I slide out of bed, knowing how difficult it was to go to sleep in the first place and figuring sleep isn’t going to come easily to me a second time. I brush my hair with Myles’s hairbrush and put on my clothes before heading out the room and down the corridors. Instead of going into the common areas, I head up the stairs that lead to the top of the ship. After walking up three levels of stairs, I get to double metal doors and push them open. Cold, salty air brushes my hair around my cheeks as I breathe in the smell of the ocean and close the doors behind me. The ship is much larger than I remember seeing it in the water, but I guess I was at a distance. The ship is almost shaped like a cruise liner, but instead, it has a near flat surface with high gates surrounding the upper part. Bright orange escape boats line the edges with floating rings in the middle of them, and I swiftly turn around as I sense I’m not alone anymore.
“Gabriel,” I say as he folds his bright white wings and walks up to me, his arms resting in the middle of his back behind him. I once looked up to him, trusted him even, and now I realise I was so naive about this world and my place in it. The angels told me they were the good guys, and I believed it, and I shouldn’t have done.
“I wished to talk to you alone,” he says and looks away from me, staring above at the stars. I follow his line of sight to the moon, which looks so bright and alluring out here in the sea. “Ever since I was a wee lad, I believed in the light above because he would talk to me, keep me sane when I was very alone as a child. I was brought up in a church with nuns, and they were very good to me, but their hearts belonged to the church, and I longed for more than they could have given me. Even when I died and became an angel, the Great Light above never left my head. He told me it was my destiny to finish the vampires off and stop them spreading across the world like wildfire. And I believed him.”
“Still do?” I ask. “Do you still believe the angels are blessed and the good guys?”
Knowing exactly what I’m talking about, his face drops. “I regretted killing Erendriel the second I did it, but a part of me knew it was for the best. The master vampires were once twelve families, and they swept over the world, killing and turning whoever they wanted. No one could stand against them until the angels decided to,” he tells me. “All the families were killed in the name of the light, no child or woman spared, but Erendriel did escape after seeing his entire family murdered. I hoped he would go into the world and live a good, quiet life, but he did not. Erendriel only ever sought vengeance and, in the end, became what he ran from.”
“So the angels killed his entire family, and you wanted him not to come back and fight?” I question in anger. That is disgusting and wrong on so many levels.
Gabriel sighs. “Lass, our people, the angels, did what was best for the world. There was so much pain and destruction caused at the vampires’ hands. You could not imagine it, child. The world was burning under the rule of the vampires, and if they rule once more, it will burn again.”
Knowing there must be a point to him telling me this story alone, I wait.
“I wish the burden of my next question would fall on an older angel, but it must be you. The light above has spoken to me,” Gabriel starts. Yeah, me too. He sounds creepy as fuck. “You must kill Erendriel before he destroys the world.”
I knew he was going to ask that—I felt it in my heart, if not my soul—but the words still shock me.
And a feeling of sickness bubbles in my throat. Kill Ren?
I turn away and walk nearer the edge of the ship as I hold my shaky hands together. “And if I do not?”
“You will be seen as a traitor to the angel race, and he will come for you. The light above will demand your soul and wings back, Kaitlyn,” he softly warns me, but I don’t doubt he is sugarcoating what taking your soul and wings back means. “I do not want that future for you. Please do the right thing. Promise me you will do the right thing.”
“I promise,” I say, feeling like the words bind my soul to something I wasn’t ready for.
Gabriel smiles. “Blessed be the angels.”
I turn around, having no clue what I was going to say, but it doesn’t matter as Gabriel is gone.
If the right thing is to kill Ren…then the wrong thing is to leave him alive. I may hate his guts for what he did to me, but another, deeper part of me worries I wouldn’t be strong enough to kill him.
My heart doesn’t seem to want to let him go. I stare at the horizon as the sun slowly appears, flickering oranges, yellows, reds and purples across the sea and sky like a brush paints across a canvas. How can my world be so beautiful and so destructive all at the same time?
“Good luck, lass,” Myles’s mum, Helda, softly whispers to me as she draws me in for a hug before leaning back, resting her hands on my upper arms. Helda has the same thick blonde hair as her son, but he must get his eyes from his dad. “My boy has been searching the sky and stars for years for something. Ever since he was a wee boy. Then you fall out of the sky, and he is there to catch you. If that isn’t fate, what possibly could be?”
Before I can answer her, Myles steps up to us and grins at me. “Ready, my angel?” Then he pauses. “In fact, how are we getting back to this floating academy island?”
“Do you like horses?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow as I dig out the whistle necklace from around my neck and walk a good distance away from them all after saying goodbye. Gabriel and Madi were gone before I woke up yesterday morning, and I suspect they know my answer to the whole killing Ren and being a spy issue. I use the whistle, which sounds like no noise at all to my ears, but I know Ayda will hear me. The seconds pass into minutes, and before long I feel the minutes have changed into a good quarter of an hour. Just as Myles walks to my side, I sense Ayda near and breathe out a sigh of relief. My beautiful flying white horse smashes through the clouds, her long white wings spread out as she glides down to us. Myles steps back as she gets closer, almost looking like she is going to crash into us, but I know she won’t. She is just dramatic, and I love her.
I always said Ayda’s personality was very much like Vesnia. The two of them should have been bonded, and I should have gotten Vesnia’s horse, which is far calmer. I almost smile until I remember where Vesnia is and I have no idea if she is okay. I suck in a deep breath as Ayda stops right before me, huffing and neighing at me until I stroke her forehead.
“I’m sorry I disappeared,” I softly tell her and rest my head against hers for a moment, which seems to calm her down. Myles comes to my side and slowly moves his hands to Ayda’s mane and strokes her.
“She is divine. What is her name?”
“How did you know she is a girl?” I mischievously question.
Myles looks at me. “She reminds me of you. There is no way this horse isn’t a girl.”
I laugh. “Her name is Ayda, and we can ride her back to the academy. I can’t use my wings yet without crashing or getting lost, so Ayda is our safe bet,” I tell him, and to my surprise, he doesn’t wait as he jumps and climbs onto Ayda’s back effortlessly, holding a hand out for me. I take his hand, and with impressive strength, he picks me up one-handed and pulls me in front of him on Ayda. I get comfy as Myles wraps his arms around my waist, his body pressed tightly to mine and my wings pushed down. Somehow, it works.