A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(76)

He tried to bow his head in return, but stopped the gesture halfway, frozen in pain. “Most worthy.”

“As a worthy opponent may I ask you to see a doctor, so that I will know that I have not injured you too badly?”

He raised his dark face toward me but had to finish the gesture with just his eyes, as if even that small movement hurt. I touched his shoulder then and fought not to touch the side of his face. When we were children, I had loved how dark his skin was compared to mine, but especially compared to Cosmiel; she’d been a natural redhead with the palest of skin to offset her green eyes. At seven, I had marveled at all the colors we came in, and it had been one of the hardest things to learn in the outside world that it was considered racist to remark on skin color. I had been raised to believe that our differences made us beautiful, and no matter how wrong some things at the College had been, it hadn’t all been bad; in fact some of it I wanted to teach to my son.

Harshiel was studying my face as if he was trying to read my thoughts, and then I realized he could read my mind. I’d touched him enough for him to be able to know what I was thinking. It was one of his gifts, but only with close contact. He couldn’t read someone across a room or across the world like others at the College. It was one of the reasons he’d been trained to fight, because if he could touch you, he had a chance of literally picking your brain.

“Zaniel,” he said, and reached up to put his hand over mine where I touched his shoulder. “If you missed us so much, why did you stay away?”

“Because I could not have all of you and leave the College,” I said. His palm and fingers were rougher than they had been the last time I’d felt his hand on mine. We’d both lifted more weapons, more weights, touched more of life. I felt the loss of not having been there for each other, but then I stopped my thoughts, let myself sink into that stillness that we’d been taught. If you didn’t want someone reading your mind or emotions you could prevent it by simply not thinking, not feeling. It was like the empty mind of meditation but reached in an instant. When you deal with angels, blanking yourself for a fellow human is so much easier.

He pulled back first and then we let each other go, but the eye contact stayed. Frenemies, Charleston had called us, but that wasn’t exactly it, more brokenhearted friends.

Suriel said softly, “I am not the only one who missed you, Zaniel.”

“I did not miss him,” Harshiel said, looking away, but the lie was too obvious, or too late.

“The angels hear you,” Turmiel said, which was something we said at the College if you thought someone was lying.

“And the angels will heal me if I am worthy of it, I have no need of human doctors.” He started to stand but had to grab the edge of the nearest desk. I caught his arm and steadied him. He let me help him for a moment and then glared that hatred back at me, but now I was even more puzzled by it. He tried to jerk away from me, but the movement hurt enough that if I hadn’t been there, he’d have fallen.

“Please, Harshiel, let them do more tests; I could not bear it if something happens to you because I had been too zealous.”

“You were not zealous, you fought to win, as we are taught.” He looked around. “Turmiel, help me.”

The other man came but his dark eyes had widened; evidently Harshiel still didn’t ask for help very often. Turmiel came to take my place at his side, so he could keep standing.

“You are obviously too hurt to do your duty as Sentinel,” Suriel said.

“I have failed you,” he said.

She shook her head. “You have not failed me, not yet, but if you cannot move without Turmiel’s aid, then I am without either of you at my side.”

“Tell him to go to the hospital,” I said.

“We must all be back inside the walls before dark,” Harshiel said. The wording was odd, not back to the College, but inside the walls.

I looked from one to the other of them, trying to figure out what I was missing.

“If you collapse for need of a healer before we get to the College, that could keep us all out after dark,” Suriel said.

“If I am too weak to serve the angels as Sentinel, then I will take whatever fate awaits me.”

She touched his bare arm. “No, Harshiel, no.”

He looked where she touched him as if her pale hand against his muscled dark meant far more than just the hand of a friend. For the first time I wondered if there was more than friendship between them, or if he wished there was more—did Suriel feel the same? I had a moment of thinking what it would be like to be near to someone you wanted, loved, and be forever denied. I had proven that I was not that strong long ago. Had they been stronger?

She dropped her hand away from him. “We will need a car to take us home, you can’t walk far like this.”

“Maybe we can give you an escort to make up for the poor hospitality?” Charleston said.

“We would gladly accept,” Suriel said.

“Zaniel cannot be part of that escort,” Harshiel said; his voice had fallen back into the growling warning again.

“On this we agree,” I said.

He frowned at me, still leaning on Turmiel. He could not stand unaided—that wasn’t good. How badly had I hurt him? I was angry and disappointed in myself for the loss of control. I knew better.

“Are you really going to refuse medical treatment?” paramedic Roger asked.