Page 4 of The Surrender

Minutes later, I’ve flown her to the highest mountain peaks, no more than a mile from the Court of Storms. This is my favorite time of day—when the horizon gives birth to the sun. The best ones are the painful ones when it splashes the sky with blood red blotches, burning gold, and wildfire orange.

Of course, the Waste itself has no such rising or setting phenomenon, but this mountaintop grants a glimpse of the sunrise beyond the Veil of Souls. It’s the one time of day that the Veil turns transparent from that first light streaming through it. At least for a few minutes. Perhaps Kronos designed it as a method of torture. But a glimpse is far better than nothing.

I pause at the crest of the mountaintop, swallowing a deep welling of emotion that drags tears to sting my eyes. It’s been ten thousand years since I’ve seen the sunrise while the wind pulsed through my feathers. Although I feel Quinny’s eyes on me as I hold her small, naked form, I don’t tear my eyes from the glimmering piece of dawn for one moment.

She seems to understand the reverence since she doesn’t break the silence. I press my lips to the top of her head in gratitude as I survey the sunrise until the Veil scrawls dark and gray upon the world again.

“Kyan…” Quinny finally says, her voice soft as she shifts her arms from my chest to wind around my neck. Oh, she will need to hold tighter than that, I smirk. “Is that—are you flying me down there?” She gestures to the serene, still lake hundreds of feet below us. Fed by a narrow waterfall like a thin, rippling ribbon.

“You’re sweet as a dream, my dear. And wild as a storm. Time for you to meet mine!”

I crouch and snap my wings shut. Her eyes practically howl when she realizes I’m not going to fly at all. She rakes her nails into the back of my neck. All of me grows hot and eager, and I kiss her cheek and my demon purrs, “Smile when you scream, my dirty darling.”

4

“Oh, how you will fly!”

QUINTESSA

Wild adrenaline knifes through my blood. My stomach has already said farewell to my body. It’s nothing like flying, I remember from the journey here. It’s more like soaring in reverse—a sheer deep dive through thin gray air that storms my face and hair. No matter how hard I try, I can’t force my eyes to shut from the grueling claws of wind. I imagine I’ve shed blood from how hard my nails have burrowed into Kyan’s neck. Blood taints the tip of my tongue from where I’ve unwittingly bitten it.

It doesn’t seem to sink in how the force of the water will crush my body from the speed at which we’re diving. In the barest blinks of moments, all I process is the upward spiral of wind…and the memory of Kyan’s tears.

Wind batters my eyes, ripping tears until I slam them shut. Not even when the fallen angel prepares to plunge right through that surface that might as well be granite. Fear only adds more fuel to the adrenaline burning within me, and I hope it will help to cushion the impending pain. A strange shriek escapes my throat.

But when the inertia careens me back, nothing hard catches me. It’s powerful and protective. The thrumming inside the soft, downy force assures me it’s possessive. When I open my eyes to discover nothing but Kyan’s feathers—those black and incandescent feathers as strong as iron, I whimper from the well of emotion. He caught me with his own wings. Well-muscled from the great sinew rippling through the pinions, his wings surround my entire body.

I smile, almost giggling down at my naked self, all white within this dark bubble, apart from all the ink whorls of course.

Kyan pokes his face through a layer of feathers. “Why are you grinning?”

I startle, giggling. He cocks his head to one side, showing off a subtle and thin mantle of black tuft. Like owl fur. I remember that fur from the first time I discovered all the monster gods in the Wailing Woods. And how much the fallen angel bore those owl-like features. Beyond the tuft, his eyes are large and mad with pupils both glossy and piercing as they study me.

He’s no longer supporting me with his hands. I’m curled up, suspended in the center of those great wings, and I swear they grow the more he studies me. With crimson flushing my cheeks and spreading downward since I remember why they grow, I dare to curve my fingers into the feathers. And jump as they quiver and pulse.

“Your wings are my cocoon, Kyan. You’ve spun a feathery chrysalis all around me.” I circle my finger, tracing them in a hover.

My skin still tingles from the deep dive with gooseflesh forming, but everything else is warm, from my chest to my cheeks and even my center. Kyan tilts his head more, reminding me of a raptor with his predatory eyes—how they hunger while his feathers surge to life beneath me. I gasp from the power reverberating from his wings to hum into my body like a rippling purr or a soft growl.

“Yes, Quinny dear,” he agrees, arching his neck to blink at me before his gaze swings downward, causing me to blush more. “And you’re my little spirit moth, aren’t you? Sweet, sweet spirit moth.” I don’t know everything about Kyan, but judging from how his voice has lifted to a near-lilt, I understand this is not just Kyan speaking.

“Not a butterfly?”

He shakes his head while I curl my fingertips along his feathers, marveling at how silky the plumage is but how metallic they are, almost like scales. “No, my little one. You are no butterfly. But you will fly for me. Oh, how you will fly! So, do it now.”

“Hmm?”

Just like he did before, Kyan gives me no time to adjust. He drops his wings, spreads them in a divide, and I sink into the watery embrace of the lake below me. At first, I panic. My joints lock up as I tense because the lake is deep. And I’ve never learned to swim. Water laps at my chin and splashes the sides of my face. The water is cold and dark and dense…like a cellar closing around me. I sputter, convinced the fear will swallow me as surely as the lake will.

In the next second, Kyan grips the backs of my knees and anchors my calves around his strong frame.

“That’s it, Quinny dear,” he assures me in that warm and familiar tenor. “I have you. Calm yourself. Good girl. Now, spread those arms, little one. Spread them and fly for me. The water is your wings, your air. Take a deep breath, fill your chest, and surrender, my little spirit moth…”

I feel more like some primal creature ascending from the depths where no light ever shines, but I obey—and lean back. Closing my eyes, I harness my breaths and work to calm myself, imagining the upper half of my body riding the current. My ears sink below the water. Oh! My breath rushes to engulf my hearing. It reminds me of the ocean surf from when we visited the Governor’s manor at the edge of the Borderlands.

At first, I curl my wrists and flutter my fingers, familiarizing myself with the sensation. Years ago, before mine and Sarai’s breasts had budded—well, hers bloomed and mine budded—we’d steal away to the little pond in the woods behind the convent. No deeper than our necks. We’d practice floating, but she’d always look like an angel with rich hair haloed by moonlight. I looked like a spindly gray fish. I’d felt like a numb one. I was aware when I floated, but the water was too light, and my skin…too numb.

“I don’t feel like a fish now!” I thrill as I spread my arms, swaying them up and down. They’re like willow branches swelling and swinging in a breeze. If Kyan wonders about my thoughts, he doesn’t ask. A pleased smile and serene eyes of pure ice and indigo—nothing more. He respects how this is a whole new memory for me, one he’s gifting me and serving as an anchor.

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