Outside, one of the worst storms I had seen that year raged. Lightning sliced the darkness, and every other sound was devoured by deafening thunder. Our manor shuddered in the wind, and the corridors were bitterly cold. My eldest sister, Jelissa, did not care in the least. She rejoiced that the high gods had decided to turn our world into a lake.
It did not bother her that rain had fallen for days on end and the grass lay buried beneath layers of mud. She laughed and insisted that the prophet Prophetam was only celebrating the crown prince's birthday. Wrapped in a blanket, she sang and danced as though the party were taking place right in our room. Though she had never laid eyes on Prince Reilan, she celebrated with infectious enthusiasm.
My brother Ewordie and our youngest sister Oswin lay together on the bed, watching her. I had taken the only chair and sat at the table, clutching a pencil and eraser, turning this way and that so I could sketch them all.
"He will come! He'll come for us, and then I'll be the queen of Noxalora! I'll have a heap of children, and the rest of you will be my slaves," Jelissa dreamed aloud once more. She kept repeating that Prince Reilan would soon rescue us from this hell.
Oswin plainly believed her; excitement shone in her eyes.
To me, it was nothing but an impossible dream. We were alone here. No one out there was searching for us. Not a single soul ever pondered, I wonder how they're doing.
Father had done a thorough job of making everyone forget us.
Dreaming was pointless, so I forbade myself from doing it. I did not, however, force the others to face reality. I would not steal the tiny crumbs of happiness they managed to find in this wretched life.
We kept celebrating until Oswin fell asleep on the bed and Ewordie carried her to her room. My brother did not return, leaving Jelissa and me alone. She came to me and touched my shoulder gently.
"Everything will be all right," she whispered. Sparks of hope still burned in her green eyes—the kind I had long since lost. "I'll take care of everything, all right? Get some sleep and rest."
She bent, kissed my hair, wished me good night, and went to her own room.
Left alone, I really did try to dream. After three hours of tossing and turning, I gave up.
The storm had reached its full fury. The angels in the heavens seemed to have gone mad; brilliant flashes kept ripping the darkness apart. Everyone wanted to celebrate the prince's birthday—such privilege did not belong solely to the living.
I rose from the bed, rubbed my eyes, and turned toward the window. I peered outside. There was little to see. Our estate lay in the middle of nowhere: only Terravorn's forests all around, full of monsters that would kill me without hesitation.
A single dirt track—now mostly mud—led to our door. I had the perfect view of anyone approaching the house. Usually, that meant no one. Respectable angels preferred to forget us, and from the others, I had to hide.
Sleep was out of the question now. Instead, I sat on the windowsill and picked up a book. I read of an unreal love—one I would never experience. How could I? Shut up in this mildewed mansion, I might meet rats, but never someone who could love me.
Another flash caught my eye. In its light, I saw a male figure land hard on the muddied path. The stranger folded his wings and set down something almost as large as himself. Then he took it by the edge and began dragging it toward the house.
My heart leapt when he drew nearer and my excellent sight revealed that the "something" was a body.
"Dalenau! Dalenau, get down here at once!" a man's voice rang out.
I went to the door, leaned against it, and closed my eyes so my other senses could work. Before long I recognized the voice. It was Father's.
I could not help myself. Once I was certain he was on the ground floor, I opened the door under the cover of thunder and stepped into the hall.
I walked across filthy yellow carpets. This house was a paradise for every kind of vermin, especially spiders. I had grown used to webs and rats. A little cleaning would have sufficed, but Mother had hysterics if anything was moved.
Rage was the only thing she could feel—endless rage. Otherwise, she was empty inside. She wandered the corridors, ignoring everything and everyone. She probably no longer remembered our names. Perhaps she thought we were ghosts that annoyed her.
All the family portraits had vanished who‑knows‑where. Only empty but precious golden frames still hung on the walls—proof that my line had once been wealthy.
I reached the stairs, wiped a thick layer of dust from the banister, and leaned out for a better view below. Male voices still drifted up from the hall.
Another bolt split the night, followed by an calamitous crash. It must have struck very close.
A shiver ran through me and I began to tremble. I will not be afraid, I ordered myself.
"We must report this at once! I didn't want to carry him all the way to the capital. I'm leaving him with you, Dalenau," the unknown man said.
I could not see them. I would have to descend farther, but then they might see me—something I did not want. My heart was already hammering wildly. What if they hear it?
Even so, I would not turn back.
"Leave him with me? What do you think I'll do with him—let him rot here? If no one comes for him, I certainly won't dirty my hands. A disgusting corpse! You should have tossed him in a ditch!" Father's voice was merciless again. Not for a moment did it trouble him that someone who had been alive only minutes earlier now lay at his feet.
"He is one of Terravorn's kings!" the stranger rebuked him.
"Was," Father corrected. "Right now, he can rule worms at best. Corpses are useless to us."
"Look at his wounds!"
"Drunk, turned himself into a pancake when he tripped and fell off a roof?" Father guessed, bored.
"Look closer—here!" the man insisted, and I heard movement. The men shifted, and I moved with them. I crept three steps lower and finally saw them, kneeling over the body that was hidden by their backs.
"These gashes are deep—clean, straight, wrapping all the way around him," the stranger went on. "Someone bound him with darkness," he whispered. "Wounds like these are left by darkness. They had tortured him."
I shuddered and turned away.
I hated darkness. I had always blamed it for the evil in my life. It did not belong in the hands of ordinary angels.
In the few books left in our half‑empty library, I had read about the ruler of Noxalora: the dark angel Sarlan, a man of such immense power he could swallow our whole world. No one could rival him. For ages he had sat on the throne, and all others obeyed. Those who defied him paid with their lives.
"The ruler is coming for us! He must have sent one of those twisted brats of his after the king, and the brat had some fun with him. Look at his back!" the stranger continued, examining the wounds.
Father rolled the body onto its stomach, exposing it.
I clamped my eyes shut. Even so, I knew I would dream about it—the unnaturally twisted, bloody, and above all, motionless body lying in our foyer.
"Interesting workmanship!"
"He destroyed his wings. Sarlan sent a message—wings will not protect us from death. He died from the fall. An angel killed by height… unthinkable! That can happen only to an incomplete, not to us! The dark one has no scruples, Dalenau."
"Nor do we," Father reminded him coldly.
I cracked my eyes open. I needed the perfect moment—a lightning flash or some other noise—to retreat unseen. One misstep and—
"Maybe we have gone too far. They could wipe us all out without breaking a sweat. We stopped being careful, and this is the result. We must change tactics, or we'll all end up like him."
"What—so you've soiled your trousers?" Father mocked. "You know who our enemy is and what we want. If you fear some princeling, how will you face the ruler? We do not tolerate cowardice."
"Do you hear yourself, Dalenau? Both princes are at least three times our age! I'm not a coward, merely cautious, because the truth is that as a corpse I can't change our world!"
What does all this mean?
I had always known Father was insane—a glance sufficed—but I had not taken him for suicidal. One did not oppose the dark angels and live. Only utter madmen believed they could survive such an encounter.
"Sometimes you have to die to gain power. And if they kill you, I swear I'll toss your corpse in a fine ditch," Father growled.
"You are crazy!"
"But complete. My mental state is none of your concern."
"Tomorrow I'll return with a higher member of Terravorn for the body. See that nothing happens to it."
"He's hardly going to walk off on his own, is he?" Father answered. He patted the man's shoulder.
The stranger turned away in disgust and stepped back. Water dripped from his soaked clothes, pooling on the wooden floor. Suddenly, he pivoted toward Father again and leaned close. I saw his lips move, but his words remained a mystery. At that moment, magic swirled around them—first a thin, almost invisible mist that thickened into a transparent shield, letting no sound escape.
The man's eyes locked on mine. How foolish I was to think he would not betray me; a smirk spreading across his face. Moments earlier, he had called Father mad, yet there was something utterly corrupted in his gaze as well.
Without a word, he departed.
I straightened and took a step forward, striving for absolute silence. A childish thought occurred to me—if I could not see Father, he could not see me.
It did not work.
One second was all he needed to appear behind me. I had no chance to flee. He simply summoned his wings, rose, and planted himself, blocking the way to my room.
"Well, Losiela? Will you summon your wings and fly from me, my little angel? Or will you remain the same incomplete bastard? What will it be?" he asked in an icy voice.
I did not summon my wings. Perhaps it might have saved me from pain, but I could not. I was incomplete—his greatest shame. The daughter of a man who fought only for the rights of complete angels, who hunted and mercilessly killed the damaged, was herself an angel without wings.
That was one reason he hated me. He merely disliked my siblings and sometimes enjoyed tormenting them, but with me, it was personal. I embodied his greatest failure.
"I am not surprised," he declared, voice glacial, and seized my shoulder with such force I feared my bones would give. I could not fight him. He dragged me down the stairs, heedless of my protests.
"Curious, are you? Why not come closer!"
I could not stop him. He flung me onto the floor—right onto the blood‑soaked, darkness‑ruined body of the dead angel. For the first time, I felt what it was like to have someone else's blood soak into your skin.
A gasp of shock escaped me. My scream rang through the hall. I kicked, pummeled Father with my fists, tried to wield magic. It all struck his shield and vanished without a trace. He forced me to remain on that cold, smeared corpse.
"Do you like it?" he spat, mocking. "Do you like how the dark protect you? Look closer, Losiela! See what Sarlan's bastards did just to defend incompletes like you? Look how they murdered my friend for your sake!"
I could not resist. I looked—and instantly wished I had not.
The body was ruined. Every inch of skin bore marks where darkness had mercilessly gnawed. It was as if razor‑sharp rope had bound him, cutting ever deeper into flesh. The wounds were precise, almost surgical, yet all the more terrifying. Darkness had tortured him slowly, leaving no hope of escape.
And yet blood loss had not killed him. The other man had been right—he died from the fall. The dark one was extraordinarily cruel: he had bound him so that when he tried to summon his wings during the plunge, the rope shredded them to pieces.
He deserved it. Why should I feel guilty? The man beneath me would have killed me without hesitation had he been given the chance.
"Nothing in life has disappointed me the way you have, Losiela. Get out of my sight, or I'll show you what we do to scum like you!" Father roared and released my arm.
He did not have to repeat himself.
I braced my hands on the cold, wet, bloody body and rose. My palms were filthy with blood, trembling so badly I could not have held anything.
I hurried past him and all but ran for the stairs.
Then I stopped dead.
Mother gazed at me from the second‑floor landing. She stood motionless as a statue, white as death in the storm‑lit night.
Her face might have been my own. We shared the same auburn, slightly wavy hair and piercing green eyes, though hers were ringed with black—a sign of loyalty to Terravorn. My eyes remained clean.
Mother had once been beautiful—surely, when she still cared for herself. Now her hair was disheveled and she smelled odd. Her face was dirty, her eyes unnaturally wide.
I did not speak to her. She stood three steps from my door. I decided to pass her without rousing her from her stupor.
She seemed to stare through me, as if she did not see me at all.
I crept closer, placing each foot so it made no sound. She still did not move. She did not even tilt her head, and her chest did not rise. Was she breathing? She was terrifying.
Two steps remained.
Suddenly, she turned her head and looked at my chest.
"It is your fault, Losiela," she whispered in a hollow voice.
She was neither angry nor sad—merely absent. Her empty eyes did not meet mine, though she had spoken my name.
I kept walking without a word. I passed her and slipped into my room.