Page 61 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

“May I ask the man a quick question?” I ask the council.

Harold folds his hand, then scratches his chin.

“That’s quite unprecedented,” he says. “I believe we’ve already heard his testimony. We’re just waiting to hear the judgment of the village.”

Realizing that this isn’t a trial at all—not that they ever claimed it was one—my heart sinks.

I almost wonder why they asked me here at all, if they weren’t going to listen to anything I had to say.

“Why don’t we let her ask her a question?” Jeremiah suggests.

My eyebrow raises.

When did Jeremiah become reasonable?

Not waiting to hear a dissenting voice on the matter, my attention turns to the dumpy-looking man in the crowd, whose face is swollen.

“You claim you and your friend were out late last night, reinforcing curfew,” I say, trying to hide the rage from my voice. “So do you mind telling me how he hurt his wing?”

I hope to catch him off-guard with the question.

Instead, an unnatural, cocky smile crosses the man’s face.

“Well, I was defending myself, of course,” he says.

The memory of the bloody wound fills my mind.

“You were defending yourself,” I repeat, taking a deep breath.

I don’t have any idea how to protect Xeros from these people.

26

XEROS

Something’s not right.

I sit by myself in the dining room, trying to stomach the cold eggs.

I had hoped for a better reunion with Evangeline. Instead, immediately upon greeting her, she was whisked away by a strange woman and taken to an unknown location.

I can feel her agitation as I tap my talons nervously into the wood, feeling an unknowable sense of dread.

And that tells me that she isn’t okay.

They haven’t been terribly welcoming since we arrived, have they?

She always spoke so highly of them, despite their glaring flaws. Watching her return here has been far more difficult than I’d like.

But as I stomach the agitation and feel the sharp pangs that have been tormenting my wing, which now appears swollen, I realize that she requested me to stay here until she returns.

And who am I to question her judgment?

I set the plate on the table, not bothering with the mass of uneaten food left on its metal surface. For a human, I suppose what’s left could be an entire meal, but my appetite has been fleeting.

I could be flying around Protheka with her in my grasp. I could be killing monsters not for glory, but for the sake of satisfying my endless appetite.

Instead, I have resigned myself to a human life in this settlement.

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