Uriel: The Inheritance (Airel Saga Book Five)

Chapter IX

Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho—Present Day

ELLIE HADN'T REALLY BEEN hungry at all; she had no appetite lately. She had only come to the kitchen to escape. She didn't know what else to do, where else to go—she couldn't be in the room while Airel read the story of her heartless betrayal, her utter failure as a descendant of Kreios.

Plus there was another pain. Familiar, yes, but far younger.

She rubbed her sternum, where the swirling birthmarks that had identified her as a descendant of the angel Kreios once glowed silver-blue. Now they were mostly obscured, though at first she had thought nothing of it. It was a mysterious bruise that had appeared days ago. She'd noticed it in the mirror at the center of her chest after her evening shower.

As time went on, it became obvious—it was the Mark of the Bloodstone. It had never been completely removed from her. No matter what she did to try to remove it—whether in using her power of transportation by molecular disintegration or by appealing to El—it remained.

It was a part of her now.

She tried to think rationally, but it was difficult for her not to imagine her own death, and indeed that the second death, too—the eternal punishment—might be lurking for her in shadows, waiting to take her. She wondered how the Mark clung to her.

She rubbed at the wound as it slowly spread over her heart.

I must have bonded with the Bloodstone at Mard Castle all those centuries ago. That must be how it clings to me now. I was so foolish to think . . . She shook her head, remembering what had happened then.

And then a new thought came. If the Mark hasn't fully passed from me, was I able to make it fully pass from Michael? Or did I fail—have I merely spread the disease?

Ellie locked her hands behind her neck and tilted her head back, closing her eyes, breathing. "No matter what I try to do to make it right," she whispered to herself, a tear forming in her eye, "I cannot succeed." She breathed deeper, trying to control herself. Have I not paid my penance, El? Have I not yet endured enough pain to make amends for all that I have done?

What will Airel say when she reads that story? What will my father do when he returns? I feel his approach; it is imminent. Airel had so many questions, so much to learn, and so little time in which to live her life—which, really, if Ellie was honest about everything, should already have ended. If not for Michael.

She thought about leaving. Running. Trying to escape and hide, like she had done all those years before Qiel had been born.

Qiel.

She broke down and wept, falling to her knees on the kitchen floor, sobbing for her only son, moaning his name over and over again, pounding the stone with clenched fists. Lost. Lost.

***

I HAD TO TAKE a break from reading. My eyes were getting heavy, and trying to process all this information was giving me a headache.

The house was cold and the halls echoed as I walked, but I found my old room and threw myself down on my back on the big soft bed. It was strange, thinking of this place as home, but it felt more like home than my house did. So many things had happened here ... things that changed me into what I am today.

Crawling under the covers, I pulled them up to my chin and closed my eyes. I rolled my legs to one side, cracked my lower back, and grunted. I was still sore from our little rock-climbing adventure the other day.

There had only been six of us. Ellie, Dirk, Mark—Dirk's new best friend and a football jock—Nate, a rich kid who sneezed a lot, and Molly and Millie—twins who were really shy. All I knew about those two were their names. It often surprised me how many kids were at my school compared to how few I actually knew. I lived in my own world, and the last year or so didn't help matters.

I'd tried to get Michael to go with us. Our climbing guru, Shane, said it would be okay, but Michael bailed. I was more than a little annoyed, but I wasn't going to let it ruin a perfectly good day on the side of a cliff.

We took a small school bus and parked at Lucky Peak. Dirk sat next to Ellie across the aisle from me. I caught him staring at me a few times on the ride there and he didn't look away. The guy would not be shamed. But I was so excited to be climbing a real cliff that I didn't care.

Much.

"So, you scared of heights?" Dirk said.

I thought back to my last supersonic flight, the trail of blazing blue light that traced my path in the sky. I shook my head. "Nope."

Dirk seemed pleased. "But you could fall. I mean, rock climbing can be dangerous."

"Only if the guy on belay drops you."

Dirk blew a strand of dark hair from his face and shrugged. "You're heavy for a little girl. I caught you before you hit your head. No harm, no foul."

"Whatever."

We'd climbed at the YMCA five times, and Shane said I was best in class. But it wasn't really fair—I could fly, so it wasn't like I was scared of heights.

After we parked, we took our gear and hiked the short distance to the base of the cliffs. "We're here, everybody. Gear up," Shane said. "We climb in pairs. Stick with your partner and remember what you learned in the gym." Shane wore a fiber ball cap and a tight T-shirt. He was lean and fit. He climbed a few times a week, so his body was conditioned like crazy.

"Ready to tear it up?" Dirk asked me. I nodded.

Half an hour later, Dirk and I were sixty feet up the side of a crazy-high vertical cliff face. Even though he put on a brave façade, I could see he was nervous and getting more so the higher we climbed. I let him take the lead so he wouldn't see how easy it was for me. I was cheating a little, being superhuman, but it served him right for being a creeper.

"How you doing up there?" I asked. He was ten feet higher than I was, and a little to one side.

"Fine. How about you? You okay?"

"Yep. We're going a little slow, but if you're getting tired, I understand."

Dirk hammered in another anchor. "I have to hammer and set the anchors, and you get to climb and stare at my hot backside." He looked down at me, grinning.

I made a show of rolling my eyes. "You wish."

We were in a tough technical section where the rock face bulged outward. Based on what Shane had taught us, we could either go left or right, but Dirk was going up the middle. The last anchor he'd set was already fifteen feet below him. If he went a few feet more, he would be stuck. Either that, or he would have to jump six feet or so to get the next handhold. "I wish I'd made you lead."

I felt myself blush, but turned my face away. He would not see me blush. "You going left or right up there, buddy?"

Dirk was too far up. His right foot was on a round cone-shaped rock, but he should have had his left foot there. His left hung in midair while he searched for a place to put it, but there wasn't anything close by.

I could hear Shane giving some instructions from down below, but the main part of the group was far away from us. We were the better team, so we had taken the lead and gone first. Shane was on belay for the other team; we were basically free climbing.

"You okay, Dirk, or do you need a girl to help you?"

He didn't answer.

"Dirk?"

Silence.

He's seizing up. "I'm coming." I climbed as fast as I could without flying—I couldn't give myself away—and was about to reach him when he jumped for the next handhold. He didn't make it. For a split second, his hands had grip, but when his full weight came down, he slipped. The rope between us went slack and he fell.

If I didn't grab him quick, he would fall twenty feet and bounce off the cliff below me before the rope caught. I jumped, grabbing him around the waist. I helped him find his footing again, and as our eyes met, blood ran down from wounds in his left arm and forehead.

I jumped, sitting up in the bed. My nap had gone on long enough, and it was time to stop going over and over what had happened. There was nothing further I could do about it. Dirk's okay—nobody saw what I did. It's all good. I didn't believe it, though.