Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series) (16 page)

I groaned and pulled my lips away, but still I wanted to move my entire self inside her, to fit the pieces of my existence to her hollows and corners until we were inseparable—a shining alloy that could resist all force.
Let all else fade, and still this will gleam,
my heart told me.
You can be here. Exist only in her, where her serenity, her surety might heal you.

Arousal ached through my limbs, but it was more than raw desire. I was a well that wanted filling, but a fountain to fill her also. Full and empty. I wanted to pour into her whatever was still true and good and holy within me. Could there be goodness in me, if I did?

I stirred against her, wrestling with my conscience but longing to turn centuries of loneliness into something bright and bursting, something that bit and hurt and gentled and soothed—that glowed without burning. At the thought, the nest seemed to buzz with light so intense that I put my hand up to shield my eyes. Only then did I see that it was coming from me.

It was such a wonder to me, this new and sudden luminance, that I laughed wildly in her ear, embarrassed by my body’s revelation of desire.

Skylar, her curves turned to pure silver in my body’s glow, lay still and trembling. Silent. Her tears, leaking on my enclosing arms, warned me to be silent too.

Only when the light had faded from me and her tears had dried did she take the hand that stroked her hair and entwine it in her own. She brought both hands, hers and mine, to her neck to clasp the softness of the silver-tipped feather.

“Sleep. I am tired.”

I kissed the silver crown of her hair, folded my wings around her, and slept.

I
awoke to sunset. A fragile light, the mauve of sleep, filled the Eyrie, and despite Skylar’s stillness, I knew she was awake. I knew it by the regular rhythm of her breath, by the canto of her heart keeping pace with my own. Reluctant to move my lips from her hair, I said nothing, as if stillness and silence might make all but the nest fade from existence.

As soon as I had hoped it, guilt destroyed it.

I turned and rolled away. Feeling my nakedness too keenly, and hers, I let shame lead me towards the pool.

The night had left me fragile. Radiance had stripped away something heavy inside me, something that tethered me to the Earth. A moment of guilt made me think it was Sabine—the weight of her stone sliding from my heart—and I put my head in my hands.

"If it is a burden, then do not carry it.”
The thought jolted me fully awake, for it was not Skylar’s, nor did I think it was mine. There was no growl in the words, only the softest mewling hurt, but I took them to be Sabine’s own, resounding in my mind.

With a sigh, I sank down into the water, dropping down like a stone to that breathless place. When all air had left me and I felt again as I had on that terrible day, trapped in the vault of the ocean, choking with pain and guilt, I resurfaced, blue with hypoxia.

Skylar lay on the pool’s edge, trailing one hand in the water, her eyes on the carved ceiling. She had robed and combed the halo of hair into a pale slick at her neck. She turned her head. Something in her face said she might have joined me—if the pool were not already full of memories.

I ducked under again, and when I arose, shook my head wildly like a dog to shift my mood. Droplets sprayed the room, scattering the fireflies, which buzzed angrily, and wetting her robe. Still she was pensive.

“Skylar.” I kept my eyes on the widening, shining ripples of the pool. “That light?”

“Do not ask me, Ame.” Her eyes rested on me again for just a moment before she looked away. “You know yourself what it was.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Your heart knows. Ask it.”

“My heart ... has its own questions.”

“You are the ruler of it, Amedeo. Ask yourself.”

T
he moon sailed high by the time we left the Eyrie and headed through the glade. Few Cruxim were out, so the paths were our own. I wondered where she was taking me, until she said, “Tonight, you shall read the
Cruximus
for the first time.”

I stopped. Moonbeams filtered through the firs like gleaming sprites.

“Perhaps it will answer some of your questions. I asked Shintaro to have it brought to the Council Hall, from Cascadia.”

Her tone grew flippant, as if she was trying to shake off the weight I had lost. “Perhaps reading it will make you think it more than just a book.”

I stared. The pale lips of snow lilies seemed to tremble as a cloud passed over the moon. I could not speak; nerves chilled my soul.

“The riddle?” I managed, finally.

She shook her head, eyes serious as a storm. “First, more history.” Her tone softened. “We must make a proper Cruxim of you.”

“Proper Cruxim.
” I wondered what she meant by it. Had I been acting improperly? Was that why they mistrusted me?

I recalled the way she had slid out of her dress the night before, the defiance in her eyes, and my thoughts themselves grew improper. I had a sudden urge to kiss the seriousness from her drawn, tender mouth.

She stepped into a pool of pale moonshine in our path and turned. The gleam caught the slick of her saliva as her tongue wet her lips. “There is something else I want you to read tonight.”

The hall loomed up before us, a dark shape crouched on the hilltop.

“Something that might be hard for you to learn.”

“Anything I can learn of Cruximkind is a beginning,” I said.

She did not speak again as we strode up the slate path to the door of the hall.

Two female Cruxim, hooded and wearing long white robes, met us at the door. They looked young, as all Cruxim did.

“Sibylim,” Skylar whispered. She nodded towards the table on the dais, where the leather-bound
Cruximus
sat. “Do not fear them eavesdropping. They are of the Silent Sisters. Since fledging they have kept a vow of silence, and they are deaf. They cannot hear, but take care to mask your thoughts. It was not always so, but now Silent Sisters attend in matters of secrecy.”

“What secrets can the
Cruximus
keep if you learned it all as children?”

Skylar pulled a chair out for me at the table, in front of the book.

“Not all of it.” She glanced at the Silent Sisters at the door.

They were not watching.

Reaching into her shift, she produced a yellowed wad of parchment and placed on the table. She flipped open the
Cruximus
, seeking out a page near the back.

“Read.” She set it before me, tapping a point on the page. “About the Crux.”

I glanced at her, struck by the sternness of her voice and features. Something was troubling her. Then I began to read:

“The Maker said unto the assembled Cruxim he had created, who ruffled their gleaming wings wide in wonder, ‘The Crux I have laid upon you will be difficult to bear, as difficult to bear as the babe shall be in the womb, and as its birthing shall be upon the bed of its mother. So, too, will it be your greatest sacrifice and your greatest strength. Such is the love of the mother and of the father that with gladness would either rush to spare the death of their children.

‘So, too, have I given of myself and of my breath to create you, Cruxim. That never will there be a Cruxim parent unprepared to give of themselves wholly for their child, like swans, you will be blessed with a lifelong love—a love that endures beyond the lives of men. Some among you, Cruxim, may forgo the love of another to know only the promise of my love, to give yourself over to me and to Mother Nature and her mysteries. To them alone the winds shall whisper the truths of the universe. They shall hear too, the songs of love, and they shall know, as I know, which hearts are true. These they shall bring together and bind, until a greater love, as strong as my own, divides them. Just as the Swan forever calls for its lost mate, so too will Cruxim be loyal to each other in life and in death; and just as the firefly illuminates the night with its passion, so too will Cruxim know their hearts by the radiance that envelops them. And so it will be known to all that no Cruxim will ever be alone, as those who wrong them are alone.’”

I closed the book with a snap and dropped it back on the table. It made a dull
thunk
against the dark wood.

“Never alone.” It was a lie. I had spent my life alone. Yet I remembered the luminous betrayal of my body as my wings curled around Skylar, the feeling of peace and fullness that had held my heart, and I wondered.

I tapped the book. “This that you have shown me, it is the Swan?”

“No.” She swallowed and thrust the parchment toward me. “This is what is known as the Swan.” 

I let my glance sweep over the yellowed paper but did not take it. “Kisana told me there is only one
Cruximus
and the Swan at the back of it.”

“Your sister spoke truthfully.” Small pearls of sweat beaded Skylar’s alabaster brow. “There is only one copy of the
Cruximus
.” She looked away from me again, to the Silent Sisters. “Your sister is not a Messenger. Nor was she ever a Sibyl. Some parts ...” She hesitated, glancing at the door again. When she turned her eyes to me again, they were bright but wary. The parchment rustled in her shaking hands. “Some parts were tampered with after your mother broke her vow. This is the section the Council wanted to burn following your mother’s exile. Most of her oracles were erased, ruined. This alone was saved by Eresia and hidden. When I found it, as a novice Sibyl, I found a past I had not known of but wanted to know.” With one finger, she pushed it over the table toward me. “This is why I came looking for you, Amedeo.”

“It all comes back to my mother.” I felt my nostrils flare. Was she a betrayer? All I remembered was her gentleness, the serenity that had filled her being, just as it flowed from Skylar.

Skylar looked down and smoothed the cover of the
Cruximus
under her hand.

“My mother cannot be the only one. In all these centuries, surely another has changed their mind about entering the Sibylim, apart from you?”

Skylar tilted her head. “I had not yet made a vow when I found this,” she explained, her index finger on the parchment. “But you are right. Your mother was not the only vow breaker to come from Silvenhall, nor from other Crèches.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Then there are other exiles, too, Cruxim like me who have not known the shelter of a Crèche?”

Skylar stared at me for a moment, her lips parted, but then shook her head and returned her eyes to the parchment.

I half-expected even the Silent Sisters to turn at the sound of my fist slamming on the table.

“Except Jania,” Skylar whispered.

“But she is a Proxim!”

“Yes, of Milandor—a new Crèche, though powerful. She was not the only one who went against the Swan’s prophecies, but she was exiled. Many more have clipped the Swan’s wings, have joined Milandor or taken lovers other than those the Swan had sung for them.” She lowered her voice again. “And some have even falsified it.”

“Name them!”

“Daneo and Jiordano,” she whispered, and then paused as if she might say more, but she did not.

“Jiordano?” I seized on the name. My sister’s father.

Skylar nodded again.

“Jania was Jiordano’s intended; she had been since before her birth. She was much younger than him, of course, and he grew impatient. When her time came, she clipped the wings of the Swan and joined the Sibylim. She was my mentor when I began to train as a novice. I loved her, as she loved me, but somehow, she came to ... love me differently.”

“To desire you.”

She nodded. “Sometimes it happens in the Sibylim, but I could not return her love. When I found this parchment ... I brought it to Jania before I abandoned the Sibylim and Cascadia forever. She was my confidante, my closest friend. Together, we took it to Samea, who told us to forget it, that it was nothing.

“Calira’s prophecies were lies, she said, like her word. But it was not easy for me to forget. I began to pry, to inquire as to Calira’s other prophecies, and to expose frauds within the sisterhood.

“The Council demanded discretion from the Sibylim. A new lore was imposed to silence the sisters. After training, on initiation, a sister’s eardrums were pierced. Only one among each chapter was left to listen and perform the public rites. The Sibylim were confined to Cascadia then too and even prevented from making the journey to the oracle at Delphi. Jania had already made her vow, and she refused to be silenced. Instead, she left the Sibylim. Jiordano was furious.”

“What of your betrothed when you left? He must have raged too.”

Skylar shrugged. “I had none. I was told that he had died at birth.” 

I sniffed skeptically. “How could that be? His father would die at his birth, not he.”

“I did not say it was the truth, only that it was what I was told.” She continued. “Your mother and Jania were both great beauties. But it was not their decision to join the Sibylim that turned the Crèches against them. The Sibylim is sacrosanct. It is considered an honor if one’s intended gives herself to the Maker—that is, as long as a Sibyl remains holy and chaste. When your mother broke her vow and gave herself to your father...” She paused again and let out a great sigh. “Many called for her blood. The Council was worried other Sibylim might follow her, so they exiled her, and you in her womb, and confined the Sibylim to Cascadia.