Right on cue, she heard the slither of something on the stone, something heavy and scaly and reptilian. Shivering, she switched one of her daggers for the short sword Galen had drilled her in until she could fight in the dark—so long as she avoided that gaping pit in the center—and she opened her mouth. “Games,” she said, speaking to the alien intelligence behind this trap, “are beneath you.”
The slithering didn’t cease, but she felt the sense of something, someone watching and listening, the heavy weight of that presence pressing down on her as she drew in long, slow breaths and tried to pinpoint the location of whatever it was that had crawled out of the pit to join her.
Musk. Dirt. Moss.
It was the last that gave her the anchor she needed—the stone room had been bare of living plants when she’d retrieved Illium. The creature was in the left-hand corner, she thought, heading toward her. So she began to inch to her right a fraction at a time, always testing ahead before she moved. She didn’t trust the hole to remain in the center of the room.
“You were a goddess,” she said as she moved. “Intelligent and beautiful, and worshipped by people not out of fear, but out of love. I am nothing but an angel new-Made, no real challenge to someone of your power.” It was the unvarnished truth, and that, Elena thought, might just save her. Unless Caliane was still utterly insane. “To torment me serves no purpose but to lessen you.”
A sudden cold that made her heart stutter in shock. The thing in the room with her hissed in rage at the same instant, and she knew she was skirting the edge of what would be tolerated. But she had to keep talking, had to keep Caliane from ordering the creature to attack. “Do you know what Raphael told me?” she said, hope flaming anew as she felt a vibration in the wall. Archangel.
The moment’s distraction almost cost her everything as the serpent or whatever the f**k it was spit something in her direction. She caught the scent of acid a fraction of an instant before it would’ve been too late and slammed herself down and to her right, breaking what felt like a rib in the process. That pain, however, was nothing to the searing agony on the very tip of her left wing. Swallowing the scream that wanted to escape, she blinked back tears and crawled another foot out of range. “He told me,” she said through the agonizing hurt, “that you had a voice like the heavens, so pure and strong and imbued with love that the world itself stood still to listen.”
The cold retreated with such unexpected swiftness that Elena wondered if she’d surprised Caliane. But it was too late. She was trapped in a corner, with the floor falling away in a steep drop to her right, solid stone walls to her back and left ... and the creature coming straight for her. She could see glowing slivers of swirling yellow and green that she guessed were its eyes, and from the sound it made as it slithered across the floor, it was massive.
There was no way in hell she’d be able to fight that thing trapped like this, but there wasn’t any time to do—“Idiot, shit.” She was moving even as the thought entered her head, rolling off to her right and into the pit, wings flared wide to control her descent. She had a feeling she did not want to drop down to the bottom—who the f**k knew what waited below, but she could use this space to maneuver. She didn’t let herself consider the fact that the whole thing might snap shut, crushing the life out of her—maybe, just maybe, Caliane had heard enough to decide to give her a chance.
Twisting so that she faced the last known position of the creature, she beat her wings up and sliced out with the short sword. A scream of rage and the thick, pungent odor of body fluids told her she’d scored a hit. Her elation lasted only an instant—before agony blazed down her left side and she realized the creature had spit at her again.
It felt like her flesh was being peeled off her bones. Tears streamed down her face though she tried to fight them, knowing she couldn’t give in to any vulnerability. Then her left wing began to drag, and she knew the acid had hit something vital. Fighting to keep herself afloat, she slammed into a wall inside the hole, felt the roughness of it scrape away the skin on her arms, her face, to expose her flesh to the air.
A second after that, she heard the slithering below.
Jesus. Swallowing, she beat her good wing faster in an effort to rise, but only succeeded in slowing her momentum a little. Archangel, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be the time.
A slam of crashing noise and then light, so bright that it made her cry out, shade her eyes with her uninjured arm as rocks and stone ... and wetter, slimier things, rained down from above. Ducking to the side, she scrabbled at the coarseness of unfinished stone as one wing collapsed completely. “Raphael! Down here!”
A nail tore off her finger, another, blood slicking over her skin. Hurry!
Strong hands clamping over her shoulders. Two seconds later, she was being hauled out through a gaping hole where there had once been a door. Blinking against the sudden light, she tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out past gritted teeth, the agony on her left side starting to crawl to the right.
Raphael brushed the hair off her face. “I have you, Elena. I have you.” The warmth from his hands began to soak into her skin, chasing out the vicious pain that made her feel as if her organs were caught in a massive grinder.
Giving in to the need, she buried her face against his chest and fisted her hand in his damp shirt as he used his power to heal her. He was big and strong and warm, and she wanted to strip him to the skin and wrap herself around him until nothing could touch either of them. Sucking in a breath when his hand brushed her still-burning hip, she set her jaw, holding on with a white-knuckled grip.
Sooner than she’d expected, the pain was nothing but a memory.
“How bad is it?” she asked against his chest. “My wing?” It felt dead, gone. No, please no.
33
His arms around her. “The creature’s poison was not as bad as Anoushka’s.”
“Not reassuring, Archangel.”
“Your wing was paralyzed, not damaged—the acid didn’t have time to eat through the tendon and bone. You’ll be able to fly again in a few minutes.”
So relieved that she was shaking, she pulled away to sit up—and got a good look at her side. Her clothing had been eaten away in spots large and small to expose her flesh. And it was flesh, the skin having been burned to nothingness by the acid. Bone gleamed white through one section and the sight of it made her want to retch.