hug, as though he could press some of his
vitality into her just by being close to her. Realization slowly
began to penetrate as he listened to her heartbeat slow one
laborious beat at a time. “Amber!”

“Gabriel—” Jabari began.

“No!” he shouted.

He heard the terror in his own voice. But he
refused to hear what he knew the other elder was going to say.
No. Oh, God, no. Please.
He couldn’t bear anything other
than the thought that Amber would be okay.

“We cannot help her if we do not know what
caused these injuries, Gabriel,” Knorbis said, his voice
subdued.

And then a soft voice whispered, “Black.”

They all turned and looked at Olivia, who was
now sitting, propped up by James’ arms. She studied them with clear
green eyes and then looked at Amber. Those lovely eyes filled. “The
Mercesti’s blade was black.”

Jabari and Knorbis closed their eyes and
bowed their heads, making Gabriel’s heart seize like a ball of ice
in his chest.

Fighting the urge to close his own eyes to
brace himself, he pushed past his panic and asked, “What?” He was
involuntarily running his hands up and down Amber’s cold arms as
though he could rub feeling into them. When her head lolled loosely
to the side, he switched his hold to cradle her, inadvertently
breathing in her familiar sunshine and spiced honey scent. He
swallowed hard against the impact her scent had on his fragile
grasp on his feelings. “What does that mean? A black blade?”

“Only one Mercesti carries a black blade,”
James responded, his voice even more solemn than usual. He
exchanged glances with the elders. “Angius, the strongest of all of
Grolkinei’s commanders. It is said that his blade was cursed by the
darkest of all of Hell’s demons when it was forged.”

When Gabriel continued to look blank and
desperate for a clear explanation, Jabari reached out and covered
his hands with his own.

“Amber has been struck by a cursed blade,” he
explained softly. “Gabriel, I am so sorry. Such an injury defies
our ability to heal. This is something no Estilorian can
survive.”

Something no Estilorian can survive.

Jabari’s words echoed in Gabriel’s mind. They
became a sort of mantra. After all, he reasoned, Amber was not full
Estilorian.

But he knew.

Skye had been healed enough by Ini-herit to
walk back into the chamber of her own volition. Blood covered half
of her face and she had a hideous bruise along her right side, but
she didn’t seem to notice. She stood to the side of the chamber
with her arms around Olivia, who was equally covered in dried blood
and was now also on her feet. Aurora and their Gloresti stood
beside them. Their eyes were all centered on Amber’s still
form.

When all of the elders were again together
and pulled Gabriel into a circle of power, leaving Amber lying
alone on the hard ground in the middle of them, he didn’t resist.
He knelt, called forth his wings, touched them to the wings of the
elders kneeling beside him and allowed their power to circle and
flow through and around him. He even did what he could to
contribute to that power.

But he knew.

Because their powers were stronger when
positive energy was the focus, he buried his fears and deepest
emotions to avoid distracting the others. If Amber was to have any
chance, she needed their power at its greatest strength. So he
repeated Jabari’s words in his mind, praying that somehow, Amber’s
human blood would make her immune or at least resistant to the
deadly effect of the cursed blade.

But the moment Jabari had issued those
damning words, Gabriel had mined his own memories in search of
information about the Mercesti weapon.

And he knew.

He knew Amber was right now in a dark void,
feeling no pain. Her soul was somewhere deep inside of herself,
shunning the awful effects of the unholy marks on her body. The
evil staining her blood would spread, however. Slowly and
inevitably. And she wouldn’t be without pain for much longer. Soon,
it would be all she experienced. Until finally—and, by then,
mercifully—it would kill her.

And because she was his avowed, it would kill
him, too. Such was the nature of their connection. But that wasn’t
a concern to him. No. He would suffer far worse than the mere act
of dying over the next interminable span of time, simply because he
would have to sit and watch as she died.

Yes, they would watch, and they would do what
they could with their power and their energy to counteract the
effects of the injuries. Gabriel prayed with everything human and
Estilorian in him that it would be enough. He tried to send
thoughts to Amber, tried to reach her mind. But it was as though
she was no longer there. Even when they had been apart before the
ceremony, he had at least sensed her. He had sensed that they would
soon be together again. Now, nothing.

And he knew.

He sat in self-enforced numbness, willing the
others around him to help him generate enough power to save her.
His hands were clenched in front of him like he knelt in prayer,
which was exactly what he was doing. He watched Amber’s still form
for any sign of life as the formidable power of the elders circled
and built. He listened for her with his mind with an equal
intensity.

And then the pain began.

Physically, Gabriel felt none of it. But he
would bear witness to its vicious brutality. Her body writhed.
Inhuman noises—the sounds of the tortured—issued from her throat.
Her fingers and her heels dug into the hard ground beneath her for
purchase. Her wounds no longer bled red, but black. When she opened
her once-beautiful golden eyes, they were also entirely black. But
the tears that spilled from those eyes were clear.

Gabriel sat as his avowed lay dying by cruel
inches. He felt the will of the other elders focusing on keeping
him in place so they could continue to try and help her. Then,
because he was on the left side of her body, he saw her ring catch
the light.

And it shattered him.

Before he could project the thought and thus
prompt someone to stop him, he retracted his wings and scrambled
desperately over to her on his hands and knees. He lifted her and
clung to her. And simply allowed himself to feel.

“Oh, God—Amber!” his voice broke.

When she bucked and screamed, he tried to
soothe her, even as sobs shook him. The agony he sensed in her
became his own, an uncontrollable anguish that pierced his heart
and soul. And when that pain then crashed through the group of
elders, the sensation was so intense that there were audible gasps
and soft cries.

He would have done anything to stop her from
experiencing one more second of the pain. Every one of her screams
ripped through him. She clawed and fought, but he refused to let
her go.

Because the circle had already been broken,
Skye and Olivia hurried closer. Skye took Amber’s right hand in her
own, unconcerned that Amber’s grip could break the bones in her
hand. Olivia did what she could to hold Amber’s legs steady. The
sisters wept along with Gabriel. His ravaged grief was unbearable
to witness.

When one of Skye’s tears slid down her
bloodstained cheek and dropped heedlessly onto the oozing black
wound marring the hand she clung to, there was a flare of light
when the tear touched Amber’s flayed skin.

Gabriel saw it. He caught Skye’s baffled
gaze. He also realized that Amber’s thrashing had paused for a
notable instant before resuming.

He was afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.
Afraid to hope.

Olivia, however, could never let a puzzle go
unsolved. She blinked back her own tears and then leaned forward to
catch one of Skye’s glistening tears on her fingertip. She held it
over Amber’s wound and let it drip.

Nothing happened.

But when she moved to sit back and a tear
that had traveled along her cheek and through the blood covering
her chin plopped onto Amber’s injured thigh, another pop of light
flared.

He understood. Frantically glancing around,
he spotted Olivia’s arrows scattered on the ground. Grabbing the
closest one, he paused to gather one of his own tears on his left
ring finger, then used the fine arrow tip to pierce the skin. Then
he touched the combined fluids to Amber’s hip. Brilliant light
flared. Amber moaned rather than screamed when the next wave of
cursed pain hit her.

Even as Skye and Olivia caught on and
silently leaned over so their bloody tears would touch Amber’s
injuries, the chamber filled with the sound of weapons leaving
their sheaths. Shocked by the sound, Gabriel glanced around in
confusion. Only then did he realize that every one of the elders
was weeping. Even the unemotional Ini-herit.

Gabriel’s overwhelming grief had affected
them all.

They came forward, slicing fingers and palms,
mixing their blood with their tears and then touching Amber where
the cuts had been made. The chamber filled with flashes of
light.

Eventually, Amber’s thrashing ceased. She
stopped crying out. Her face eased into peaceful lines. Before she
closed her eyes and eased into a more natural state of
unconsciousness, her irises had once again turned gold. Her wounds
closed, appearing as nothing more than thin, red lines where the
cursed blade had broken her skin.

She would be scarred forever…but they
believed she would live.

“We have all done what we can,” Jabari said
solemnly. “The rest of this fight is hers alone.”

Amber slept. When she opened her eyes, her
brain felt thick. Feverish. She couldn’t seem to hold onto a solid
thought. Gabriel sat beside her. Wherever it was she was lying.

Catching his gaze, she said the first thing
that came into her hazed mind. “Are we married?”

His lips twitched. He put something cold and
wet against her forehead and she wanted to protest, but it was
surprisingly soothing. “As married as Estilorians get.” A concerned
expression crossed his features as he brushed his hand over her
cheek. “Is that okay with you?”

Her tongue didn’t want to cooperate, but she
managed to reply simply, “Sure. I love you.”

Then she closed her eyes to clear her vision
with a slow blink because she was seeing two of him. When she
reopened them, he was clearer. And dressed in a different outfit.
He looked more like the human Gabriel in a white T-shirt and blue
shorts. Her brain still felt wrapped in Kleenex.

“Weird wedding, though,” she said, continuing
their conversation.