I drifted lazily into a pleasant dream about a sunny summer beach and lots of chocolate mint ice cream. My dream was short-lived, however, hijacked by an untimely visit from the God of Heaven’s Army.
Faris stood out like a sore thumb against the tropical gold and turquoise backdrop. His hair was glossy black and shoulder-length today, like ripples of liquid ink. Dressed in a set of black and silver armor, he looked like the lord of the castle. A feathered layer spread across his shoulders from the top of his cloak, sliding down his back like a black waterfall. I couldn’t tell if it was a cloak or his wings.
He moved toward me, emanating menace with every breath that he took. “Why did Ronan visit you in Chicago? What are you two scheming?” he demanded, foregoing all pleasantries. He sure didn’t waste any time cutting to the chase.
“Ronan was just training me.”
“Why has he taken such a particular interest in you?”
I was tired of his questions. Not to mention just plain tired period. Faris’s foul mood was disturbing my much-needed sleep.
“I don’t know. Why are you interested in me?” I deflected.
He made a derisive noise. “You flatter yourself. You are insignificant.”
“Obviously not. You came here to talk to me,” I said, smirking.
He caught me in the iron jaws of his magic, his grip as hard as his voice was silky. “Is Ronan training you to fight the gods?”
His magic was cracking me like a nut. It felt nothing like the pleasant buzz of an angel’s aura, the power they used to make you want to fight for them. What Faris was doing hurt, and it hurt bad. This was the hard, cruel side of Siren’s Song. It was not persuasion through pleasant means, through using people’s desires to direct them where you wanted them to go. No, this was crushing someone’s will under the heel of your boot.
“Is Ronan building an army to fight me?” Faris snapped, his magic squeezing down on me.
“No. He wants more angels for the Legion.”
“To threaten the gods.”
His magic was suffocating me. It was getting hard to breathe.
“To fight the monsters and other threats that besiege the Earth,” I choked out.
Faris gave his hand a dismissive flick. The invisible claw around my throat that had been slowly squeezing the life out of me roughly jerked away. I coughed, sucking in air.
“I don’t believe you,” Faris declared, watching me with an expression of utter distaste.
“I don’t care if you believe me,” I snapped at him. “It’s the truth. And my self-worth is not dependent on your approval.”
His nostrils flared, my defiance enraging his pride. He knocked me back with a telekinetic blast. It hurt, but not as much as it would have before my training session with Ronan. I really was improving.
Or maybe it hurt less because this was all a dream, and there was only so much he could do to me without actually being here. Could a god kill you in your sleep? I didn’t care to ponder the question further. I doubted I would like where it led.
Faris caught me in his magic again. “What is Ronan planning?”
Like a war hammer, his will crashed against mine, trying to crush my mind. My head felt like it was splitting apart in a hundred places at once, but I refused to scream. Faris would enjoy that too much.
“Ronan is not planning anything,” I said. “He is just trying to build up the Legion of Angels to fight the demons.”
“And why does he think you can help with that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I am in the Legion of Angels.” I managed to summon enough strength to roll my eyes.
Faris’s magic hit me harder, his phantom fingers tightening around my neck. I could hardly breathe.
“Your impudence does not amuse me,” he said in a low snarl.
“Well, your temper tantrum sure amuses me,” I snapped back.
Faris threw me aside, and I hit a nearby palm tree like a rag doll.
I stood up, my head hurting more than my body. Because this was a dream and his attack was a mental magic one, I realized. My head was pounding so hard I thought it might explode. I gritted my teeth, holding in the pain.
Faris folded his hands together. “Let’s try this again,” he said with a coldness that sent chills down my spine. “What are you to Ronan?”
“A tool,” I replied honestly. “Nothing more. Just as we all are to the gods.”
Faris was watching me closely, probably dissecting every expression on my face. “Indeed.”
As he approached me, I couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of his next attack. His eyes sparkled with vicious delight. Apparently, my fear amused him.
He stroked his hand down my face, grabbing my chin roughly between his fingers. “But what is this tool’s purpose?”
“Ronan thinks I can be an angel.”
I watched Faris for his reaction, and as expected, he did not seem surprised. Yes, he wanted me to be an angel as well. He wanted me to advance up the Legion so that I could find my brother Zane, a telepath, and then Faris would use Zane’s magic for himself.
But I didn’t say any of this. I hardly dared to think it, keeping those thoughts in a secret, hidden place in my mind, locking them away where the God of Heaven’s Army would never find them. I didn’t want him to realize that I was on to him.
Back when I’d first joined the Legion, Faris had pushed Harker to give me Nectar that would have made me a second-level angel. If I’d drunk it, I would have gained all the gods’ gifts up to the power of telepathy, which would have allowed me to use my connection to my brother to find him.
Well, assuming I’d survived the Nectar. Consuming all that magic in a single sip would have killed me soon afterwards. It might have even killed me before I’d gained the power I needed to find Zane, and then I would be yet another causality, just more collateral damage in Faris’s immortal quest for power.
Since then, Harker had defected from Faris’s side, joining Nyx and Ronan. That might have been what Faris suspected, that Ronan was countering his power plays. I didn’t completely trust Ronan and Nyx, but I trusted them a hell of a lot more than I trusted Faris. For starters, they hadn’t tried to poison me.
I wasn’t going to expose my friend Harker’s defection. Nor would I tell Faris about my other friend Stash, the demigod who was being trained by Ronan and Nyx. A troubling thought came to me. Was Ronan only countering Faris and trying to build a Legion army to protect the Earth, or was the God of War actually making a power play himself?
I plugged those thoughts. I had to believe in Ronan and Nyx, in Nero’s trust of them, because otherwise I’d have to decide that I could never trust a single soul. If I could put my faith in anyone in this dangerous, cold world of angels and gods I was now a part of, it was Nero.
I would keep these secrets, not for Ronan or even for Nyx, but for my brother Zane and my friend Stash, for Harker and for Nero, and for myself. And also to piss off Faris.
“You’re hiding something. You will tell me what it is,” declared Faris.
The anger over what Faris had done helped fuel my resistance, but it was really my love for those I cared about that powered my resolve and allowed me to resist the god who was trying to break me.
His magic hit my mind again, pushing harder. I held on.
He frowned. “Stop fighting me. Tell me your secrets.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do,” he said, his magic tightening its grip.
I could barely see from the excruciating pain. “Ok.” I swallowed hard. “But don’t come crying to me if you don’t like it.”
“I am a god. If I don’t like what you have to say, I won’t cry. I will kill you.”
I cringed. “You see, that’s not really convincing me to tell you anything.”
Faris gave me a hard look. “You’re stalling. There’s really no point. Pigheadedness will only get you so far.”
“I don’t know. Pigheadedness has gotten me pretty far in life. Though I prefer to think of it as strong-minded resolve.”
“I grow bored of your games. Spill your secrets, or I’ll crack your mind open and drink them from the shattered remains of your tangled thoughts.”
Yum, delicious imagery.