Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (7 page)

“You told Rochester you’d used waerwater before. Have you seen a demon die after drinking it?”

He nodded.

“How many?”

At first I thought he’d refuse to answer. In the past, Ari had been reluctant to tell me much about his days as a demon executioner. But then he said, “More than a few.”

“Have you seen any live?”

He shook his head.

“So it’s really just an offer to let the accused fall on a sword?”

Ari just stared at me, his signature dimming. Around us, the wind kicked up. My black hair streamed out behind me like a flag as the myriad boats, tugs, dinghies, and dahabiyas that were tied at the water’s edge bobbed up and down.

“Was Jezebeth offered a trial by waerwater?”

“Yes, but Ynocencia talked him out of it. Trial by waerwater is a painful way to die.”

“More painful than a
Carne Vale
? How do you know all this anyway? Did you and Ynocencia have a heart-to-heart just before you dropped her back off with her abusive husband?”

The words just slipped out. Until then, I’d ignored all of my conflicted feelings over yesterday. But now that I’d voiced them, they sounded more vicious than conflicted. It wasn’t fair, really, grilling Ari like this. He’d only done what he’d had to do. What the law required him to do. What the executive—
my father
—had ordered him to do. Hadn’t it been mere hours ago that I’d actually been worried about him? Worried that his covering for me at the
Carne Vale
would get him in trouble?

Ari blew his breath out. He looked out across the Lethe and then finally back at me. In the deepening twilight, his eyes glistened like two pools of black ink.

“I didn’t take her back to her husband.”

Maybe it was how he said the words, or maybe it was the fact that his signature was now as tightly wrapped as I’d ever felt it, or maybe it was his defensive, closed stance, that had me look at him anew. And really see him for the first time that night.

Ari was exhausted—physically, magically, and emotionally. Dark circles ringed his eyes and a day’s worth of stubble covered his chin and cheeks. His eyes had a slightly haunted look. Like he’d only just realized how much he had to lose. That missteps had consequences that went way beyond himself.

“Where did you take her, then?”

“Somewhere he’ll never find her.”

“But . . . ?”

“You think I should have done what your father asked?” he said quietly.

Yes. No! Luck, I didn’t know.
For an instant, I was just glad I hadn’t had to make the decision. And then I was struck with the most horrifying shame I’d ever felt. Because—
again
—Ari had thrown my stones for me. The only reason he’d been asked to take Ynocencia back was because of something
I’d
done (or failed to do). I covered my face with my hands and just stood there, feeling angry, embarrassed, and weak.

Minutes passed and Ari did nothing but stand beside me. But it was enough. More than enough. Because, Luck knew, I wasn’t perfect. Far,
far
from it. And he’d always stood by me. I finally lowered my hands, happy that my eyes had stayed dry.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping close. Ari’s heart beat wild and fast, despite his darkly serious expression. He moved his hands to the base of my neck. Lacing his fingers together, he then used his thumbs to gently tip my head back. His face was no more than an inch from mine or I might have missed his next word.

“Nouiomo.”

When Ari’s lips met mine, his signature released, as if he’d been holding a deep breath and had just exhaled. Unbidden and slightly out of control as always, my magic responded to his. Suddenly, I felt as if I’d just swam from Etincelle to New Babylon—underwater. I gulped and Ari slid his hand down so that it rested gently against my heart. Beneath his palm and the linen of my shirt, my heart beat madly and my demon mark stung like I’d just been shot with Eros’ arrow.

After a few moments, I reached my arms behind Ari’s back and clasped them together. I pressed my cheek into the coarse cotton of his shirt, smelling sweat instead of the clean, vanilla-laced scent I was used to. I didn’t care.

“You know when I first fell in love with you, Noon?”

His words were low and muffled. I pressed my ear tighter against his chest and shook my head.

“Last semester when you killed Serafina.”

I stiffened immediately but he put his arms around me. Serafina had been the small demon familiar that my father had sent me to “practice” with. Within a day, I had roasted her into oblivion.

“She deserved to die,” said Ari. “She’d burned one of your friends, a defenseless Hyrke, right in front of you.”

I remained mute. What he was saying was true, but it was only half the story. The real reason Serafina died was because I couldn’t control my magic well enough to control her. Killing her hadn’t been necessary; it had been a mistake.

“I’d never met anyone whose magic was so strong . . .” Ari said almost wistfully, “but whose heart was so soft.”

I didn’t think it was possible to stiffen any further. Ari had to know his words were making me feel worse.
This
was the story of how he fell in love with me? He’d just scored the hat trick of insults: Reminding me I’d killed something; reminding me I’d done it out of ineptitude; and then telling me I was really soft on the inside . . . That my heart had the strength of a soft-boiled egg.

“Ari,” I said carefully, “I don’t want to be weak.”

He laughed. “You’re the farthest thing from it.”

“No. I mean on the inside.”

He tried to tighten his hold on me, but I pushed back so that I could see his face. In the rising moonlight, there were lots of shadowed spots, portions I couldn’t see. But I could tell he wasn’t smiling.

“You can’t fight my battles for me,” I said.

He stared at me for a moment, his face dark and unreadable. Finally, he sighed.

“I know.
I know.
”

He seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as me.

Later, we looked for Captain Delgato and the boat we’d be sailing to the Shallows, but it wasn’t in its slip. So much for satisfying my curiosity. Considering Cattus’ fate, however, maybe it was for the best. Meeting my new teacher could probably wait.

S
ome say Evander Joshua was motivated by self-interest; others say he was a perfect Angel. What is known is this:

Joshua was an Angel who lived sometime in the early centuries after the Apocalypse, circa 100-200 AA. His mother had been a Mederi healer (a female descendant of Lucifer’s Host born with waxing, or healing, magic) and his father had been an Angel (a descendant of the once-great but now-defeated Savior’s army). At the time, relations between Host and Angel families were still strained. In spite of, or perhaps due to, his parents’ ostracism and the frosty welcome he himself received from both sides, Joshua reimagined a Halja where Angel and Host lived, loved, learned, and worked side by side. He created the Guardian/Ward relationship and became the first Guardian Angel, serving Magnus Antimony, one of the earliest Council executives.

Was Joshua a romantic idealist or a keen political strategist?

Who knows? What I did know was that I was due to report to the House of Metatron, a grand name for a small, dark ceremonial courtroom over at the Joshua School, at seven Wednesday morning to begin the tedious process of Angel selection—otherwise known as
Voir Dire
, or “to speak the truth.”

Well, we’d see about the truth part. There was bound to be some embellishment, aggrandizement, and general blowing of horns. The Joshua School was just as competitive as St. Luck’s. Angel students had until they graduated to find a ward or they’d face a lifetime of endless research in the never-ending stacks. Of course, some preferred academia to the field (and, having just been assigned my first field assignment, I wasn’t sure I blamed them), and some became artists or winemakers, but most wanted a ward. Wards meant more money—and more prestige, which Angels loved as much as Mederies loved gardens and Maegesters loved fire (at least most Maegesters did . . . personally, I had a love/hate thing going with fire, but that’s off topic . . .).

Angels. The point is that they are our protectors. Our paid protectors. But they also take an oath to guard their wards and, like everyone else in Halja, the Angels take their oaths very seriously. A good Angel would know how to hide their ward, how to heal them, at least until a Mederi could be found, and how to make them more deadly with all kinds of “booster” spells (lately, many second-semester Maegesters-in-Training—
ahem, Brunus!
—had been pouring over Angel
curricula vitae
in the hopes of securing the deadliest partner imaginable). Great Angels also knew all three of the primary demon languages and a handful of other, more obscure ones because an Angel’s other purpose, in addition to being a Guardian, was to serve as interpreter and scribe for the Maegester they worked with.

But, unlike Brunus and the rest, I didn’t want someone who would make me more deadly. I didn’t care about spellcasting ability or linguistic scores. I didn’t care about offensive, or even defensive, ratings. I just wanted to find someone who wouldn’t make me want to jump overboard during our trip to the Shallows. Someone who would blend into the teak woodwork of whatever sailboat we were going to be sailing. Someone who wouldn’t be obnoxious or offer unwanted opinions or ask unwarranted questions. Maybe even someone who would be fine not talking to me at all . . . Because I’d learned the hard way last semester that an Angel could turn on you just when you needed them the most.

*   *   *

W
ednesday morning I woke cranky and irritated. It wasn’t that it was still dark out when I woke (although who in their right mind would make plans before daylight in a country ruled by demons?); it was that it
wasn’t
dark, at least not in my room. After one hundred eighty-one days of successfully ignoring the nearly all-consuming urge to set my morning alarm bell on fire, I’d finally gone and done it. And in spectacular fashion too. In those few seconds between sleeping and waking, I’d torched the whole thing into a mini mountain of melted copper and bronze that glowed like a night lamp and smoked like a volcano belching toxic fumes. I was so ticked off; I left it there to harden, uncaring of whether I would later be able to remove it from my desktop.

Ivy had left a note:

Noon—

Went to get coffee and biscuits. Meet Fitz and me in Timothy’s Square at dawn to discuss Angel candidates.

Ivy

p.s. Wear something sexy. I heard Holden Pierce is a hottie!

I groaned. I’m surprised they didn’t make an exception to the “Future Maegesters Only” rule for Manipulation for Ivy. She was a master manipulator, even if she didn’t have waning magic. This was her MO, always dropping very unsubtle hints about my need to bare my demon mark. As if the whole world didn’t already know I was the Host’s version of a Hyrke strong girl in a carnie sideshow. Despite Ivy’s postscript, I made sure I wore something that covered my mark, but I amped up the vamp more than I would have otherwise. It wasn’t to attract whoever this Holden Pierce was (I had my own hottie and was more than happy with him); it was to bolster my own confidence with superficial gloss.

Two minutes before sunrise, I left Megiddo and headed for Timothy’s Square, garbed in a shockingly short, gray linen skirt, high platform satin sandals with black ribbon laces, and a hibiscus pink top that was sleeveless but came nearly to my collarbone. In fact, the shirt had a little extra detailing at the top in the form of a thin, slightly ridiculous, summer scarf. I strode over to the bench where Ivy and Fitz—Ivy’s cousin and my other closest friend—sat waiting for me, my attitude a combination of haughty (another coping mechanism I was practicing for later), irritated (
still
at my melted alarm bell, not at Ivy or Fitz), and (the reason I kept focusing on the first two)
worried
—Big Time.

“Hey, Noon,” Fitz said, giving me a salacious full-body stare that would have been offensive if it had been given by anyone other than Fitz. He winked and nodded slowly. “Looking good.” Then he grinned and handed me a steaming paper cup and a small white paper bag. I smiled back and sat down.