Fearless by Marianne Curley Page B

life again.
    We reach a vast field covered in wild flowers. Glancing at each other in silent signal, we discharge our wings and fly low over the carpet of silk and velvet. Ebony would be inawe seeing this, running her fingers over the soft furry petals as I am now. One day I will bring her here.
    â€˜I have heard that Peridis is like this,’ Shae remarks.
    â€˜Perhaps you should ask our High King yourself,’ Michael suggests teasingly.
    â€˜I don’t think so, in case he decides to send me there!’ she jokes, but her voice turns serious as she shifts her gaze to me. ‘I can’t risk not being there when you bring Ebrielle home.’
    â€˜You will be there. And, Shae, the only name she knows is Ebony. It’s her identity and we can’t take that from her, not without her permission.’
    She nods, and as the landscape grows rocky, we land on terra firma, finding we’re closer than we thought. We tilt our heads back and look up at Avena’s highest mountain, where, at the summit, the High King’s Temple sits permanently concealed in mist.
    Michael leads the way through a cleverly concealed path between rocks to stairs that will take us to the walled city.
    â€˜Any thoughts before we start the climb?’ I ask.
    Shae frowns, purses her lips. ‘How many steps are there? I can only see the first three hundred and six.’
    â€˜In all the time I spent here,’ Michael says as we start to climb, ‘I never thought to count them.’
    â€˜Weren’t you even curious?’
    He shrugs. ‘Not really, Shae. I didn’t have the mind for counting stairs in those days.’
    I close my eyes as a wave of grief flows out of him and slams into me, which, coupled with my own despair, takes me to a point of bleakness I can barely fathom. I doubleover, my hands on my thighs, unable to go on.
    â€˜Forgive me, cousin,’ he says, rushing to my side. ‘You didn’t need that.’
    â€˜It’s all right, Michael. It’s passing.’ He helps me straighten up and I take a deep breath.
    â€˜Sometimes it feels like only yesterday that I lost Theze.’
    â€˜I wish I had known her.’
    Losing a partner is rare among angels. The emptiness left behind can devastate the one who remains, the heartache can consume them, rip the angel apart like an incendiary exploding on the inside. The trigger might be a memory, a fa miliar scent, the voice they hear in their dreams.
    For me, without Ebony, it feels as if there are a million triggers: the memory of her face as the gates thundered down between us, the way her eyes clung to mine when Michael pulled me from her arms at my arrest; I miss her gentle, selfless ways, her struggle to rekindle her angelic ancestry, the touch of her fingers on my face. How can I go on without her?
    The answer is simple.
    I can’t.
    â€˜Are we ready to begin?’ Shae asks, practically jumping up and down. Her excitement at being this near the source of our power, the creator of everything, with the p ossibility of freeing her sister becoming reality, catches Michael and me by surprise. And as joy is meant to do, it spreads into us and lifts us both to a level where we can function.
    Many stairs later, but with many more to go, we enter thickening mist. Shae pauses, stretches, arching her back.Her enthusiasm waning slightly, she asks Michael, ‘Are you sure we can’t fly?’
    â€˜Not if you wish to enter the city.’
    â€˜So for those that come here, this is like a pilgrimage,’ she ponders, ‘for what more can one do when climbing stairs shrouded in mist except to think, reflect and wonder.’
    We reach a platform with a railing and a bench. But no one is interested in the view, no matter how astonishing, and there is no time to rest. We push on, and several hundred steps later we reach the summit, where a colossal white wall protects the city, stretching so high its top fuses into the