"What happened?"

Mirk only found the courage to prompt K'aekniv once he’d been waiting in silence for minutes. They were in a patient room up on the fifth floor, standing vigil on either side of the bed K'aekniv had dropped Genesis's lifeless body on. Mirk had done all the little things he could think of to make Genesis more comfortable — he’d loosened the laces of his boots, carefully cut away the sleeves of his shirt at the elbows, wiped most of the blood off his hands with a rag from the room's washbasin. It hadn't made Mirk feel any better.

After a few fitful starts and stops, K'aekniv finally spat out something. "It's his Destroyer shit," he said, waving a dismissive hand at Genesis's motionless body before looking away from the commander, turning to face the room's tall, narrow window that overlooked the parade grounds. The oppressive feeling of mingled frustration and resignation radiating off K'aekniv's restless mind was giving Mirk a headache. Mirk didn't have either the strength or the will to shield his mind from it.

"Methinks you'll have to explain a little more, Niv."

Anger rose up in K'aekniv, white-hot and impatient. Mirk did his best not to wince. "He's told you nothing? The bindings? Gaebriel?"

"Nothing," Mirk said, looking down at the mess that'd been made of Genesis's forearms. He reached down to touch the one nearest his side of the bed, searching for a pulse on Genesis’s wrist amidst the gore. He couldn't find one. "Is that what these cuts are? A...binding spell? I don't know anything about that..."

K'aekniv didn't respond. Giving up on Genesis's arm, Mirk felt for his pulse on the side of his neck instead, mindful of the oozing ring of blisters that marred it. His heartbeat was slow, weak, but not dangerously so. Mirk was relieved to feel Genesis draw a shallow breath just before he pulled his hand away.

Lost on what else to do while K’aekniv stewed, Mirk returned to fussing with the wounds on Genesis’s arm. Mirk didn't even know where to start with them; there was so little skin left among all the cuts that Mirk didn't think he could place any stitches to help close them. He'd have to use magic. And he was too tired for it then. Mirk settled for picking bits of lint out of the wounds that'd been left behind by the bandages Genesis had been hiding them with.

The weight of K’aekniv’s emotions was quickly becoming unbearable. "Please, Niv," Mirk said. "I need to know what’s going on if I'm going to help you. And you know how he is..."

Mirk looked up from Genesis's arm. K'aekniv had turned back toward the bed, his expression torn. Cursing, K'aekniv waved Mirk off as dragged the room's chair over beside the bed. "I hate this bastard," K'aekniv muttered under his breath.

K'aekniv's emotions said otherwise. Concern was plain to be felt there, taking the edge off his frustration. Mirk's heart ached for him almost as much as it did for Genesis. But Mirk knew it wouldn't be diplomatic to mention either fact. He sat down on the edge of the bed as K'aekniv thunked down onto the chair on its other side. K’aekniv ignored the alarming crack it gave, swinging his legs up and propping them on the end of the bed as he leaned back and knit his hands behind his head, searching for where to begin.

The least he could do was give K'aekniv a place to start. "Every time I asked him what the cuts were, he told me they were...what was it...irrelevant?"

Sparks jumped off K’aekniv’s right arm with the force of his frustration. Thankfully, the chair didn’t catch. "He would! Someone tries to help him, and all he does is spit in his face."

"But you know where they came from, don't you?"

"Only because I made him tell me," K'aekniv replied. "I almost killed him when he...he went off. Once."

"Went off?"

"Off! Like now." K'aekniv gave Genesis's legs a pointed jab with the heel of his boot. "Always some shit with you..."

"Methinks I don't understand, Niv."

"He told me that when he was a boy, some demon took care of him. Another Destroyer."

Mirk nodded. "I know about those, now...sort of...mages who take things apart?"

"I don't fucking know," K'aekniv grumbled. "He has to kill things or he goes all weird, that's all I know. Anyway. Some demon took care of him. What was the name...ken...nacky...whatever, some demon. Not one of the flower ones from the Moonlit Land. Some old demon from some other place. He stole Snegurochka from the angels and his mama and taught him all his stupid cleaning things and his click clack language. And about what the Empire does to make people do what they want."

Part of Mirk felt better hearing K'aekniv call Genesis by the odd nickname he'd always used for the commander. More of him felt worried by the mention of the Empire of Heaven. He'd always thought he'd have nothing to do with the Empire now that his father was gone, his godfather aside. Yet, ever since Madame Beaumont's ball, Mirk had felt the weight of it bearing down on him, making him regret that he'd paid so little attention to all the things his father and his guard spoke of.

"What happened to him? The demon?" Mirk asked.

"Imanael killed him. Or maybe not killed. Maybe he just made him go away. Either way, Imanael beat him. Once he had Snegurochka alone, he made that bitch Gaebriel put those things on his arms," K'aekniv said, jerking his chin at the wounds covering Genesis’s forearms.

His arms. Mirk's eyes were continually drawn back to them, to the problem of what to do with them. He didn't have the strength to heal them with magic, but if he was patient and went slowly, he might be able to mix a flesh regeneration potion that could help. Unless he somehow regenerated some more skin between the cuts, he’d never be able to put in any stitches that would take. "What do they do? The cuts?"

"It's like...like one of those chains. You know, like on a dog. When he does something his master doesn't like, the chains bite him. When he tries to kill the wrong thing or do the wrong magic, they make him bleed. Or if he won't kill something his master wants gone, the chains bite him until he does. They make him crazy. You saw," K'aekniv said, meeting his eyes across the bed.

Mirk nodded slowly in response, willing himself not to grimace at the force of the hurt K'aekniv was doing his best to hide underneath his frustration. "That's awful," he whispered.

"And they don't even work! Not all the time. If they worked all the time, he'd have killed all of us a long time ago. His magic is made for breaking things. It's stupid to put a chain on that."

He didn't know what to think of K'aekniv's claims that Genesis would kill them, not now, and not right after the commander had gone distant and wrong. The Genesis Mirk knew was always so deliberate, so careful, so controlled. Mirk thought of all the times he'd sparred with Genesis, all the false strikes he'd rained on him, taps to the neck and chest and side that were always so light that Mirk barely felt them. How could Genesis do that one day and try to claw K'aekniv's neck out the next? Had Mirk been inches from disaster the whole while, one slip of Genesis's immaculate control away from death? "I didn't know," Mirk finally said. "He never said anything..."

"Of course!" K'aekniv said, rolling his eyes. "He hates this. So he won't talk about it. Asking for help, that would just make him someone else's dog. That's what he thinks, anyway. These chains make him crazy. They make him someone he wants no one else to see. So he tries to fight them alone. And he always loses, just like the rest of us."

Mirk couldn't hold himself back any longer. He settled the fingertips of both hands along one of the deep cuts near Genesis's elbow, calling to his healing potential and opening his mind to the shifting not-patterns of Genesis's body and magic. The usual hissing of his shadows was subdued, distant. The spell Genesis had put on the young angel must have drained him of most of his potential. And though Mirk listened hard, tried to feel for a magic other than Genesis's own lurking in the depths of his body, there was none. There was nothing but Genesis on the bed, his presence cold and distant. At least right then. "That's not fair," Mirk mumbled to himself.

K'aekniv laughed. It was a bitter, tired sound. "Fair? No one wants to be fair. Everyone wants to win, and that's it."

"He doesn't deserve this."

"Doesn't matter. It is what it is. And what are we supposed to do, huh? If he can't fix them, how is an idiot like me supposed to? And even though you're smart, your magic isn't right for it. This isn't the kind of sick you can fix."

Though Mirk wanted to protest, he knew that arguing wouldn't do him any good. Not with K'aekniv, who had been carrying the burden of Genesis's past alongside the commander for years. And not with Genesis's lifeless body between them, a testament to how powerless all three of them were. Something in Mirk rebelled against that powerlessness. He tugged hard on the life-giving potential within himself and pressed it into the cut his fingers were poised on, fitting it seamlessly into the shifting patterns of Genesis's magic that, much like the runes cut into his arms, he'd memorized but still didn't understand. Not all of his healing magic made it through. It never did. But Genesis's body accepted just enough to close the wound, though an angry, raised purple scar remained.

Mirk heard K'aekniv sigh. "Ah, Mirk. You care too much about this bastard."

Despite himself, Mirk laughed. Just a little. "And you don't care at all?"

"It's not the same! At least I get to beat him for being stupid. You, all you get to do is try to fix him. And there's no fixing stupid. I should know."

"God gives each of us a different purpose," Mirk said, shrugging. "And you're not stupid, Niv."

That got K'aekniv to laugh again. That time, the sound was more genuine. "See! You're too good for us."

Mirk moved his fingers to another one of the cuts. But when he tried to draw on his magic, it burned. He was too weak. Too close to draining the core of his own life energy to help. "I'm no better than anyone else," Mirk said, as he let his hands fall limply to his sides.

"Anyway, now you know," K'aekniv continued. "As much as I do, but I'm sure that's not the whole story. He never tells anyone a whole story."

After thinking for a moment, Mirk looked back across the bed at K'aekniv. The half-angel was staring down at Genesis, more pensive than Mirk thought he'd ever seen him before. "One more thing, though..."

K'aekniv shrugged his wings. "What? That's it. I said, that's all I know."

Mirk's eyes lingered on his wings, their disordered and tarnished feathers. He knew how things worked when angels and other peoples had children. The angelic line had to be strong for their offspring to have wings. "It's...when Gen was...off, he called me by my father's name."

"So?"

"He called you Gaebriel."

K'aekniv's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing. "What do you think, huh?"

"I don't mean to pry. I just...is that your...?"

Snorting, K'aekniv leaned back further in his chair, staring up at the ceiling and flexing his wings. "If I get the chance? I'm killing that bastard. Him and all his angels. So what if some bastard gave me half his blood? Doesn't matter. My father, he's already dead. His name was Sergei Ilyich. And so, my name is K'aekniv Sergeivich. That's how it is."

Mirk didn't understand, not truly, but he nodded all the same. "What was he like?"

"Father Sergei? He was a good man. A little weird, and he liked to drink and fuck around, but he knew a lot. Not book-learning, real things. How to talk to spirits, how to make the best samogon, that kind of thing. Things you use."

As K'aekniv spoke, some of the anger faded from his emotions, replaced with a warmth that reminded Mirk of the song K'aekniv always thought of in his projections. Mirk smiled, reaching across the bed and patting K'aekniv on the knee. "Methinks you take after him more than any angel I've ever met, Niv."

"Of course! Those bastards didn't teach me anything. Everything good I learned, I learned from Father Sergei. The only thing that bastard Gaebriel gave me were these fucking wings that get in the way of everything," K'aekniv said, flicking them, casting an annoyed glance over his shoulder. "And everyone knows that angels are hard to kill, so I got that too, I guess. Too bad for them I'm using it to kill them instead of doing what they say."

"Who is Gaebriel? And Imanael? I've heard their names, but I don't really know..."

K'aekniv shrugged. "Some bastards. Who cares what they're doing up in Heaven? All I want to know is how to kill them. If you want to know all the rest of the shit, you'd have to ask him." K'aekniv flashed Mirk a humorless grin. "Good luck beating it out of him. I couldn't. Maybe being nice will work better."

It hadn't thus far. But Mirk felt like he had to at least give Genesis a chance. That and he suspected Aker wouldn't be able to help him much, judging by the letter the injured boy's sister had shoved at the other healers before locking herself in a room down the hall from where they'd brought Genesis. The letter hadn't been clear on how Aker was involved in the two young angels' arrival. Mirk suspected that if Imanael was as powerful as he seemed, helping the two children escape had cost his godfather dearly. "I suppose we'll find out when Gen wakes up," Mirk said.

Stretching out his wings and rocking further back in the chair, K'aekniv let out a deep, world-weary sigh. The chair groaned and creaked under his weight. "Whatever. Today is the day everyone's secrets get told. Genesis, he's crazy. Me, I have a bastard who gave me half my blood. So what's your secret, eh? Make things fair, since you like that so much,."

K'aekniv was smiling at him. Joking. Still, a cold wave of fear washed over Mirk. Hugging himself to steady his nerves, Mirk managed to cough up a weak laugh. "Methinks I don't have any worth knowing, Niv. But you can ask me anything you'd like, if it'd make you feel better."

The half-angel's expression went alarmingly pensive as he squinted across the bed at Mirk. Instinctively, Mirk began to pray again. Holy Mary, mother of God, not now, not now—

"What do you think about all of this shit, huh?"

Mirk shook his head, blinking hard. "About what?"

"I always wondered. What did you get told about Heaven when you were a little boy? You loved your angel father. So what did he tell you to explain all the shit the Empire does? Did he want you to be the Empire's dog too?"

It was a hard question. But not as hard as the one Mirk feared K’aekniv was going to ask. "Oh, me? No, I can't even leave Earth. I wouldn't have done the Empire any good. And I don't look anything like the other angels, and you know how they all are about that. My sister was the one that my father thought might be able to join his flight. Kae loved to fight. And she looked more like an angel than I do. Tall...wings...serious..."

"No fun," K'aekniv finished for him, the grin coming back onto his face more easily.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

It drew a chuckle out of Mirk. "A little. But I wasn't being trained to serve the Empire, so I didn't learn much about it. Just that it took my father away often. It's...complicated. Nothing's all good or all bad, non? Even the K'maneda."

That got K'aekniv to laugh as well. "The K'maneda has as many bastards in it as the Empire does."

"So it makes sense that there'd be both in the Empire too. It's...well. It's not something I ever worried about. And it doesn't matter now. I'm a healer. I take care of my patients. No matter where they come from."

K'aekniv smacked Genesis again, this time leaning forward and cuffing him in the shoulder with one of his giant palms. "Even if they don't deserve it."

If anyone deserved looking after, it was the people that no one ever thought to look after. And Genesis was the first among those, at least in Mirk's opinion. But it was an argument Mirk was too tired to have with K'aekniv again. He settled for giving his head a rueful shake as he went to the room's supply cabinet to dig out a sheet to drape over Genesis. The commander wouldn't appreciate having people staring at his bloody arms, even if it was only him and K'aekniv. "Even then."

- - -

"Mirk?"

The voice from out in the hall was tired, but curious. Mirk could barely hear it over the drone of K'aekniv's snoring.

"Attendez, j'arrive..." Mirk called out, most of his attention still focused on Genesis's arm. He'd tried three different potions on it, each one fractionally more effective than the last. The bowl at his elbow contained the last of the components he'd stolen from the fourth floor supply closet. Mirk didn't know if he could bear the strain of walking all the way down to the one on the ground floor to get more powdered arrowroot. It had to work.

Holding his breath, Mirk let a few droplets of the potion fall from the glass mixing rod onto one of the nastiest wounds. The potion sizzled, giving off a few faint, black sparks. Rather than beading on top of Genesis's raw flesh, the potion vanished. And though it couldn't be seen with the naked eye, Mirk knew that meant the wound had healed, by only the barest sliver.

Only once he'd put the mixing rod back in the bowl did Mirk allow himself to exhale, fixing a smile on his face as he turned around to face the open door behind him. "Yes?"

It was Sheila. She was leaning against the door frame, her neck craned to one side so that she could peer at Genesis still lying motionless on the bed, and at K'aekniv snoring away in the chair on its far side. Making a thoughtful noise, she straightened up and looked back at Mirk. "The angel girl wants to talk to you. The boy's sister."

"Me?"

"She asked for you by name."

"Strange..." Mirk moved the bowl full of potion to the top of the supply cabinet, then continued on to the door, brushing down the front of his robes as he went. They were smeared with blood. There was no helping that, he supposed. Hopefully it wouldn't upset the girl too badly.

As he started off down the hall, Sheila took hold of his arm. Mirk felt the heat rise on his face. He had to be faring poorly, for Sheila to offer out her support. She had the worst bedside habits of any of the Twentieth's healers, aside from Yule. Though she tended to get sweeter when she was hungry. "She's refused to talk to anyone yet,” Sheila said. “Well. Other than to yell out the door that she demanded the right to parley with the heir to the shield-bearer of the Western Host. You're the only one here that comes close to fitting the bill."

Mirk let himself lean hard on Sheila's arm as he thought. He didn't feel ready to face the boy's sister. What could he say to comfort her? What answers could he give? All he knew about what had brought her and her brother to the City of the Glass had come from her letter. And even when he was fresh, Mirk knew he wasn't terribly clever. Now, worn down by shock and magic, he was practically useless. He'd been seriously considering joining K'aekniv in taking a nap once he'd confirmed that his newest potion worked. But if someone else needed him...someone who needed him badly enough to practically ask for him by name...

"Here we are," Sheila said, tugging on his arm to guide him. The door she led him to was closed, unlike all the others up on the fifth floor. Though the agony of the injured boy's suffering had cleared, most of the patients hadn't yet returned to the infirmary, as far as Mirk could feel. "Do you want help? You smell awful. Your body's eating itself, you haven't fed in so long. I'd offer you a snack, but...well..."

Mirk sighed. Most of the other healers were turned off by Sheila's glib sense of humor, but it'd never bothered Mirk. A sure sign of the worrying degree to which he enjoyed strangeness rather than being repelled by it. "No, thank you. Methinks it'd be easier if she only had to talk to one person at a time. That and, euh...well...Imperial angels..."

"You don't have to tell me," Sheila said with a snort, reluctantly releasing her hold on his arm. Mirk was uncertain whether the reluctance was due to concern, or because she'd been hoping to sneak a glimpse of the girl and eavesdrop on what news she'd brought from the Empire.

Waving Sheila off with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, Mirk nodded. "If I need something, you'll be the first person I come to."

"I'm the only one here," she retorted, glancing down the hall in the direction they'd come from. "Getting that piece of glass out of that boy's chest took everything Emir had. Even with Yule and Danu helping him."

Mirk wasn't comforted by that bit of news. But he went up to the door nevertheless, as soon as Sheila had stalked off to investigate whatever it was her inhuman senses had heard, drawing himself up to his full height before knocking. "Hello? Miss...Sharael, is it?"

There was no reply. Mirk eased the door open, just a crack. Not that it would open any further, even if Mirk had wanted to barge in. Someone had jammed a chair up under the handle. "Miss Sharael? May I come in?"

The response was muffled, barely intelligible — Mirk's angelic was still rusty, and the fact that the room's occupant sounded as if they were talking into a pillow didn't help. "Does it matter if I say no?"

Mirk considered answering her in angelic, but dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. Better to stick to English, the shaky middle ground between them. That aside, Mirk was embarrassed to realize he'd completely forgotten the polite angelic female form of address. "Of course it does, Miss Sharael. But Comrade Sheila said something about you looking for me..."

The bed in the room beyond creaked. Mirk heard the rustling of feathers. That time, when the voice came again, it spoke in English. "Oh. You're...Mikael's son. You don't feel like an angel at all."

"I take after my mother, I'm afraid. May I come in?"

Mirk didn't hear her cross the room to the door. But he did hear the chair clank. And the door eased open a few more inches. Mirk sidled inside, shutting the door carefully behind himself as he entered. At first, all he could see of the girl were her wings. She'd returned to the bed and was facing away from him, holding her thick, brilliant-white wings tight against her back in a guarded gesture. They were much larger and more developed than her brother's, or even those of the other fully-grown winged angels he'd met. Mirk cleared his throat to catch her attention. "Methinks it was very brave of you, coming all this way...it must be terribly cold here for you..."

The girl hopped off the bed and whirled around to face him. Her features were full-blood angelic to the last: high cheekbones, narrow face, lilac eyes that were as cold and unyielding as her flawless white skin. A kind of beauty that was more unnerving than it was appealing, though all Mirk felt toward her was sympathy. Even though his sister hadn't been quite so fair, and her eyes darker, he'd seen that haughty expression on Kae's face enough times to know the young girl was more frightened than she was angry. "I'm not a child," she growled at him.

Mirk ducked his head. "Bien sûr. You're older than I am, Miss Sharael. I didn't mean to offend you."

She spent a minute or so scrutinizing him before she replied, giving Mirk a once-over both with her eyes and magic. Mirk didn't attempt to shield away either his magic or the emotions he was dragging himself through: fatigue, compassion, worry. Sharael's expression softened, just a touch. "I expected you to be more..."

He laughed. "Serious? Big? Winged?"

"...yes."

"My sister was all of those. Like I said, I take after my mother."

"A human."

"I know most full-bloods think it's...strange that an angel would prefer them," Mirk said. "But my father did."

The girl's expression softened further at this, for a reason Mirk couldn't pinpoint. She didn't have the same kind of empathy her brother did, terribly wild and strong, but she did have enough mind magic to keep her emotions hidden from him.

"How can I help you, Miss Sharael?" Mirk asked.

"You already must have," she said as she sat back down on the bed, taking care to first shake out her wings and spread them out behind herself, to avoid bending any of her feathers. "I can't feel Sam hurting any more."

"Well...methinks he isn't healed all the way yet, but we'll be able to help him, yes. Comrade Commander Emir just did surgery on him to take out the thing in his chest that was making him hurt so badly." Mirk hesitated, but pressed on. The girl did seem annoyed by people trying to spare her feelings. It’d be better to be direct.. "Was it a part of purification?"

Sharael nodded, slowly. "He...we needed..." She shook her head, her eyes hardening once more. "Yes. But it won't happen now. Thank you."

"You don't need to thank us, Miss Sharael. We're here to help."

"Us..." She glanced around the room, frowning at the shabby wooden furniture, at the used rags that were littered atop the supply cabinet, at the wall beside the window that still had scorch marks on it from a prior unruly patient. "The K'maneda?"

"Yes, that's right."

Sharael sighed again, tugging at the sleeves of her long, thick, heavily-embroidered robes. There were crystals worked into the pattern. She and her brother had to be from a family of means, though not from the uppermost echelons of Imperial society. Otherwise Mirk doubted she would have been able to flee Heaven relatively unscathed, even with his godfather's help. "They still tell us nursery stories about all of you. Monsters who ate up half of the Light Eternal then ran away like cowards."

Mirk gave an awkward laugh. "I wouldn't know much about that, Miss Sharael. I've only been here a little while."

"You don't look very scary."

"I've never been very good at that. But they tell me I'll learn if I stay here long enough."

Sharael gave him a harder once-over with her magic and eyes, her skepticism growing. "You're about as scary as my nursemaid was."

With a helpless shrug, Mirk edged a few steps closer to her. Sharael didn't react. "Well, I am a healer. Which is sort of like a nursemaid. Though methinks I don't count for a maid, exactly."

"Like there are spare women in Heaven to keep around to raise children," Sharael said, rolling her eyes.

"Ah, well...may I sit down, Miss Sharael? I'm a little tired..."

"I don't care," she said, making a dismissive gesture at the chair she'd pulled out from underneath the door handle. "And stop calling me Miss. I'm not some kind of lady. That's the whole point."

"Is it?"

"Yes," she said, sitting up straighter on the bed. "I'm never going to be one. That's why I'm here. And to help Sam. But you know that part already."

"Sort of," Mirk said, going to the chair. Though he tried to lower himself down into it with some semblance of grace, the motion ended up as more of a flop. "Everyone has told me a little something. But I'd rather hear your side of the story. If you want to talk about it?"

"You're the only person here who'd understand, anyway," she muttered to herself as she thought the proposition over, folding her arms over her chest. That was another sure sign of Northern blood — she wasn't entirely flat-chested, not like the Western women Mirk had heard his father's guard speak of, who were so androgynous that the men and women could barely be told apart.

"Oh?"

Again, Sharael hesitated. "Your father really was Mikael? Son of Mivael? Grandson of Midael Shield-Bearer?"

"I...well, I must be. I was supposed to be Milael. But my mother made my father compromise a little on the name."

"Commander Aker said that you were a great mage."

"Aker sent you? He's my olaein. How do you know him?"

"I didn't. He just...showed up. I'd never seen him before. But everyone knows there's only one Southern angel left who they let wear Imperial armor." Sharael seemed to be drawing on some inner well of strength, concentrating on it for a time before she continued. "He appeared in my room in the middle of the night. The one after Sam was taken away to be purified. He said that he owed it to us to get us away from Lord Imanael. You can tell we're not from his line, can't you?"

Mirk nodded. "You do look a bit too...Northern."

"Sam was just born with empathy that's like Lord Imanael's. Just like I was born with next to nothing. But I can shield hard, thank the Light Eternal. I'd hate to be able to feel others. You people always seem miserable."

"A blessing and a curse," Mirk said, sighing. As much as he disliked all the trouble his empathy put him through, Mirk was glad for it. Navigating the world without it would feel like walking around blind and deaf, he imagined.

"Lord Imanael has been bothering Sam for as long as I can remember. He's just...always been there. Aena said that Lord Imanael came to visit right after Sam was born and offered to be his tutor. Said he could feel Sam's magic all the way across the realm, and that if he was trained like he was that Sam could be just as powerful. Some garbage like that. I don't blame Aena for saying yes. Laea had just...she...anyway, you don't say no when Lord Imanael offers to train your only son, not when you're some nobody from the Northern Delegation."

"Yes, of course." Mirk knew just enough about what life was like for full-blooded angels to hear what Sharael was leaving unsaid. Her father had been upset. And her mother, most likely, had died in childbirth with her brother. Birthing full-blooded angels was dangerous. Mirk could imagine that Sharael's father must have wanted to do everything in his power to ensure that the child his wife had died bringing into the warmth of the Light Eternal succeeded in life. That aside, there was no turning away someone like Imanael, if all the things Mirk had seen and heard about him were true. Anyone who could put a binding spell on Genesis's magic, no matter how successful it was, had to be terribly strong.

"Right. It..." Sharael hesitated, looking down at the floor. Mirk could see her anger in the way her lips were twitching, though her emotions didn’t leak past her mental shielding. "...opened doors. We moved to the Capital. And it made me...marriageable." She spat out the last word like a curse, now hugging herself to keep back her rage.

"That must have been hard," Mirk said, quietly.

"I don't want to die! I'm half-Northern, the Citadel shouldn't have wanted me! But I was supposed to be dedicated in ten years. And after that, it'd only be another hundred, and I'd be married. And after that, you have children, and then you die. Everyone knows that's how it works. And everyone else thinks that's the way it should be."

Everything Sharael said was true, as far as Mirk understood. He'd heard his father's men speak bitterly of the Citadel, where the Western women lived, apart from the rest. To be closer to the warmth of the Light Eternal, to steel their bodies against the trials of childbirth. Western men waited in line for centuries for their chance to enter the Citadel and be judged worthy of continuing their family line through marriage. Things were less strict in the North and the East, but even more women died there, like Sharael's mother had. He'd overheard his tutors talking once about how insane his father must have been, to forsake the spot in line granted to him by his lineage and marry a human woman instead. Mirk hadn't been insulted by it. All the gossip only confirmed the depth of the love he could always feel between his parents.

And he couldn't fault Sharael for wanting to escape it all either, not in the slightest. It was another act of love. Love for her brother, and herself.

"They're going to come looking for us," Sharael said in a near whisper, drawing her wings in close against her back again. "They'll send the Thrones after us for disobeying. They'll lock me up. They'll purify Sam."

Mirk didn't have the heart to lie to her. "I'm sure they'll look for you, yes."

"If you give me back to them, fine. Just...just don't give them Sam. I've seen what purification does. There won't be any Sam left after Imanael's done with him. He'll just...he'll just be another sword in the Emperor's armory, and I'll be..."

Though he wanted to get up and go to her side, wanted to comfort her, Mirk held himself back. Angels weren't affectionate, not like humans were. They didn't take any comfort from the small gestures of care he used so often. All they saw in it was shame. Which meant all he could give her were words. "We won't give up either of you."

Sharael snorted. "Don't make promises you can't keep. Commander Aker said you were strong, but he lied. You couldn't fight off one Throne. A whole flight would rip you to pieces."

"Maybe. But I'll still do everything I can to keep you safe."

"You and what army?"

"Euh...well, you are in the City of Glass. With the K'maneda. We are an army. And the City is a fortress, I've been told."

"The fortress part is right. Commander Aker had to perform some spell for us to get in. But none of the mages I've seen here so far have been very strong. You included."

"Oh, you wouldn't see those kind of mages here. We're all healers in the infirmary. They keep all the scary monsters out on contract." More like they keep themselves out on contract, Mirk thought to himself, unable to keep from thinking of Genesis's motionless and mangled body secreted away in the room down the hall.

"I guess you did fix Sam. Somehow," Sharael said, grudgingly. "But healing magic isn't going to keep Lord Imanael and the Thrones away. And all the stories say that the K'maneda are sell-swords. That means they'll give up anything if the price is right."

"Hmm...some would, maybe. But not us healers, and not my friends. And I promise, I have very scary friends."

Sharael didn't look convinced. But she gave up on arguing with a wave of her hand, pulling her legs up onto the bed before turning onto her stomach and lying down. With wings that big, Mirk knew it was the only comfortable position to sleep in. "It doesn't matter. Either you'll help me, or you won't. Nothing I say can make it change."

"That's one way to look at things, I suppose..."

"Go to sleep," Sharael said, without lifting her head. "You look half-dead. If you're going to protect us, you need to be stronger."

Mirk chuckled to himself as he levered himself up out of the chair. Even though Sharael resented the Empire's brand of nobility, she'd evidentially picked up on some of their imperious attitude over the years and made it her own. "Thank you, Sharael. I'll be by to check on you and your brother as soon as I'm feeling better."

"I can take care of myself. Look after Sam. He's the one that needs the empath."

Sighing, Mirk shuffled back to the door and left. Even if having the two young angels hidden in the City did cause problems, at the very least it'd give him something to do other than brood over Genesis.