Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(60)

Magic was incredibly complex. Merging magic was even more so. That’s why angels rarely had children—and why the Dark Force hadn’t been able to merge dark magic with Colonel Starborn’s light magic.

“An angel’s magic is very fixed,” she said. “It’s harder for us to level up our magic than it is for you. Each level takes more effort than the last.”

I tried hard not to think about Nero’s upcoming trials, the level ten ceremony. Damiel had said it would be like nothing he’d ever faced before.

“Angel magic is so set in its state,” Colonel Starborn told me. “The dark angels knew what they were trying to do to me had never before been done, that it was most certainly impossible. They fully expected me to die.”

But I had a light-dark balance. What did it mean?

“Why did the Dark Force take the risk?” I asked her. “Why go through all the effort to abduct an angel they expected to die?”

“They were tempted by the promise of a perfect soldier, I suppose. We’ve all been tempted at some point or another.” Her eyes shifted upward in a thoughtful gaze.

“You?” I said in surprise.

She’d insisted the merging wasn’t possible. And yet the wistful look in her eyes now told me she’d once tried to gain that power.

“Yes,” she said, her voice strained with guilt. “Before the dark angels lured me out to the Fire Mountains that night, I was…dabbling.”

Just like the other Dragons had said.

“I was trying to grow the castle’s elemental power—and to do so, I experimented with dark magic. I thought if I could gain mastery over the entire spectrum of elemental magic, from light to dark, I could make Storm Castle more powerful than ever before. And with that power, we could change the world.”

“And put the wild lands back to the way they were before the monsters invaded,” I said.

“Among other things.” She shook her head. “But none of my experiments to grow the castle’s magic panned out. It was for the best. Tampering with light and dark magic can only lead to disaster. Just look at what happened to me. If I hadn’t meddled, none of this would have happened. There never would have been monsters on the wrong side of the wall.”

“What do you…” I stopped when I saw the look of unfiltered guilt on her face. “The Dark Force didn’t create the monsters we found in the Fire Mountains, did they?”

“No.”

“You did.”

“Yes, I. So caught up in my experiments, in my crusade to master the full spectrum of magic, I created the monsters deep inside the Fire Mountains. That’s why it was so easy for the dark angels to lure me out to the mountains. I’d already been spending so much time there. I was obsessed. I trained the monsters to guard my workshop. When they produced offspring with the same perfect light-dark balance, I saw it as an affirmation that I had succeeded, not as a warning to stop. I didn’t even think about the consequences of so many monsters living on the wrong side of the wall.”

“The Dark Force found out about what you were doing, didn’t they?”

“When you reach for the powers of hell, hell reaches back.” She tried to sit up, wincing against the pain.

I set my hand on her. “You’re not healed yet. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“But I am alive,” she replied. “Because of you. And Nero. And Harker.”

“Harker threw himself in the path of danger for you. That dark magic shield could have killed him,” I said. “He really cares about you.”

“He always tries to do the right thing.”

I arched my brows. “But sometimes that’s why he does exactly the wrong thing.”

“Indeed,” she agreed. “Some of that is my fault. I taught him about light magic, about being pious and good. I took it so seriously back then. After…”

“After what happened to Nero’s parents,” I finished for her.

Colonel Starborn blinked in surprise.

“Nero told me you were his mother’s protege.”

“Yes, I was. I blamed dark magic for what happened to Cadence. I thought it was evil, that duty was the most important thing in the world. Duty to the Legion, to the gods. I thought it was Cadence’s disloyalty that was her downfall.”

“Disloyalty?”

“Or more like her loyalty to Damiel. Her blind love for him. They knew the Legion was coming for him, that she would be assigned to hunt him down. He’d defied them.”

“How?” I asked.

“By dabbling in dark magic.”

Colonel Starborn had done the same. Would they try to kill her too if they found out? She didn’t seem concerned. Maybe she realized I wouldn’t betray her secret.

“Damiel was…different from us,” she said. “He had a dark side. Cadence was so light, so pure. That’s how she got the name Lightbringer when she became an angel. But she was always attracted to the darkness, to Damiel.”

I heard Nero come in. I knew the sound of his gait. He could have muted his steps. The fact that he hadn’t was not insignificant. He wanted us to know he was here. He was giving Colonel Starborn the choice to stop talking. She kept going.

“After Cadence’s disappearance, I clung to duty, to my loyalty to the Legion. Those things defined me for many years, paving the way for me to become an angel. And it was those two things that I passed onto my disciple Harker. He took them to heart,” she said. “At the time, I didn’t realize the light was not so perfect after all.”