The smith looked at me with glittering eyes, and jerked his head for me to proceed.
I steeled myself, reaching inside for the white fire of healing. It knew Tascius intimately, loved him as much as I did, and I hardly needed to prod it to leap into his skin and swim through his veins.
I frowned as it crossed over. It looked like the very edges of the cuts in his flesh were already healing, even though I knew he healed slower than that-
The glimmering light of my fire concentrated in his back, bringing the open flesh together, knitting it around the wings as the ebonite joined smoothly to his skin.
When the fire finally died, its work finished, I felt like I was going to pass out. I took a gulp of air, but it was super-heated, and tasted of blood and metal and only scorched my lungs.
“It’s finished,” the smith said, leaning heavily on the table and looking over Tascius’ blood-stained back. “I will never make anything finer.”
“But they’ll work?” I asked, gazing at him with red-rimmed eyes. Even blinking felt gritty in this heat.
“They’ll be exactly like what the poor bastard was born with. Feathers from angels, pure ebonite- fuck it all, they’ll be better.”
I folded Tascius’s wing against his back, feeling the silky glide of living metal under my hands, and pushed back his hair from his face, hoping he’d been unconscious for most of the pain. “It’s done, friend. You’re whole again.”
His eyes slowly opened, clearing as he looked into my face.
The wings shot out wide, and Wayland yelled, grabbing for a falling hammer before it hit the floor. “Get him outside!”
Tascius heaved himself off the table and I took his arm, folding his wings to get him through the door of the hut.
The broad muscles of his back were twitching, contracting under his flesh as he adjusted to the new weight on his back. I stroked his spine and he shuddered, pulling his wings in to frame his shoulders.
“Does it hurt?” I whispered, wondering if something had gone wrong.
Tascius shook his head, his silver hair falling loose down his back. He turned around and I tensed, a strange, unnerving thought popping into my head: with his build, that silver hair, and those white wings, he looked exactly like an archangel. I wouldn’t have batted an eye at seeing him in their ranks in Heaven.
“I feel… perfect. Like they were always there.” He paused, then extended them, holding them taut.
The pure white of the feathers reflected the red light of the lake, and then he pulled them back in.
“Well, are you gonna use them, or just stand there gawking?” Wayland slithered from his hut, a bottle of whisky in hand. He slugged back a quarter of it as I watched.
“Thank you so much,” I said fervently, and he waved me away.
“It was my pleasure. I don’t get to work on wings as much as I’d like, and you brought back my mirror.” He sounded gruff and took another swig. “Now go use them. I didn’t make them for you to just stare at, and I’ve already made my share of pointless trinkets this week.”
I dashed back to Tascius, dancing around him. “Let’s go fly. Come on, big friend, it’s time.”
He grinned at me, and we linked hands and practically ran through the tunnel.
When we emerged on the other side, I eyed the sharp spires of rock doubtfully. What if Wayland was wrong, and Tascius fell when they failed?
He spread them wide. They didn’t shake or quiver, as solid as if he’d been born with them. “Catch me if you can.”
Then he shot upwards, the massive wingspan beating the air.
I gave him a few seconds of a head start just for the pleasure of watching him fly. There was the jolt of feeling like I was back in Heaven, seeing one of the archangels descend like comets, then I spread my own wings and took off after him.
No matter where he came from, he was whole now. That was all I cared about.
I chased him down the mountainside, swooping out over the desert after him. He slowed down, flying like he’d had wings all his life, and I was going so fast I overshot when he stopped.
Before I could turn around, he was on me, wrapping me in a bear-hug and pinning my wings to my back. He was big enough to carry me along, and I squirmed in his grip, wrapping my arms and legs around him.
Before Dis came into sight, he lowered to the sand, dropping us on top of a dune.
“It’s… so much better than I imagined,” he said. His cheerful grin lit him up like the sun. “I knew I was missing out, but now, I can’t believe I went so long without.”
I remembered that he’d never flown at all, even when he’d had wings as a child. His mother had been forced to keep him in a cage or keep them bound.
This was his first taste of the open sky.
“Well, nothing will take these away,” I said, fluttering upwards to give him a kiss. “No more unicorns.”
“Just when I was starting to like the thing.” He couldn’t stop flexing his wings, testing every angle and seeing how it felt. “I can’t believe you thought giving me wings was worth more than the sword.”
“Of course they were.” I mock-punched his arm. “You’re whole, you’re everything you were meant to be. The sword can wait.”
“But-”
I put a finger over his lips. “For me, the happiness of my mates will always come first.”
I just had three more to make it up to and prove that I was a good choice.
He just kissed my finger. There was a sheen to his midnight eyes that hadn’t been there before, brightening them, and an almost incandescent aura around him.
Now that the Nephilim was whole again, he would regain the unstoppable strength and healing of his kin, but it came at the cost of making his angelic
