"Good. Get out and finish drying off," Zurach ordered. A towel was thrust into Terin's hands. "Stand over here, and keep on the tiles. Blood is hard to get off the marble. Just keep cooperating, and you'll find I can be quite nice. Don't test my patience again."

Terin sighed.

Blaise slapped his hand against the metal rail and jumped the fence surrounding the promenade. Mud, stone, and shale broke beneath him and he slid several feet. He crouched among the rocks and scraggy brush, palms pressed to the ground. The cliff's edge dropped away. A few feet below, a wide ledge with an overhang offered a hiding place big enough to hide several people.

The overhang creaked under his weight, and he dropped down before it broke beneath him. The curve of the cliff obscured his view of the promenade. If he'd been followed, no one moved to follow him down the cliff. He shook his head and shielded his eyes against the stinging rain. The wind whipped at him. Instead of the whistling song of the cliffs, the storm howled. Blaise scowled up at the clouds.

While the gusts weren't enough to dislodge him from his perch, he didn't relish the thought of remaining if the weather soured further. The heavy rain and wind was bad enough, but partnered with the incessant rumbles of thunder and the flash of unnatural lightning, he didn't want to think too long about the destruction the storm could cause.

A hand grasped his shoulder. Blaise didn't quite jump out of his skin, but he tensed, and his fingers curled into the claws. His body tingled as his grip on his disguise faltered.

The thunder masked his undignified squeak.

"What do you think you're doing?" The voice was neither feminine nor masculine, but an impossible harmonic of both characteristics. The deeper rumble of a man partnered with the airier tones of a soprano.

It'd been so long since Blaise had heard the melodic voice it took him a long moment before he could reply. "I could ask the same for you."

"Impertinent child." The hand on Blaise's shoulder squeezed hard enough to hurt. He winced, but didn't pull away.

"Isn't that why you like me?"

"No."

Blaise winced again. "Isn't it against the rules for you to come here? What do you want?"

For a moment, the melodic laugh soothed even the storm. "I'm sure my Lady will forgive me eventually. She never was one for the rules, anyway. You've been causing more than a little trouble, childling. Were you, perhaps, testing the limits of your lifespan?"

Without bothering to turn around, Blaise rocked back on his heels. The hand on his shoulder shifted to press against his back. Part of him wanted to turn around and look, but if He didn't want to be seen, He wouldn't be seena"not even to Blaise's eyes. "You made me well."

"I think I made you a little too much in your mother's image."

Blaise scowled. While it didn't exactly bother him that he'd never met his mother directlya"he wasn't even sure what his mother wasa"Blaise couldn't shake the feeling they'd both been insulted in some fashion.

"You're not supposed to be here," Blaise said. He didn't dare tell Him what to do, but he shivered at the thought of what the presence of the true divine meant for the mortal coil.

Nothing good.

"Your mother is meddling again. She left the way open. How could I resist?"

"You broke out of the Gardens, sneaking around behind Her back, and you came to see me? You're up to something. What is it?" Blaise rubbed his temples and felt a headache blossom behind his eyes.

"Impertinent child. You've been left to play long enough. It's time for you to come home where you belong."

Blaise stretched out his hand to keep his fingers from curling into talons. "I'm not playing around."

"Then what are you doing? It's time to return to where you belong. Wasn't I generous? I humored your request. What do you hope to accomplish? Except, of course, proving you can be disobedient and show a general lack of regard?"

"I'm not leaving them."

He laughed again, and the storm quieted once more. "White really doesn't suit you. While you're a just enough creature, you're hardly pure or innocent. I fear I may have matched you too well to your color. When are you ever going to learn?"

"Yes, yes. I know. Your punishments don't end early. I don't care. I gave my word," Blaise muttered.

"Even if it costs you everything?"

"You already know the answer to that," Blaise said.

The touch on Blaise's back warmed him, and he imagined the Gardens as they had been before he'd been cast out with Lucin, Mikael, and Aurora, shining and resplendent in the light of Her sun. At least if he never made it back, the memory was still there, fresh enough it didn't feel like Blaise had been living among mortals for so many years.

"Your brothers and sisters miss you."

Blaise laughed. While the other divines were, technically, his brothers and sisters, he didn't missed them. Every now and then, he thought about them, especially late at night when the mortals slept and he had nothing else to occupy his thoughts. In a way, it surprised him that they remembered him at all. "It only took them a few thousand years. I'm not returning."

"I can force you, if I desire."

The hard tone, as unyielding as the stone and cliff, drew a wince out of Blaise. "Please don't."

"You've used that word a lot lately. How unlike you. Well, then, childling. Why shouldn't I?"

"I already told you why!"

"Can't bear to repeat yourself?"

Blaise did his best to ignore the taunt. "If someone doesn't stop them, not only will a lot of people die, but they'll lose their souls, too. Won't your Garden feel a bit barren, then?"

"I'm aware."

"Well, at least one of us has to care," he snapped, jerking away from the hand on his back. "My brothers and sisters certainly won't."

They, like Him, paid little notice to the things that faded away in such a short time.

"Just like your mother."

"If you miss her that much, go visit her already and leave me alone!"

He laughed long and loud. Blaise sighed and shoved his hands in his coat. "You could just forgive them."

"Then they wouldn't learn anything, now would they? I'd also set a poor example for your siblings. Now, reconsider. Come home."

"No."

"I should've known. At least try to take better care of yourself. Do you know how much trouble I'll be in if I have to go crawling to your mother because I let her precious firstborn lose his soul? While I think I could talk her into helping me recreate you, you were troublesome to raise the first time. My Garden wouldn't look right without red in it."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Blaise said, shaking his head. The rain no longer fell in a torrent, but rather as a soothing drizzle.

"Since I can't seem to talk any sense into you, I think I'll give you a hand instead."

Blaise whirled around, sucking in a breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't force a single word out.

He was alone on the ledge. A chuckle came from the air in front of him. "Were you taking me literally, little one? I'm not going to deliver Lucin to you. If you want to find him, that's your problem." The heat of embarra.s.sment washed over Blaise's face. "That's not funny."

"I'll make a bargain with you then, if you insist on being so unreasonable."

"What bargain?" Blaise asked, unable to stop from frowning.

"Get those two to work together, and I'll consider their punishment concluded." There was a pause. The sense of being watched was coupled with Blaise's suspicion that He was laughing. "I'm sure you'll find plenty to challenge them."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"And ruin your mother's fun?"

"Don't blame Mother for what you're up to. You're planning something. What is it?"

"I'm just offering a compromise. Consider it a chance to prove your prowess. I can't remember the last time you've had a hunt worthy of you. I hope all of this time around mortals hasn't dulled your senses."

Blaise scowled. "There's no need to be insulting."

"I look forward to you proving me wrong. This is your last chance, childling. One way or another, you'll return to the Gardena"with or without them."

The muscles of his cheek twitched. A talon-tipped finger brushed against Blaise's brow, trailed down to his jaw and tapped him on the chin.

"I guess I can't be too upset with you for your stubbornness. After all, your color is red. I was, however, serious. I'll be quite angry with you if I have to explain to your mother that you went and got your soul destroyed. Oh, one more thing."

"What is it?"

"You have a chance to get it right this time. Don't waste it. For your sake, and for theirs as well."

"What do you mean?"

There was no reply.

Blaise struggled out of his sopping coat, muttering at the weight of it as he threw it over the crook of his arm. Instead of the pale color he expected, the coat was dark. In the flashes of lightning illuminating the night, the fabric was the ruby of fresh blood.

His color.

A snort burst out of him before he could contain it. All without his awareness of it, He had meddled with Blaise's clothing. Red, for pa.s.sion and creativity, the conclusion of the hunt, and of free will. The roses of the Garden teased his nose before the wind whipped the scent away.

Whether He was offering a hint or acknowledging Blaise's intentions, he wasn't certain. He almost expected the coat to start fluttering in the wind like a war banner.

War, blood, and irreversible grief, too, was part of his domain, forever bound to him by the color of his true nature.

Blaise ran his hand over the coat and smiled. Where he was going, he wouldn't need his bishop's attire, though with the white stained red, he could, perhaps, salvage what had once been the mark of his affiliation with the Erelith Church of G.o.d. Stripping and folding his clothes to retrieve later, he turned to the cliff's face. "The land is the Gift of G.o.d to mortal man, a treasure shared by all."

A crack formed in the stone and parted in silence. He stashed his clothes within, and muttered a single word to seal the opening. Blaise's breath quickened, and the rain washed over him. While He hadn't explicitly granted permission to hunt the night in a form closer to his true self, it hadn't been forbidden, either. A human's eyes weren't sharp enough to see the hidden things of the world. A human's noise couldn't distinguish the true scent of fear, or the quality of a soul. A human's tongue couldn't taste the life in the air, nor the true sweetness of the rain.

A human couldn't hunt for Lucin or Mikael in the deep of a night plagued with storms.

Blaise eyed the ledge before looking over at the darkness below. The rain hid the ground from him. His mouth twitched. Even if the ledge didn't hold his weight, he hoped he wouldn't fall to Lower Erelith City and hit the cobbles before he remembered how to fly.

Closing his eyes, Blaise lifted his hands and touched both of his temples. Applying enough pressure so he could feel the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath his fingertips, he gave in to the need to be himself, and to the need to stalk the night as something other than a mere human.

His human sh.e.l.l fought against him, igniting every nerve as thin layers of flesh, muscle, and bone melted away into a hissing mist the storm blew away. Joints twisted and elongated beneath what little remained of Blaise's physical body. The stone glowed red, and the luminescence thickened to a fog which swirled around him. Rock crumbled beneath his feet as his toes lengthened and sharpened into curved talons.

The ledge creaked under Blaise's weight, and chunks of stone broke away, clattering down to the city below. He lurched away from the edge, letting out a hiss.

His larger size didn't give him much room on his perch. His talons pierced the stone as he sought a better grip. The tingle of renewal washed over him. He tried to grin, but it took him a moment to remember his mouth lacked the fleshy flexibility of a human's. While not quite as curved as a hawk's beak, it was suited for one thing: Tearing through flesh.

Snapping his beak, he picked up a stone. With a single bite, Blaise shattered the rock, and his blunt, flat teeth ground it to powder. Spitting out the dust, he clicked his beak. The rain plastered his feathers to the leathery membranes of his wings, and shaking himself didn't help for long. Aching from the transformation, he twisted around to preen.

Denying the truth was futile: Red did look best on him. Despite the storm flattening the feathers and fur of his wings, the water glistened on his crystalline hide, and each ruby scale reflected the lightning. Blaise lifted his head and breathed deep.

Blaise's mouth watered with the need to feed. Swallowing back his greed, he flicked out his long, flexible tongue to taste the air. The scrub and brush, clinging to life on the cliff's edge, added a bitter flavor, but it provided a pleasant accompaniment to the sweet, mineral richness of wet stone and soil. Something else lingered on his tongue, a subtle aftertaste he paused to consider. Not sweet, not sour, not spicy, salty, nor bitter, it was something containing all elements of taste to become something new. Something unique.

It teased his memories, but not of his time among those doomed to die, but of the age before death existed. With a second taste of the wind, Blaise recognized the lingering presence of a divine.

It wasn't G.o.d. He left no sign of his presence at all. The scent was too weak for Blaise to tell who, but strong enough to follow despite the wind and the rain. He stretched out his neck and lifted his head high. Drawing a deep breath, he let out a booming cry like the crash of water on stone.

The hope of a reply was faint, and while he was disappointed, it wasn't unexpected. Crouching low to the ground, he slapped his tail against the ledge. Stones cracked away, dropping to the city far below. Clicking his tongue, Blaise looked over his shoulder at the unfortunate, stumped ruin of his tail. While the long feathers hid much of the damage, the tip should have smashed through the cliff instead of bouncing off of it.

With his wings clamped to his sides, he launched himself upward. His talons shredded the cliff, and he kicked uprooted shrub and torn rock behind him as he climbed to the fence. The stench of metal from the iron burned his nose. Snapping through the bars took several snips with his beak. Twisted hunks of metal fell to the stones. The fence twisted, and the iron shrieked, as Blaise pushed his way through the damaged section. The sharp edges caught on his scales and he left behind a few red tufts of fur, but it didn't penetrate through Blaise's scales to score his hide.

Once through, he halted long enough to look back and stare at the twisted ruins. He stomped down, and his forefoot clattered on the stone. The tips of his talons pierced the cobbles. Instead of Speaking in the human tongue, he whistled the song of creation. The true language of His words was caught in the wind. Red light radiated from him, stretching out to the damage he'd inflicted, restoring it. A lone, red feather remained embedded where the metal fused together. Blaise's laughter came out as a short melody. Unable to resist the urge, he whistled a few Words, and the straight bars twisted to vines, and the pointed tips of the supports bloomed to black iron-forged roses. The light raced along the fence and vanished from view as it circled Upper Erelith City.

It wouldn't teach anyone anything, but imaging the human's expression drew another laugh out of Blaise. In the morning, he hoped they would be surprised.

He breathed deep and caught the scent of the divine.

The time to hunt had come.

Chapter 11.

Terin wore old, dusty-smelling clothes so big they hid the layers of bandages covering his arms, legs, and side, with room to spare. Exhaustion numbed him to most of the pain, but he couldn't escape the soreness stiffening his muscles. Zurach shook his head in disapproval. The towel in the man's hands was stained red with blood.

"Come," Zurach said, tossing the cloth aside before walking down the hall from the bathing pool.

"Yes, sir." Too tired and sore to even think about resisting the man's command, Terin followed. He kept his head bowed. So long as he remained obedient, the collar wouldn't punish him. Even if it did, there were so many layers of linen wrapped around his throat he wasn't sure if it could burn through the material to hurt him.

The desire to flee remained, but until he could move his feet without dragging them across the floor and didn't have to struggle to breathe, he would wait.