“Almost human again.”
“You aren’t human anymore. Not entirely,” he reminded me.
“It was just an expression.”
My head had stopped spinning. I wiggled my fingers and toes. When none of them screamed out in pain, I eased slowly off the bed.
“All good. Now I just need someone to find my clothes. I don’t think the First Angel is expecting me in a hospital gown.”
When we got to Nyx’s office, the door was closed, so we waited outside. There were no chairs. Apparently, soldiers of the Legion didn’t need chairs. They sure would have been a nice touch, though. The minutes ticked by, and all the while Nero stared at me, his eyes hard with guilt.
“Do you regret saving me?” I asked him quietly.
“No,” was his immediate response.
“But you still feel guilty about it.”
“Yes.”
“I would have done the same for you,” I told him.
“Leda, you shouldn’t say such things here. We don’t know who’s listening.”
The door to Nyx’s office opened, and a man with cropped blond hair stepped out, dressed in the black leather uniform of the Legion of Angels. He was frozen in time at age twenty, that same physical age so many of the Legion soldiers were. His eyes were older, though. Much older. Clear blue, as bright as a cloudless day, they had a hard, cynical edge to them, especially as they cut right to me and Nero standing across the hall.
As he turned, I caught my first glimpse at the symbol on his uniform. He was a colonel, level nine just like Nero. An angel. He was a tad shorter than Nero, but wider, built like a bodybuilder. He had an iron jaw, and looking at him, I knew it would hurt like hell to punch him.
The two angels looked at each other with professional disdain, as though they’d hated each other for so long that it was routine, another part of the day like brushing their teeth or waking up before dawn. The angel’s eyebrows, so light that they blended into his tanned skin, arched, and he shot Nero a smug look.
He had numerous swords and knives strapped to his body, and a high-tech bow on his back, one that looked like it could shoot right through those hard-scaled snap dragons we’d fought earlier. But the weapons were mostly for show. He looked like he tore the heads off of monsters for sport, preferably with his bare hands—or with his teeth.
My eyes shifted to the name on his uniform: Colonel Fireswift. So this was Jace’s father. They certainly did look a lot alike, the father a meaner and more powerful version of the son. I bet his wing feathers were blood red. This was a man who rose from the ashes of pain—his own suffering as much as that of others. And he’d pulled himself up on his own, triumphant. So this was what Colonel Fireswift wanted to mold his son into.
After a final farewell sneer, Colonel Fireswift turned and walked down the hall. We crossed the room to enter Nyx’s office. She stood at the center of the room, poised and regal. Her black leather bodysuit fitted perfectly to her slender form, and her high-heeled boots only added to her already impressive height. Her hair, braided and pinned to her head, was as black as her glossy bodysuit, and her eyes were as blue as the ocean.
A full vase of Angel’s Breath flowers sat on her massive wood desk, bringing in a touch of spring on this cold day. Snow fell freely beyond the windows, the thick flakes fluttering in the winter wind. Just a few hours ago, I’d been sweating in the scorching heat of the Black Plains, and now I was here, watching snow fall.
Nero and I bowed before the First Angel.
She let us stay like that for a moment, then said, “Rise, Corporal Pierce.”
I looked at her in surprise. Nero was an angel. He should have been asked to rise before me.
“Come on, my dear, don’t keep me waiting.”
I rose out of my bow. Nyx looked down upon Nero for a few more moments, then she lifted her hands in the air.
“All right, Colonel. Stand up.” Nyx sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
Nero watched her, his face blank.
“Your mission was to protect the Pilgrims during their pilgrimage to the Lost City. Why the blazes did you leave them unprotected?”
“They stole a truck and drove out onto the Black Plains at night, against Nero’s explicit commands,” I told her.
She held up her index finger, which I was surprised to see tipped with pink fingernail polish. “I’ll get to you in a moment.” Her gaze slid to Nero. “Under the city, you were attacked by monsters. During the fight, you went diving into a chasm, leaving the Pilgrims unprotected.”
Technically, there had been ten Legion soldiers with them. And Nero had blasted apart the last monster before diving into the chasm. Nyx held up her hand, cutting me off before I could point that out, like she’d been reading my thoughts. Damn angels.
“Well, Colonel?” she said. I wondered if she could read his thoughts too. “Why did you leave three valuable Pilgrims at the monsters’ mercy to dive into the abyss after your Pandora?”
“You want to make Leda an angel. That makes her valuable, more valuable than three Pilgrims,” Nero said without a hint of emotion.
Nyx looked from him to me. “Well, it looks like all the cards are on the table now.” Unlike Nero, she was showing emotion, amusement being the predominate one.
Nyx was an interesting angel. She was strict but had a sense of humor. She ensured the rules of the Legion were upheld to the letter, but I could have sworn that half the time she wasn’t taking herself seriously at all. She was not arrogant except when it suited the situation, which was basically when she needed to keep people in line.