Page 61 of Even Angels fall
Oh, god, this feels so wrong.
They’re discussing their own deaths as if they don’t matter, and the only important people are us. Or, well, me.
I don’t like it at all.
If they knew the little worth I actually had, maybe they wouldn’t be so adamant to protect me.
Maybe they’d let me fight, though.
“Can we fly away?” Cassiopé asks in a small voice.
Wait. Did Elhyor not tell anyone that I can’t shift?
“Can you carry someone?” he asks as he turns in Brice’s direction.
The dumb look on Brice’s face is answer enough.
“Depends on the someone,” he answers, tactfully avoiding looking at me. He might not have known, but the answer was easy to find.
“Is there a crash course on how to shift?” I ask, surprising everyone in the room, maybe even myself.
But I can’t forget that even though I haven’t shifted in eight years, it’s not because my body refuses to, no, I couldn’t shift because it was forbidden.
“I thought you said you can’t shift,” Elhyor asks with a pointed look. Is that hurt I can see on his face?
It can’t be true. Instead, I focus on his question.
I’m not going to let them burn centuries of history because they want me. The daughter of an archangel.
I’m a symbol to them.
A symbol of Elhyor fraternizing with the enemy it seems.
“I was never taught how to shift,” I say as I hold my head high. I won’t feel guilty about kinda lying to him.
“But have you ever shifted?” Elhyor asks softly. For a second, I’m surprised by that softness, but then I remember that we’re about to get attacked.
“Once.”
“Then we can do it the regular way,” Cassiopé says with a bright smile, seemingly oblivious to the fact the men in the room are now wondering why on earth I’ve never shifted other than that one time.
She turns to me and grabs my shoulders to look at me. Then she turns her head to either side before moving me to the middle of the room, away from anything that could be hit by… wings.
“Okay, we’re going to do this together,” she starts, as if we’re the only two in the room. “First, I want you to close your eyes.”
Half-heartedly, I comply, and let her voice slowly tell me the steps to let my wings out.
“Now, you need to focus on your animal. Feel it inside of you. It’s like a fluttering against your ribcage. It should get louder and louder the more you focus on it.”
”Mmm.” I don’t know what that noise I made is supposed to mean, but I can’t feel anything. It’s like my chest cave is hollowand no animal lives inside. I know there used to be one. My little crow. But it feels like it’s long gone.
My bird has deserted me.
“Do you feel your dove?” Cassiopé asks.
I don’t correct her assumption that I’m a dove like my father. Instead, I breathe heavily in the hope that, if I get more air out, there will be more room for my bird or that it will be easier to find it.
I know it’s silly, but following Cassiopé’s words doesn’t seem to be working, and I’m grasping at straws.
