Page 66 of Forging Darkness

Well, well.

“Yes,” Thorne finally says. “Make sure to check in with your progress.”

“Of course.” She goes to leave, but stops and turns her head in my direction. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Emberly.” With her face pointed away from Thorne, one side of her mouth tips up and she winks before swinging back around and leaving.

My stomach sours as I watch her go. Releasing Silver into the wild is never going to be a good thing for humans or angel-born.

“You okay?” Thorne’s voice startles me, and my attention snaps back to him. He moves his arm as if he’s about to place it on my back, but then drops it. I take a covert step away to discourage the gesture.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Silver’s just not my favorite Forsaken.”

His mouth pulls down into a frown as he watches her saunter away. “Silver is . . . rather unusual. Even among her kind.”

My interest peaks.

“Is that so? What makes her different?”

Thorne’s face remains neutral, but I know he’s trying to decide how much to tell me.

“Do all Forsaken have memories from their vessel’s life? Silver seems to be particularly. . . in touch with those memories. And she kept her host’s name as well.”

Using words like “vessel” and “host” leave a bitter taste on my tongue, but since that’s how Fallen and Forsaken seem to think of Nephilim and the humans they’ve possessed, playing nice might help loosen Thorne’s tongue.

I try encouraging the conversation when he still doesn’t respond. “She mentioned something before about how Silver, the original one, wasn’t really gone.”

Thorne looks away sharply, eyeing the closest sparring match about twenty feet away. The combatants tear into each other. Even from this distance I can clearly see bits of gore and blood splatter over the sand at their feet. A Fallen oversees the match, yelling commands at the pair as well as instructions on how to disembowel an opponent. It makes my stomach turn, but I don’t even think Thorne sees the carnage.

“Walk with me,” he finally says, and I’m instantly deflated that he’s not going to entertain a conversation about Silver. If there’s more to the Forsaken than the angel-born know, I want to find out what it is.

Thorne carries himself as if we’re strolling through an English garden rather than weaving through a blood-stained training field. Fallen and Forsaken battle in clusters to our right and left. This training could not be more dissimilar to the high tech-facility in the bowels of Seraph Academy. Angel-born are educated in multiple weapons and fighting techniques under the watchful eyes of instructors. We run through a regimented set of drills each day and take precautions so we don’t seriously injure ourselves or each other.

Thorne throws out an arm to stop me from getting beaned in the head with a severed hand, gesturing me forward after the appendage thumps to the ground several feet away.

I grimace. How gallant.

The Fallen and Forsaken obviously don’t share the same concerns as Nephilim fighters. It’s like watching gladiator matches that only end when one of the opponents loses a limb.

Oh wait, no. I’m wrong. That doesn’t end the fight. The Fallen and Forsaken tearing into each other battle on, even though the Fallen only has a bloody stump where a functioning hand should be.

“Don’t worry. Shayna can regrow a hand.” Thorne misinterprets the look on my face as concern.

“Relieved to hear it,” I mumble back.

We reach the opposite end of the training fields and stop to watch the closest match. The Fallen has the height and weight advantage, but the Forsaken is speedy and scrappy—two traits I always rely on in a fight.

Unsheathing a sword holstered at his hip, the Fallen goes after the female Forsaken. The weapon is extra-long because of the Fallen’s height, so the reach of the blade is ridiculous. The Forsaken, in contrast, is only using her claws and teeth, her movements animalistic. Every blow she lands elicits a grunt from her larger, winged opponent. I can’t decide if the Fallen’s wings are a help or hindrance.

“Keep fighting like this,” the Forsaken taunts, “and it will only be another few centuries before you earn yourself a vessel.”

The Fallen spits something in Enochian back at the Forsaken. I don’t need to understand the language to know it was a curse.

The winged fighter picks up his pace, but it isn’t long before his armor is slick with blood, and his movements become sloppy. He swings at the female and misses; she jumps to the side and ends up behind him. Before the Fallen can spin to face his opponent, the Forsaken wrenches both of his wings back.

The Fallen roars when both appendages snap at uneven angles. I flinch at the sound and pinch my face into a wince.

Hindrance. The wings are definitely a hinderance.

Dropping the useless limbs, the Forsaken snatches the discarded weapon and knocks the Fallen out with the handle.

---