“I need you to meet Naasir.”
When Raphael laid out the reason why, Jason’s skin pulled taut over his facial bones, the intricate Polynesian-inspired tattoo that covered the left side of his face suddenly stark against his brown skin. “There’s a reason I’ve always told Naasir not to try and get into Lijuan’s citadel.”
Galen, able to hear the conversation since Raphael had looped him in, nodded. “He’s too reckless, with no care for his life.”
That wasn’t quite true; Naasir did care for his life. He simply had no fear. As a result, he took far too many chances for Raphael to be certain he wouldn’t be caught by Lijuan—and unlike when Naasir had been a child, Lijuan wouldn’t forgive the trespass. “You’ve been in the citadel,” he said to Jason. “Can Naasir get in?”
“Yes.” Not in its usual queue today, strands of Jason’s black hair blew across the curves and fine dots of the ink that marked him. “He’s also stealthy enough to get away with it, if he doesn’t allow his more primal instincts to take the lead.”
“That might be a problem,” Galen said, his hands on his hips and tone rough with concern. “He was adamant that Andromeda is his responsibility.”
Galen had good cause to worry. Once Naasir took on such a task, he’d die before failing. “Go,” Raphael ordered Jason. “Track him down, and help him break out the scholar.” He knew Jessamy’s apprentice wouldn’t have been harmed . . . or not badly harmed in any case. Lijuan wanted the information Andromeda held in her head.
And her blood was that of Lijuan’s closest ally.
“Sire.” Jason signed off.
“Is the scholar likely to cooperate with Lijuan to save her skin?” Raphael asked Galen.
“No.” A response that held not the slightest hesitation or doubt. “Every time I’ve spoken to her on the subject of Alexander, she’s been adamant in her distaste for what we all believe Lijuan intends to do.”
“Lijuan’s Refuge stronghold?”
“It stands—she’s left a full squadron there and they’re bristling today.”
Raphael had believed Lijuan understood the lines she’d crossed when she precipitated a battle in the Refuge, but clearly her arrogance left no room for the rules that bound their race. “How long is Andromeda capable of surviving in Lijuan’s citadel?”
“Not many know that she’s a fully trained and capable warrior,” his weapons-master told him. “So she’ll survive—but I don’t know if she’ll survive whole. Lijuan’s methods of persuasion can be horrific.”
In Galen’s pale green eyes was the knowledge that no one who experienced Lijuan’s brand of “hospitality” ever came out the same.
7
Andromeda had forced herself to stop struggling during the journey. The futile action would only tire her out and leave her defenseless when they reached their destination.
Do not be stupid. That is the first lesson of battle. Think.
Repeating Dahariel’s words silently in her mind, she lay painfully quiescent.
As it was, Xi’s squadron did stop twice. The first time, it was in an ice-strewn cave only about an hour out from the Refuge. And though they stayed there until daylight had faded from the skies, Xi didn’t release Andromeda, despite her repeated requests. She finally worked out that they wanted her tied up and ready to go should they have to make a rapid departure.
Stiff and cold after so many hours in such discomfort, she was almost grateful when they did finally take off again. At least this way, she had fresh air. The second stop came deep into the night, on a small island that was a dot in the ocean. She might have been tempted to fly off, but her wings were severely cramped from being crushed in the net, and she knew her speed in flight was nowhere close to Xi’s. Better to bide her time, to be smart and wait for a better opportunity.
“I can fly,” she said after the short rest period when she’d been given some water and trail bread to replenish herself. “There’s no need to truss me up like a chicken.”
Xi didn’t answer, just threw a blindfold in her direction. “Or I can blind you,” he said conversationally when she balked. “Given your age and the complexity of eyes, they’ll probably take three months or so to grow back.”
A trickle of cold sweat rolled down her spine. “I’m sure your archangel wouldn’t be well pleased by such abuse.” Lijuan needed her.
“You don’t need eyes to tell my lady what she needs to know.” The general stared at her, his own eyes as dark and hard as onyx. “Which will it be?”
She put on the blindfold, wondering once again why evil wasn’t ugly. Her grandfather with his skin of deep gold and hair of richest brown, had been beautiful before the ravages of disease, would be again when his body healed. A mortal poet had once written of him, saying:
My heart’s blood for but a single instant
My soul for the agonizing glory of his touch
Such beauty is not meant for mortal eyes
It maddens. It ravages. It murders.
Xi, too, was a very handsome angel and she knew he had no dearth of lovers. Long ago, before she’d realized the cold heart that beat in his chest, she’d admired his form in flight—he was a sleek and beautiful machine, his one-of-a-kind wings starkly beautiful.
Yet even as she thought of his nature, she knew that to his squadron, he wasn’t evil. To them, he was simply a loyal general serving his lady. The fact his lady had proven she had little regard for the lives of the people she professed to rule, and yet Xi still followed her, that was what made him evil.
“How can you justify it?” she said to him when he hauled her up to her feet.
No answer as he lashed her wrists together.
Her blindness made her bold. “Giving your allegiance to an archangel who turned her people into the walking dead?” The reborn were nightmares given flesh and set free to feed, to infect, to murder. “If that alone is not crime enough, she feeds from the lifeforce of her subjects and leaves them dry husks.”
As a scholar and apprentice teacher who worked under Jessamy, Andromeda had access to reports filed by both sides of the fierce battle above New York. Each had used different words, but neither disagreed on the basics: Raphael’s side said Lijuan had fed on the lifeforce of her people until she was glutted with power.
Andromeda could still remember the line in the report that had made her skin chilclass="underline" Her mouth was rimmed with blood after she lifted it from the neck of her sacrifice.
Lijuan’s side had stated that her soldiers had volunteered in droves so their archangel could gain glory. In this, the soldiers had found honor beyond mortal or immortal ken, leaving a proud legacy for those of their bloodline.
In this case, Andromeda had a feeling both reports were equally true.
One side had seen horror, the other side honor.
She couldn’t fault Xi for the reports he’d personally filed: he’d been brutally honest in terms of the wins and losses of battle. He also hadn’t attempted to make it seem as if Lijuan had won—though he had softened her fall, as would any loyal general, saying that his lady had retreated from the field of battle so that she would be strong for the war to come.
His interpretation was strikingly different from the report filed by Illium. Raphael’s lead aerial commander had stated that Raphael “blew Lijuan to smithereens,” though Illium, too, had made a note that Lijuan may or may not be dead: Zhou Lijuan is an archangel and they do not easily die.
“I have served my lady for most of my nine hundred years on this earth,” Xi said after another member of his squadron tied her ankles together. “You know nothing of her. Your task is to record, not to judge.”
Andromeda inclined her head because in this, he was right. “But,” she added, “some small judgment is required when we record the histories. We must often search for the truth amid grandiose claims, outright lies, and everything in between.”