Page 3 of Even Angels fall
I wasn’t as lucky, though.
First, my mother wasn’t my father’s true mate. She didn’t even stick around after I was born.
Second, I was out of luck because it would have been so much easier for me if the white of my father’s feathers had mixed a bit with the black feathers from that one ancestor who was a crow, as it had done with Léandre’s feathers.
I’d have mixed-color wings, and even if I wouldn’t have been archangel material, I would have probably strived amongst the angels.
No one had seen the color of my wings or the animal I shifted into coming. The crows stayed on Aléa when the dimensions had collided. None of them had wanted to take upon Samaël’s mantle.
The fallen angel.
I was so fucking unlucky.
I probably should change my name to Samaël; it would suit me much more than Angélique—a very Angel-sounding name.
The joke on my father with that one.
“Again.”
Anne’s voice snaps me back to training.
There are still long hours of torture ahead of me, but I don’t mind.
It can’t be worse than what is coming for me.
2
Angélique
When Anne is finally done with me, my body hurts so much that my mind is turned off. I’m hungry, but I know I’ll have to wait.
I don’t eat at my father’s court, but my schedule is still very strict, and it’s perfectly built for me not to have any spare time.
I’m just a tool in my father’s plans.
Plans I don’t want to take part in but won’t have any choice about.
The water of the shower glides over my skin and rinses away the efforts I’ve made for the past five hours.
It’s the only moment I have spared in my oh so full schedule and even that is short. I’m expected at half-past eleven in the reception room of theécuries—the royal stable—by my tutor.
Because even if I was trained as a warrior, an assassin, and a spy, I’ve also been trained as a princess of some sort.
The thought I tried to chase out of my mind all morning comes back like a slap on the face.
I’m strong. I’m fast. I’m crafty.
And yet I’m my father’s sacrificial lamb.
That’s the only way I can say it, so it makes sense.
Upon seeing my wings on my first shift, my father yelled.
He yelled and then stopped talking completely and shut himself inside his office for two full days.
I know it for a fact because he made sure I was locked inside my room for the duration of his existential crisis.
At that time, my schedule wasn’t as busy as it is now. It wasn’t packed with continuous training. No, it only consisted of two hours of physical training in the morning and three long hours of lessons on politics.
