The House of Shattered Wings

Then there was pain again. The world tasted like blood and salt, and he couldn’t feel his hands anymore; each knuckle of each finger seemed to have burst.

He tried to close his eyes, to find again the serenity of immortals, but they were gummed with tears. He tried to call the khi currents to him, to talk to Isabelle, but nothing would leap into the broken mess of his hands—but there was only Asmodeus’s overwhelming presence, the growing pressure on his mind, a raging fire battering at his defenses until he thought his brain was going to explode.

He needed . . . he needed . . .

He’d done this before. He needed to focus, to find the sound of a waterfall in a land that was so far away it might as well be dead; to feel the wet tang of the air in the mountains at dawn, when the whole world was spread beneath his feet, tinged with the pink of clouds in the light of the rising sun—to ignore the sucking of wet breath in his lungs, the waves of red-hot pain in his arms, the frantic beating of his heart. He needed to—Serenity always remained frustratingly out of reach. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything but the pain.

But there was something else—the familiarity of a vision, a memory—a pain in the back of his mind that wasn’t his. There was the memory of knives against flesh; of straining against restraints that only burned deeper into his skin; the bleak, hopeless despair that knew only death would end the agony, that no one and nothing was coming to save him, because they had already given him up. . . .

Asmodeus’s face swam out of the morass, his mouth open in a question that he couldn’t hear. Every word slid like drops of water on polished glass: the pain in his body had abated, but the other one was still raging on, a whirling storm of suffering and anger and the desire for revenge on all that had harmed him. In a rare moment of lucidity—clinging, desperately, to thoughts that were his, he understood. This was the heart of the curse. This was the tight knot of pain and rage and disappointment, the khi current of wood and water he had followed to this room, the primal scream that fueled the darkness.

Betrayal.

This was not his; not his rage, not a betrayal of him, but something far, far older; the event that called for justice; for revenge. This—this was not his pain. This was not the present where he was being torn apart by Asmodeus, but the past; the memory of someone else’s pain; of someone else’s death—except that knowing it didn’t help him, not one whit—the memories were too strong, an overwhelming maelstrom of power and rage that dragged him along until he could no longer tell what agony and rage belonged to him, and what didn’t.

One must seize power, Morningstar whispered, sitting in the fractured image of a red plush armchair, the wings on his back glinting like blades in the instant before they cut into flesh. One must be ruthless and utterly dedicated. And, nodding gravely, he said, I gave everything to this House, and I expect my students to do the same.

That same horrible pressure against his brain, that same exquisite and painful sensation, the rush of knowing he did his master’s will, that he would die for it—all that complex and conflicted love sharpened to pure hatred, as he hung suspended in the chains of another House, traded away to buy peace.

He—Morningstar had given everything to the House—everything—ruthlessly sacrificed his own student to a long, painful death, so the House would be safe. . . . He—

Revenge. Hatred. Betrayal. All there bubbling up from the past, overwhelming his mind—no wonder it was so strong; no wonder it still drove that curse like a sharpened, salted blade—that a master should betray his own pupil, his beloved child. . . .

You understand, Morningstar whispered, except it wasn’t Morningstar; it was the black maw of some huge animal—the faint outline of leathery wings and claws, a shape that kept going in and out of existence—that slid across mirrors and crystal glasses, waiting until the time was right to strike. . . .

No, no, no.





THIRTEEN


A THREAD OF WOOD, A THREAD OF WATER

ISABELLE was in Madeleine’s laboratory, gluing a panel of glass to the inside of a mirror frame, her face furrowed in concentration. Earlier, she had looked preoccupied and uneasy, working the fingers of her good hand into the hollow of her crippled one, as she always did when worried—though she’d shaken her head when Madeleine had asked her what was wrong. Not trusting enough—Madeleine, remembering Oris, fought an urge to ask her again, but it was useless. She couldn’t pry words out of Isabelle, not if the Fallen didn’t want to talk.

Madeleine turned her attention back to the vials, where Selene had stored a few breaths: not much magic, but enough to get someone out of trouble, if need be. She would need to seal those carefully, stoppering them with primed wax so the breath didn’t escape.