In the End (29 page)

His face was untouched.

“
We found this with him, my lord,” one of the men said quietly, holding out a glinting bronze knife.

“
All of you get out.” The gathering crowed murmured and began to back out again, slowly. “Now!” A crackle of energy accompanied his words, sparking a rush to the doors. Lalael dropped to his knees next to Lucien's unconscious body and began pulling the shreds of cloth away.

“
You're such an
idiot
, Lucien!” Lalael growled. “May you Fall a thousand times!”

A follower came in with a bowl of water and a box of gauze. Lalael seized the bowl and spat in it. That ichor was something as purely evil as was possible to exist in the world; plain water wouldn't have cleaned it out, would have left it (Lalael somehow knew) stained and painful forever, if it even managed to heal. Lalael cleared away the last strips of shirt and began to clean him.

Mara crept in the door as the follower left. “How did he survive with wounds like that?” Mara asked, shivering. Her eyes were bright red and her face was puffy with tears. “He should be dead.”

“
Yes. He should,” Lalael said coldly. “I know exactly why h
e isn't
. He
should
be dead.
Clear off, and shut the door, and keep the others away because this could be dangerous.”

Mara shut the door; Lalael took off his coat and shirt so they wouldn't get in his way, bunched up the shirt and used it as a sponge to clean off Lucien's wounds. He let his wings manifest, the ones Mara had se
en... And then he brought out the second pair, the new ones, which shone even brighter, perhaps, than the sun. They even hurt his own eyes to look at.

When the water touched the black slime, it hissed and let off clouds of noxious vapor, which Lalael blew swiftly away with steady, slow fans of his wings. Under the ichor, the skin was gray and dry. Lalael dabbed at these patches, with whispered apologies and damnations, but not even a soft cry of pain crossed the Fallen's lips.

“
You're alright now, Lucien, we've got you, you're fine.” Slowly, the angel worked; when he had finished cleaning off the blood and tar-like muck, he stood at Lucien's feet and fanned, and fanned, and fanned. He held out his hands and pulled as much of the belief available into him; there was plenty. If he listened carefully, he could hear them praying.

He stopped any further blood loss, healed the lightest of the wounds, began to knit the worst. He set Lucien's broken arm, got the stomach wound to just barely close, poured all the energy he could into healing the Fallen, and fanned life back into him.

“
Why'd you go?” Lalael hissed furiously, working as swiftly as he dared. “Why'd you leave? I didn't leave you first, you bastard, you left me when we were there in the forest, so you'd better not use that excuse when you wake up, or I'll hurt you worse than whatever did this.” He knelt again and gently turned Lucien on his side when he felt it was safe to do so.

Lucien's back resembled ground meat more than a back. Lalael's stomach turned. “Not your wings. Please, not your wings.”

Another hour passed before Lalael finally collapsed – exhausted physically, emotionally, mentally.  He put his wings away, wrapped the bronze knife in his bloody shirt. Lucien was taken up to his room by the followers, and Lalael trailed behind. He collapsed on the floor and succumbed to darkness.

***

Lalael had no idea how much time had passed since Lucien had been brought in as a bloody mess. Mara claimed only a day and a half, but Lalael didn't believe her: It felt more like a month. When he was energetic enough to actually think, he felt a little foolish for sitting by Lucien's bedside waiting for him to awaken, but that was only once in a long while that he felt up to stringing a thought or two together. Sleeping was good, he thought, weary to his bones, and now he knew what that meant, he'd never have to wonder again. In fact...

...He had almost forgotten the feeling of the dreams. How they were soft and giving, yet restricting and suffocating like he'd gotten tangled in the sheets. He'd been having a rather silly dream about black and white things - wings, zebras, penguins, text – that kept telling him to give back the color he'd stolen from them, when the images blurred over and – slickslick – went into a vision's trademark Technicolor.

The images moved frantically – blurring, sharpening, shaking – whirls of color and feeling and knowing. There was a cloud of inky hair, here was a gleam of golden skin, a flash of too-pale blue eyes – Jocelin. With the realization came clearer pictures – Jocelin alighting upon the roof of a filthy warehouse; Jocelin's lips moving as the angel stared into the distance, chanting, chanting; Jocelin, furious, screaming at a blur of white, red, and black.

Tight zoom into the blur: Pain that beat into Lalael's chest in dull pulses, dark eyes glazed from it and crying, darker curls falling into them; the fine line of the jaw, a scornful twist of thin lips – Lucien.

The pictures came even faster now, dark shapes jostling and shoving at Lucien, the only sharp object in the picture, shining less and less with every moment. Fear, pain, betrayal, pain; Lalael cried out at the darkness ripping at his heart, yet the images, one by one, burned into his eyes. Jocelin standing proud, watching, murmuring silently as the darknesses brought Lucien to his knees. The Fallen, struggling, refusing vehemently, scratching and fighting, overwhelmed by the sheer number of shadows around him. Rage, fury, sorrow, loss –

Slickslick.

Lucien struggling again, obviously some time later, torn and filthy, being dragged in by the shadowy figures, still taunting, still fighting, still pulling at his restraints.

Jocelin, draped in white and gold, shining, yet rage and darkness shadowed the angel's face. A sharp, unheard command. The sound of silence roared in Lalael's ears.

Lucien and Jocelin, the angel again snapping an order, the Fallen raising his face proudly, bruised and bloodied, refusing. The darknesses engulfing him once again at the graceful gestured from the dark angel. Forced to kneel before Jocelin, as the angel rose from his throne. Jocelin gently touching Lucien's face, the Fallen himself flinching away, accompanied by a wave of malicious amusement.

Focus in on Jocelin, fingers under Lucien's chin to raise his face to the dark angel. Lucien glaring into the angel's eyes.

Slickslickslick.

Blood. Such a lot of blood. Loss. Darkness. The strength and betrayal and rage that had underwritten the shocks of emotion trickled out, along with the images and the color, until all that was left was Lalael, standing before a vast deep abyss, feeling the darkness reaching for him, twining around his ankles, dragging him closer to the edge, rising, rising...

Drowning in despair and loss and sorrow and weakness, and, finally...

Defeat.

As Lalael gasped into the Void, he became aware of a breeze through his hair, of a light behind him, of something brushing against his face. Of a voice on the wind, whispering his name...

“
Lalael, wake up.”
The voice was weak, quavering, lost. Lalael forced the abyss away, tore his feet from the darkness, turned towards the light, struggled from the vision, reached, and was embraced...

“
Wake up. Wake up.”

He did. He had to.

***

“
Lucien?” He gripped the feverish hand that was touching his forehead. Alert and kneeling next to the Fallen in an instant. “Lucien, speak to me, please, don't go again...”

“
Shh, sh.” Lucien had his eyes closed tight. “Lael, it's – it's dark.” He gasped. “I opened my eyes and I couldn't see and I thought I was blind –” Lalael dove at the nightstand and turned on the lamp. He had simply expected it would come on.

“
It's alright, it's light now. Come on, Lucien, come back to me, open your eyes.” He clutched Lucien's less injured shoulder.

“
I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't.” Lucien's voice broke.

“
Trust me.
Trust
me, Lucien,” the angel whispered thickly, his chest aching. “Never lied to you, have I?” His eyesight was blurring enough to make the visions look clear by comparison. Lucien groped for Lalael's hand; the angel took it. “The light's on, open your eyes, look at me, see me. You'll be able to see.”

“
Promise?”

Lalael didn't know if he could promise. He hadn't thought to check Lucien's eyes since the rest of his face hadn't been touched. “I promise,” he said firmly. “I promise. Please, Lucien, open your eyes.”

And he did. He had to.

Lucien took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. He looked at Lalael, pulling his hand from the angel's suddenly lax grip and raising it shakily to Lalael's damp face.

“
I'm not crying,” Lalael said sharply.

Lucien let his hand fall in exhaustion and closed his eyes again. “I know.” He swallowed. “Is this real?”

Lalael took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“
It was...” Lucien closed his eyes and swallowed. He licked his lips; there was a glass of water someone had set on the nightstand. Lalael seized it and gave it to him.

“
It was Jocelin, wasn't it?” Lucien gave a tiny nod as he sipped slowly. “Can't get you in here, I promise.”

“
Nightmares,” Lucien whispered. “'They come snatching in the night.'”

Lalael took the glass when Lucien handed it to him. The Fallen closed his eyes and sank back into the pillows. He had bruising all over him now, and deep shadows under his eyes, and Lalael could count his ribs. “Lucien,” The angel paused. “You should have been dead.”

Lucien coughed faintly. “Alive and kicking.”

“
No kicking right now. You promised me you wouldn't die, remember? You promised,” Lalael said quietly. “That's the only reason you're not...”

Lucien nodded. “I remembered.” He coughed again.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Over the next few days, Lucien made encouraging progress. Lalael slept on the floor of his room and sometimes, when he didn't sleep, he stood at the foot of Lucien's bed and fanned healing power at him. In a week and a half, he could stumble around the room on his own with a cane, snarking about cabin fever.

“
Lucien,” the angel said one day, while he was sitting on the window seat and watching Lucien pace and complain about the priestess, and Lalael, and their insistence on bed rest. “What happened?”

“
When? Yesterday when Mara brought the new girl to meet me and she ran off crying and giggling? Not. A damn. Clue.”

“
You know when I mean.” Lucien looked haunted and shifty. “Don't try to change the subject,” Lalael sighed. “I did have the vision, and I haven't told anyone about how you wake up at night. Something happened, and I want you to tell me.”

“
Blunt today, aren't we?” Lucien said, sitting on the edge of the mattress facing Lalael.

“
I just want to know.”

“
Jocelin came on to me, I was furious that you'd gone without telling me, so I shouted and threw them out. Told Jocelin I didn't want to see them ever again, Jocelin left, I left a bit later, wandered around, passed out, woke up in Jocelin's lair, was tortured for a little while, given to the Nightmares to play with once Jocelin got tired of me.” Lucien paused in his recap, eyes lifeless. “Jocelin stuck me in the gut with that knife, left me for dead, and I woke up here. That's all.”

“
No, it's not,” Lalael said casually. “But alright, I'll go along with it for now.”

Lucien nodded once, stiffly. “I can't... I can't tell you the rest of it,” he mumbled.

***

“
Want to see something amazing?” the angel asked later that day. “You'll like it.” Still sitting at the window, leaning comfortably against the window-frame, he tapped his pen against a stack of papers on his lap.

“
What I want is to be out of this room,” Lucien growled, poking the remains of lunch around his plate. Gods and minnows, but he hated oatmeal.

“
If you let me show you, we'll go outside. Deal?”  Lucien sat up straighter and looked attentive and brighter. “But you have to finish your food.” He slumped again and glowered.  “Look, I can close your wounds –”

“
Wish you'd tell me how.”

“
And I can stuff you full to bursting of healing –”

“
That too.”

“
But I can't replenish your energy just like that. You have to eat. And rest.”

“
I don't have to,” Lucien protested. “I can survive without.”

“
Just finish,” the angel said, crumpling a sheet of paper into a ball as Lucien prodded morosely at the soupy porridge. “And here, catch.” Lalael tossed it underhand; Lucien caught it easily, just before it hit him.

“
And?”

“
Toss it back.” The Fallen shrugged, and did so.

Lalael raised his right hand and jerked it forward, palm out and fingers spread. The crumpled paper slowed and stopped dead in midair. He smiled as Lucien stared and dropped his spoon into the oatmeal.

“
Show me.”

Lalael's smile widened further; he twitched his fingers and the ball flew into his hand.

Lucien grinned. “Show me.”

Lalael said nothing, but turned and opened the window, flinging the glass panes wide, and climbed onto the sill.

“
Couldn't we,” Lucien began suddenly, then averted his eyes and fiddled with the spoon. “Couldn't we just walk?” The angel turned and looked at him quizzically. “I mean,” the Fallen continued, voice shaking, “My bum leg, you know, I should exercise it, and flying takes an awful lot of energy, and I'm sure the others would like to know I'm up and about.”

The angel smiled. “Like Mara and Andrew aren't giving them hourly updates.”

“
Well, let's just go say hi, then. I don't mind walking.”

Lalael blinked. “Since when?” he demanded.

“
I just think that I won't be able to fly out that window. I mean, it's awfully narrow,” the Fallen said, edging towards the door.  Lalael looked at the window-frame he crouched in, single pair of wings relaxed and still with plenty of room. “I haven't seen the girls in ages. My fans must be missing me something fierce.”

Lalael pinned him with a sharp glance. “Why haven't you let me see your wings, Lucien?”

“
Nothing to see,” the Fallen mumbled.

“
What if Jocelin injured them?” Lalael asked sharply. Lucien shrugged. “If they're hurt, I should fix them now. I can't when you have them put away.”

“
Nothing to fix.”

“
Then fly with me up to the tower,” the angel insisted. “It'll be easier to show you things if we're higher up.”

Lucien turned away and leaned his forehead against the wall. “No,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the quaver out of his voice.

“
Why not?” Lucien heard the angel jump back off the window-frame, felt Lalael touch his shoulder. He shrugged the hand away.

“
Because...” He shook his head and turned his face away from the angel. His eyes burned; his throat felt too tight.

“
Because?” The angel prompted.

“
Doesn't matter,” Lucien said, swiping at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve.

“
Tell me,” Lalael said quietly.

The Fallen swallowed around the choking lump in his throat and crushed his palms to his face, sable curls falling over his fingers. He spoke, whispering his answer so softly he wasn't sure he'd made any noise at all. Lalael made a questioning noise: “Because,” Lucien said, breathing deeply, trying to tamp down the feeling of ripping away part of his soul.

In the moment before he continued, Lalael cast out a single little line of power and suddenly felt everything, the piercing, despairing clod of icy, pain in Lucien's chest that was overwhelming the dull, numb feeling that had filled the room, which was coming into sharp focus, stark and bare as the skeletons of trees. “Because Jocelin took them.”

And reality suddenly crushing in on them, leaving them breathless, frozen as a desert of ice. Lalael withdrew the line as quick as he could.

“
Jocelin. And the Nightmares,” Lucien said as his facade of apathy crumbled. “They took my wings. Hacked them away. It hurt,” he choked out. “It hurt like nothing I've ever felt. Nothing else that monster did to me hurt like that did. And I couldn't stop them, even when I fought and screamed and –” His voice cracked. Lalael seized him and wrapped his arms around Lucien, and Lucien clung to him as to a rock in a hurricane.

Lalael couldn't do anything but clutch silently and desperately at Lucien's back.

***

Mara stared at her lord, open-mouthed. “You're going to do what?” she demanded. Lalael continued looking at her, fingers steepled together. “I mean, the first part, looking around where they found Lucien,
that
I understand, but...” She trailed off, intimidated by Lalael's steely eyes. “Why?” she asked in a small voice.

“
Jocelin took his wings,” said the god bluntly. “This is how it's done in the Two Realms. A wrong is done, a trial is held, the injured allowed a chance to avenge himself. It's his right.” Lalael's eyes glinted like ice and vast, endless cold nights of driving sleet. “Find someone to take us to Jocelin.”

***

“
Lucien?” Lalael called, rapping on the door. “May I come in?”

A vague, mumbled answer, so Lalael opened the door. Lucien was not in bed, nor at the table, nor the window, but stuffed in the corner, a massive nest of blankets shifted about.

“
Why aren't you sleeping on the bed?”

The blankets stilled with a distinctly guilty air.

“
Don't know,” came the muffled answer. “Didn't want to.” Lalael pulled the blankets aside until he found a rumpled mop of dark curls.

“
Lucien, listen to me,” the god-angel insisted.

“
Listening,” the Fallen said, raising his head.

“
We're going to go find Jocelin.”

“
No!” Lucien looked up at Lalael, panicked. He calmed a moment later and dropped his eyes. “I mean no. There's no point.”

“
There is. I'm going to put Jocelin to trial. You can take your vengeance.”

Lucien shook his head frantically. “I can't, the Nightmares...”

“
It's your right. Your vengeance. Lucien,” he said, “you can take Jocelin's wings to settle the score.”

Lucien flinched and clutched the blankets closer about himself. “I wouldn't do that. I can't do that.”

“
You could,” Lalael began. Paused, forehead creasing with concern. “You could kill them, Lucien.”

“
No,” Lucien whispered, hands clenched in the blankets so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“
I'll open the Void and you could trick Jocelin into it.” Lalael grasped his companion's shoulders and shook him once. “It would be so easy!”

Lucien dropped his head into the blankets again. “I can't,” he whispered. “Can't take vengeance, we don't even have the knife that Jos used. Can't take vengeance without the weapon. Rules.”

The angel let go of Lucien's shoulders and tossed a cloth-wrapped object on the blankets. Lucien lifted his head and looked at it. He untangled one arm from the blanket, touched a fold of the cloth aside, flinched away. The blade of the knife was still stained with his blood. “Can't do it. I can't do it. I'm too scared.” A derisive snort.

“
Lucien, you can. You can. You're strong. You survived when others would have given up.”

“
I did give up. I stopped fighting, I let them defeat me.”

“
You lived,” Lalael insisted, once again gently shaking Lucien's shoulder.

“
I promised,” retorted Lucien, pulling the blankets closer about his neck and pulling away from Lalael's hand.

“
Weak people don't keep promises like you did. Take vengeance!”

“
I can't!”

“
Take vengeance!”

“
Don't say it again.”

“
Then come with me to put Jocelin to trial. If you see it again, maybe you'll change your mind.” Lalael paused. “Please?”

Lucien shook his head. “I
can't.
”

Lalael's reply was cut short by a knock on the door; Andrew entered a moment later with a tray of food. “Sorry for interrupting,” he mumbled.

“
Oh, Andrew,” Lucien said brightly. “Good, you brought dinner.” He stood up quickly and strode over to the table. “Thanks, I'm famished. Food is never an interruption. At least, not one that I object to.”

Lalael stared after him. There wasn't a even a hint of upset in Lucien's manner.

“
Aw, bacon sandwiches? Someone in the kitchens loves me,” Lucien said, grinning at Andrew. “Have you eaten, by the way? I haven't seen you since before I left. Sit down, sit down.”

Andrew sat placidly and folded his hands between his knees, watching Lucien stuff his mouth full. “Yeah... I've eaten.”

“
Lalael said you had a breakdown,” Lucien said from around a mouthful of sandwich. Lalael rose from the floor and came to the table, staring suspiciously at the Fallen, who didn't meet his eyes.

“
Oh. Yeah. Thanks. I'm alright. I was just... I didn't feel useful anymore when you were both
gone.” Andrew shrugged.

Lucien's eyes lit up. “You want to be useful? Fantastic! Lalael's going on an errand pretty soon and needs someone to go with him – wish I could, but my leg, you know, not up to long walks quite yet. Everyone's always telling me I shouldn't strain myself, and I just don't feel up to this particular outing. You'd go with him, wouldn't you? If I designated you my Second?”

Lalael mentally cursed.

“
Your what?”

“
My stand-in, I mean,” Lucien corrected smoothly. “It'd be
really
helpful. We'd both appreciate it.”

“
Sure... I guess? If you need help with something...”

Lalael clenched his jaw. Lucien was set on it, then. But a Second would do. That was the thing: It was a completely acceptable, legitimate, and legal solution to the issue.
Ektesh.

***

Lalael armed himself. He hid two guns on his person, looking as he did so at Lucien's red-sheathed daggers, and then he picked them up.