Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series) (8 page)

I had tried to jolly her, tried to question her, but her answers were short and stilted, laced with sadness. When I asked about Daneo, she said only, “It is done,” and then fell silent. Soon after, she had slept, as had I.

Skylar nodded at me as she unlatched the bronze lock on the cage. “Let us hope that after the Council, bars will no longer be necessary.”

Optimism is in her nature
. It was a cynic’s thought. I nodded back and said nothing. For hours, my mind had worried over Sabine’s anchorstone left at Delphi. How might I return to it or else have it brought to me here if the Council detained me? If I was not permitted to hear the riddle that might quicken Sabine to life, then I might at least have Sabine as an ally during daylight hours, when she could give voice to her thoughts. Kisana, it seemed to me, might not be the ally I hoped for. And what was a body after all, compared to such a mind, to such a heart?

“You have an ally.”

I thought it to be Kisana, but she was being led from the cage to assemble with the others in the hall. Instead, the thought was Skylar’s.

She spoke the truth, but the intrusion angered me. “An ally who has kept me in chains and bars and secrets,” I added. “Sabine keeps no secrets from me.”

“So you think. All women have their secrets.”

“She is not a woman, and nor are you.”

Skylar rolled her eyes, so slightly that I thought I might have imagined it. She covered it with a smile.
“And you think cats have none?”

I ignored her, watching the rank and file of the Cruxim army stream into the hall. Their combined radiance made my eyes ache after the long day indoors. They arranged themselves with military precision over the murmur of wings and the stamp of boots.

“How many Crèches are there?” I asked, noting that each contingent wore a colored plume on the helmet, the dyed feathers matching their cloaks.

“Ten. Only five have any strength of number.”

Daneo’s cloak flashed silver as he pushed past me and took to the dais at one end of the hall. A hush settled over the crowd, and only the whisper of wing beats broke it as the heads turned in unison and all eyes fixed on Skylar.

“Bring him.” Daneo waved irritably as he took his seat at the table on the dais. His eyes were on Kisana’s, but I could not tell if they pitied or resented her.

Skylar pulled me to the front of the throng, ignoring the nudging and jostling of Cruxim left and right of me as we passed.

Council members—some men, some women—shifted on their cedar chairs, craning their necks at my approach. Above each, a weapon hung on the wall, an axe or a bow or a sword, the metal reflecting the vibrancy of the assembly before us.

I recognized Skylar’s friend, Jania, sneering from the dais. She took up a silver goblet and sipped it. Each Councilor had a similar vessel set before them, and the one seated in the middle held a gavel of obsidian. He scrutinized me with eyes set deep in sunken sockets. Despite the veneer of youth, he was old, I could tell—likely the oldest among us—and shrewd. I tried my best to still the thoughts in my head, focusing instead on the silver plaques behind each table setting, which bore their names and the name and crest of their crèche.

Skylar’s mien was solemn as she led me to a podium. Set down from the dais, it was raised from the main floor to make an easily recognizable dock.

I felt my nostrils flare with anger. How dare they put me on trial for a crime I had not committed—unless that crime was being born. It was not in my best interests, and I knew it, but I threw the twelve Councilors a glare of obvious disdain.

Of them, I recognized Daneo and the one Skylar had called Rosario, and Xanthos, who had insulted and bound me. Further down the table, my eyes met the black gaze of Jiordano, Kisana’s father. I set my brow and refused to blink until he dropped his eyes to his goblet.

The hall fell into expectant silence, even the fluttering ceased.

“Shall we begin?” the Cruxim holding the gavel asked. “As Shintaro, Speaker of the Council of Paleon, I call you to order, to observe, and to uphold.” The gavel came down to open proceedings, and his left hand moved to rest upon the leather-bound volume on the table before him.

If he was the Speaker, then to him I would speak! I straightened in the dock, and my red-ringed wrists formed fists on the wooden railing. “Tell me what crime I have committed to stand here before a Council of my equals, Speaker Shintaro?”

Shock rippled through the crowd, making the Cruxim glow even brighter. The hall seemed, for a moment, incendiary.

Shintaro’s eyebrows knit together. He was sharp-nosed, with a high forehead and rheumy eyes set so close that he examined the world with his head slightly askew. He considered me as a bird might ponder a worm. The white and silver cloak that covered his shoulders hung in folds to leave his wings free and rendered him even more avian.

“It is not our practice that one should speak in Council without first being directly addressed.”

I had the measure of him. He was stern, but not menacingly so. It encouraged me to see how far I might push him before the gavel struck the table once more.

“Forgive me, Councilor Shintaro.” I dipped my head to him. “I am unaware of your practices—perhaps because I was exiled at birth for a crime not of my doing.”

“Silence!” A stamp of Daneo’s boots beneath the table accompanied his interruption. “Who knows what crimes you might be responsible for, if you do not even know yourself?”

“Daneo,” Shintaro cautioned, “you forget yourself. It is I who must determine his fate. His question was directed to me, and I vote we let him speak. There shall be time enough for his...” Shintaro’s beady eyes focused on Skylar briefly. “For Skylar to represent him.”

His head tilted in my direction again. “You are right that you committed no crime, for none of us can be held accountable for the circumstances of our birth. Yet we all of us are.”

His cryptic answer exasperated me. Were all Cruxim in Silvenhall incapable of giving a straight answer?

“It says this in the
Cruximus
, I suppose,” I replied. “A book. Nothing more.”

Whispering in the ranks grew to a murmur.

Shintaro’s hand stroked the book, and his expression flashed from calm to fiery in an instant. The gavel in his other fist clattered down.

I had paid the actual book little attention until then, although it was thicker than a house-brick. Straw-colored parchment peeked out from the leather cover, buckled with a silver clasp and an emerald, snake-shaped latch that coiled through the lock.

“I will forgive you that, since you have not lived among us, nor followed our ways.”

I was a worm no longer but a desert snake set upon by a vulture.

“Know this,” he thundered. “The
Cruximus
is not a book. It is a lore. A creed.” He picked it up and his hands trembled as he shook it at me. “It is a history of our people and of our past, and, as I still believe”—his crooked gaze swung towards Jania and the other Councilors, but they ignored him and faced forward, eyes on me—“of our future.”

“And what am I of that future?” I met his gaze with a glare. “Will you tell me what your
Cruximus,
your
lore
, says of me? If indeed I am this thing Skylar speaks of—the Cruor—then it should be that I deserve to know.”

Shintaro cleared his throat. He placed the book back on the table. “If indeed you are He,” he answered. He smoothed his receding, silver-streaked black hair. ”You yourself will know. But that is what we are here to determine, boy.”

It was an insult, of course. Those vulture eyes had seen so many more centuries than I had. It was possible he had lived several of my lifetimes.

I shrugged it off.

“If you can extend the courtesy of your silence, we shall begin. For it is silence we shall demand of you, should you be allowed to remain as a guest of Silvenhall.”

“A guest.” I snorted. “Or a prisoner.”

“Silence!” Daneo shouted, his lips curled into a snarl.

Shintaro nodded curtly and motioned Skylar forward. She threw me a withering look as she passed. I was not helping my cause, or hers, but I would not bow to them. It was known only to her why she would defend me. I was fighting only for myself, and for Sabine. Skylar’s motives eluded me. However, I had come to know her as a friend, and her look shamed me into silence.

“Skylar Emmanuel, if it pleases you, tell the congregation why you thought fit to bring among us one you knew to be exiled.”

Skylar bowed her head for a second but raised it again to speak. Her voice was proud and calm. “Shintaro.” She nodded at him and then in turn at the other Councilors, greeting them by name.

“I come before your wisdom today, and your justice. I come to seek a return of one so long gone he has forgotten his mother.” Skylar paused to let the jitter of wing beats cease. “And his father.”

A roar consumed the hall, near drowning out her voice in a melee of hissing, stamping, and beating wings.

“Quiet!” Shintaro hammered on the table. “All of you will do me the honor of etiquette. Did all of you choose your own parents? Did any of you?” He glowered at them, and the hall hushed.

“Does not he, too, deserve to live in the light and knowledge of the
Cruximus
?” Skylar queried. “It is unjust that his mother’s sins are foisted upon him.”

Shintaro nodded, considering her words. “Justice is a birthright of Cruxim. We are its beneficiaries and its enforcers, but you yourself know trusting him is a risk. What trust, what faith has he placed in you, Skylar Emmanuel, besides following you here—and fleeing from you?”

“Trusting anyone is a risk.” Skylar stepped forward to pace the flagstones before the dais of Councilors. “But he, of all of us, has befriended one most Cruxim would fear to trust: a Sphinx. He, of all of us, has trusted his life to her. And he alone has survived what should mean instant death: the taste of mortal blood. Tell me why he cannot be the Cruor the
Cruximus
tells of? Tell me why he cannot be the Proxim to unite us all in a final battle to end them!”

A murmur followed Skylar’s words just as an undercurrent tows the crest of a wave.

Shintaro rubbed at the sweat beading his brow.

The groan of a heavy chair being pushed back stole his attention.

“What if this is nothing but self-interest?” Jania half-stood, her eyes narrowed.

Skylar flushed at the accusation, but she held her head high.

“We all know why you sought him out. Not for the prophecy of the Cruor foretold in the
Cruximus,
but for the Swan you were never able to let go. There was a reason his mother gave up her place in Silvenhall! Would you give up your place in Silvenhall for
him
?”

“Quiet!” Shintaro once more brought the gavel to bear. This time, his tone was icy as he turned to Jania. “There was a reason you did too, Jania, Proxim of Milandor. The Cruxim of Silvenhall will not abide a lecture on heresy from one from Milandor. Sit!”

Jania stood for what seemed an age, her mouth pinched shut, her sapphire eyes boring into Shintaro’s dark ones. When she took her seat, Shintaro nodded and then tilted his head to the front to assess Skylar.

“Proxim Jania’s accusation is unwarranted, but she nevertheless asks a relevant question. You ask that we should trust your judgment, Skylar Emmanuel, and yet that judgment may have been compromised. What assurances can you offer us?”

“The Swan.” One of Daneo’s fists ground into the palm of his other hand as he hissed, “The Swan is fallible, whichever Sibyl has knit the feathers. If you want assurances that Swans, too, lie, let me testify to that.”

What was this Swan? I could make nothing of his words, which would have been almost inaudible to the throng below, but as I opened my mouth to speak, Skylar seized upon them.

“Yet you are not happy, Daneo.” Skylar kept her tone light, almost flippant. She came to stand before his spot at the table, lifting her chin to look up at him. She turned to find Kisana’s swollen eyes in the crowd and pointed to her. “Mother and daughter are not interchangeable in your heart after all. Oh, all Swans look alike, but it may be one cannot substitute for another. Or it may be you could have put aside your pride and found the Swan’s chosen path for you to be true, but you would not.”

“Sister!” A Proxim whose plaque identified her as Illysia from Luminil, half rose from her chair. Red-gold curls tumbled over her shoulder as she chastised. “Cruelty will achieve nothing. Daneo has paid the price for his pride.”

It must have been a high one, I considered. I had never seen such a haughty creature.

“Yes, and Kisana with him,” Skylar said, unperturbed. “Would that I never make the same mistake.”

“MISTAKE!” The scrape of Daneo’s chair against the floor of the dais accompanied his roar as he leaped to his feet.

“What do you call
this
but a mistake!” His eyes followed the line of his index finger to where I stood in the dock. “How dare you judge me! You who cannot fathom the hurt laid upon me.”

“Can I not?” Skylar squinted, but her voice was calm. It was a gift of hers, the serenity that always emanated from her. I envied her level head. In anyone else, it might have been dispassion, but in Skylar, it was something else, a desire for peace under pressure.

“More than anyone here, I can sympathize with you, Daneo. Remember that I, too, have been lied to. I too lost my Swan. But I will not let pride be my undoing. Always I have trusted the
Cruximus
to show me the way; now I must trust the Swan—the true Swan—and the Sibylim to bring me that which will enrich me, even if it pains me.”

“Even if it kills you!” Jania spat. Climbing to her feet again, she said, “Permission to speak, Shintaro,” but did not pause for him to give it. “I above all others love and trust you, Skylar Emmanuel.”

Skylar nodded, waiting. At the Councilor’s table, I noticed Lilyana, the second Proxim of Milandor, look down at her hands.

“But know, too,” Jania continued, “that the Swan has been wrong before.”

“No,” Skylar answered. “Hearts are fickle things and intentions more so, but perhaps, in the absence of pride and fear and duty, the Swan might hold true.”