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AZRAEL paused when she reached her old chambers. Only a short time had passed since her life had turned upside down, but the narrow hall was just as she remembered it. One deep scratch ran down its length and Azrael trailed her finger across it with a smile. That was the only time Michael had tried to show off a new fencing sword inside the Manor. Madame ordered it broken in half and while it was indeed a loss of a fine sword, the look on Michael’s face was well worth the gouge in her wall.
Azrael peered around the corner, expecting to see the room empty, but found Meretta inside twirling a piece of paper across her fingers at the oak desk.
She smiled, running a light scratch down the door with her fingernails. Meretta spun around with her brows arched high and her mouth in a round “O.”
Holding her belly, Azrael doubled over in a hearty laugh. “Good Divine. That’s a guilty face if I’ve ever seen one!”
Meretta clamped her mouth shut and shot to her feet. “What on Terra are you doing here?”
Azrael slipped inside and shut the door. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Meretta eased her hands behind her back, hiding something from sight. “Of course I am. It’s just—”
Sweeping to her side, Azrael leaned around Meretta’s plumed dress and snatched the paper from her grasp.
“Hey!” Meretta said.
Azrael wrinkled her nose. “Don’t hide things from me. It’s not polite.” And with that she tore the letter open and immediately regretted her decision. The first three lines told her she shouldn’t have shoved her nose in Meretta’s business.
Azrael thrust the letter back into Meretta’s face as her cheeks heated in a blush. “I have no interest in reading how one of your suitors fancies your... hum...”
Meretta huffed and seized the letter. “It’s not from a suitor. It’s from a Windborn.”
Azrael’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
Meretta tossed the paper atop a stack of unopened correspondence. She leaned both hands on the edge of the desk and glared at the letter as if she could burn a hole straight through and make it disappear. “I’m not sure what to do. I’d report it, but—”
“He’s one of Michael’s.”
Meretta pressed her lips in a tight line and nodded.
Azrael sighed and eased into a curved velvet chair, careful to avoid her fresh Acceptance marks. “We can’t just keep letting Michael run this place. Not anymore, at least.”
Meretta offered Azrael a wry smile. “Is someone already feeling like a Princess?”
Azrael barked a laugh. “Hardly.” She fell silent and tugged at a frayed edge of the chair. She couldn’t call herself a princess when she couldn’t even access the royal magic.
Meretta shuffled through the unopened letters, tossing aside ones with gold and silver seals until she found one at the bottom. “Ah! Here we are. This should cheer you up.”
Azrael leaned to get a better look. It was hardly extravagant, not even a proper metallic seal to keep it closed until the letter had arrived to its intended recipient. “What is it?”
Meretta handed it over. “It’s tonight’s fest in your honor. You should go.”
Azrael licked her lips and accepted the dull prize. Unfurling the letter with care, she was met with impeccable font inviting her to attend a Windborn-exclusive celebration for the long-anticipated and much-needed replacement... A new Queen.
“We shouldn’t celebrate the Queen’s...retirement,” Azrael said, choosing her words carefully. She resisted the urge to tear the invite into pieces and instead let it drift to her lap. “Why would you suggest we even attend?”
Meretta scoffed and scooped the paper up, smoothing out the edges. “You’re far too dramatic. It’s no secret her Majesty has upheld the longstanding tradition of selling off Windborn as slaves. A new Queen is a fresh start, a renewed hope that times will finally change.”
Azrael swallowed, unsure it would be that easy. “As Queen, I’ll be expected to uphold the tradition of Windborn sales. Of course, I would do my best to change the way things are, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
Meretta matched Azrael’s gaze, crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her hip in a way that said she meant business. “This is why you made a deal with your demon, is it not? You’re going to change things.”
A lump seemed lodged in Azrael’s throat and she swallowed. Her motivations had been far more selfish. She’d asked for an opportunity to change her own fate, not that of her entire race. And aside from Meretta, who had ever shown her kindness? Who deserved to be saved?
Azrael opened her mouth to explain, but instead said, “It’s not that simple.”
Ever patient, Meretta didn’t retort. She offered a sympathetic smile and placed a hand on Azrael’s shoulder. “It’s never simple.”
Azrael breathed out a sigh of relief. “And I assume I can thank you for letting the world know I’m the new Princess?”
Meretta rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Her Majesty announced it herself just the other day. She didn’t say who it was, but I wouldn’t worry. No one would believe the new Princess would be a hybrid.”
Azrael stiffened and folded her lower lip under her teeth.
Meretta sat on the armrest, finding a perfect balance to teeter like a finch on a branch. “It’s a good thing. They’ll find out when you’re ready, and not a moment before.”
Gabriel’s warning crossed Azrael’s mind. If anyone did find out, would it really matter? What was he so afraid of?
Seeming refreshed, Meretta bounced to her feet and slapped her hands together. “It’s decided then.” She spun to the wardrobe. “Now, what to wear?”
Meretta swung the door open and Azrael wearily considered the brightly colored rows of fabric. “Anything that won’t show my back.”
#
AZRAEL had only been to the ballroom twice in her life. The first she couldn’t remember, because it was when she’d been an infant. Her fall from the heavens was an event she was glad not to recall, just as much as those who must have ogled her presence in Manor Saffron as one of the few hybrids to have survived.
The second time she’d been to the ballroom, however, she remembered vividly. That was when she was twelve and another child had been introduced with bi-colored eyes. And just like that day, Azrael swelled with foreboding and contempt, and just a sparkle of hope.
“Look!” Meretta shouted and pointed at the row of Windborn boys up on stage. Typically, the upper tier was reserved for Terraborn observers for the new Saffron Wares. But now it boasted condescending faces of another kind.
Azrael dragged her gaze away from the upper tier and to the dance floor. A swirling crowd of blue and silver gowns filled her vision, all colors in favor of her Majesty’s prized shades. Blue for the sky, from which they were born, and silver to remind them of what they were: raw ore to be purified.
There was one who wore a blue so dark it would have looked black in a duller light. Michael stood apart from the rest, a silver flute in hand and his eyes closed as the melody drifted across the bobbing crowd. To Azrael, he seemed like a dark songbird pouring out his soul to each drifting passerby. Azrael closed her eyes as she listened, and it was easier to read Michael’s heart without her blue eye and green eye battling for supremacy.
While Michael’s melody was soft and gentle, one of Lumerian’s ballads intended for celebration, the tone drifted into a minor key. She could feel his conflicted heart, the sadness born of the hybrid’s murder. In another life, he could have been proud of what he’d done. But in this life, he knew Azrael, and she could feel how he questioned his own certainty, his own goodness. When Azrael opened her eyes and their gazes locked, she reeled with the power of the connection. He’d never be able to understand the morality of what he’d done, but she could.
Meretta hooked Azrael’s arm and swept her out of Michael’s line of sight. Instead of pondering Michael’s ethics, she was reminded of the grandiose of Manor Saffron. Velvet drapes spanned the two-story ceiling and drooped to graze the floor, their length a hundred of her bedsheets put together. Each white pillar of the upper balcony was lined with strings of rose petals. It would have taken years to assemble such trimmings, but the birthplace of Windborn filled it with all the magic it needed. Even as she watched, the petals twisted and multiplied, twining upon themselves to cover any hint of the marble underneath.
Azrael scanned the faces, each so joyous and uplifted. She found herself wistful, wondering if they’d be so jovial if they knew their Princess mingled in the waltz among them, boasting the blood of a demon in her veins.
A waft of buttery bread made Azrael’s mouth fill with saliva and she veered for the bobbing plate, grateful for the distraction. Azrael ripped off a white glove so as not to dull it with grease and snatched a flakey treat from the disapproving servant, not wasting any time and shoving it into her mouth.
Meretta burst out in a delightful laugh. “See? You’re already having a good time.”
Azrael grinned, as well as she could with the pastry crammed against her teeth, and had to admit she was right. How often could the Windborn enter the birthing chamber? Only when there was a new arrival, which was a depressing sight indeed, or when there was something to celebrate—which wasn’t often. And Azrael had something to celebrate, did she not? Perhaps Meretta was right. She would soon be Queen, and change how all Windborn were treated. New arrivals would no longer be pitied. They would be celebrated as well.
Meretta’s eyes sparkled with delight and she shifted her weight, flowing into the swirl of the crowd, unable to contain her legs and arms any longer from joining in the dance.
Azrael nibbled on the remainder of her pastry as she watched Meretta swirl. The sight of her undiluted joy was all Azrael needed to feel like there was light and hope left in the world. And it wasn’t just their dance master’s teachings that gave Meretta such grace—she was Windborn. Grace was in her nature.
A young Windborn male caught Meretta by the waist and shot Azrael a mischievous smile.
As fast as she’d been uplifted, her spirits fell and her face hardened. No doubt, this was Meretta’s Windborn admirer.
Michael’s flute fell into silence and his gaze found her once again. Azrael couldn’t read his expression from this distance, but an ominous wave swept out and latched onto her throat like a vice.
Azrael’s breath hitched. Is this my magic?
Meretta stumbled and the handsome Windborn pulled her to his side. Azrael couldn’t hear his words, but his lips moved with a slimy grin plastered across his face.
Azrael pushed through the crowd, determined to save Meretta or die trying. But as she grew closer, her lungs tightened and Michael’s unmistakable presence loomed over her like a dark cloud. His emotions raged with such power that Azrael swam in them dizzy and disoriented.
“Michael,” Azrael whispered at the revelation.
She’d never known such sorrow. He held no doubt about his righteousness, not until he’d met Azrael. His obsession with her went deeper than she’d realized. He envied that she could judge the world with both sides, and he was half-blind. He hated her for it.
“Azrael.” Her name was on his lips and the room snapped back into reality.
The waltz continued and Meretta was swept away by the crowd. She shot Azrael a firm look paired with a nod, one that said, “I can take care of myself.”
Azrael gazed up at Michael and blinked furtively.
He tilted his head. “Would you mind coming with me?”
Dazed, Azrael had no choice but to follow as Michael took her wrist and whisked her out of the room.
“Where have you been?” he asked when they’d left the celebratory clamor and replaced it with muted song in the halls of Manor Saffron.
“I was in isolation,” Azrael said truthfully. “After the hybrid...the Mistress—”
He took a threatening step forward. “Don’t lie to me.”
Azrael blinked, confused. “I’m not.”
He clenched his fists. “I need your orb.”
“W-what?”
“Your orb,” he articulated. “Where is it? Have you already used it? It’s important.”
Azrael shook her head slowly from side-to-side. “Why would you think I had an orb at all?”
“You’re a hybrid, Azrael. You have an orb, even if you wanted others to think you didn’t. Don’t play dumb.” He took another step forward, his breath puffing hot against her face. “Where is it?”
Azrael stepped back but was met with the cool wall. Her heel thumped painfully against it and she winced. “And if I gave it to you?”
He slammed his fist against the wall, just inches from her head. “I’d save you. Let me take the demon off your hands. Let me take his attention.”
Azrael glowered. “An orb doesn’t work like that. If the demon wanted you, you’d have an orb of your own to torment your nights.”
He leaned, his lips just inches from hers. “You already torment my nights.”
Azrael pressed her hands against his chest and pushed. With it, a warmth swelled in her lower back and burned through her limbs, sparking out a wave that sent Michael flying.
He landed across the hall and thumped hard against the piling.
Azrael stomped her way to him and enjoyed the moment to tower over him as he’d done to her a hundred times before.
He gasped for breath and held his stomach. “I’ll venture that...you’ve already used it.”
Azrael scoffed. “Yes. Okay. I used my orb. But it’s not what you think. I asked for an opportunity to change my fate. How’d I know that opportunity would be to become Queen?”
He peered up at her. “Queen.” He breathed it as if he already knew, but hearing it was still a shock. He blinked a few times, his eyes looking tired and rimmed with red. “What was the price?”
Azrael crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t kill the demon.” No sense lying to Michael. He was a driven person. Best tell him the truth and let him do what he would with it.
He laughed and sputtered. “And the demon took that deal? You must have a dumb demon father.”
Azrael narrowed her eyes. “He’s not my father. We don’t have fathers.”
Michael grinned. “He made you what you are. What’s a father, other than that?”
She glowered. “And if I hadn’t used my orb? What were your intentions with it?”
He sobered and looked down at his hands, and Azrael wondered if he were imagining blood on them. “I would have asked to be like you.”
#
AZRAEL LEFT MICHAEL with his blue eyes and disappointment. He could never be like her. He’d always be stuck in his ways, unable to see the world as she did. He had no place in her life. And now that she had access to her royal magic, she could do something about it. The deal with her demon was paying off.
Azrael scanned the crowd and found Meretta sipping from a fluted glass filled with sparkling golden liquid, no slimy Windborn male in sight.
Azrael made her way to Meretta’s side and gave her a curious smile. “Where’d you hide the body?”
She giggled. “After you left with Michael, I told him that you two had gotten close. The last thing Michael needed was an errant subordinate hitting on Azrael’s best friend.”
Azrael nodded with approval. “Good. Hope that scared him off.”
Meretta turned the glass in her palm, seeming smug. “Sure did.” She took another sip and then flicked her gaze to Azrael. “So, what’d Michael want?”
“It doesn’t matter. He can’t get it.”
Meretta hummed. “Who can get what they want these days?”
Azrael scratched her burning back and winced as the dress stuck to the sores. “Hopefully, I can. For all our sakes.”
Meretta gave her an approving smile before setting her glass down and swirling her onto the dance floor.