“Regardless,” Xi said, “he was deeply trusted by his father.”
Lijuan gave a small nod. “Scholar, what say you on this?”
Biting her lip and hoping her voice wouldn’t break and betray her, Andromeda shook her head. “I considered Alexander’s attachment to his people and to his son,” she said, “but as you yourself noted, he was a great tactician. I do not think he would make such an obvious choice.”
“Emotions can blind,” Lijuan said, before glancing at Xi. “However, it could also be said that Alexander would not place his son in danger by going to Sleep below his palace.”
Xi inclined his head in acceptance of the point before saying, “It could also be a double-bluff.” He glanced at Andromeda. “Friendship alone isn’t why you believe it’s Kilimanjaro.”
“No.” Andromeda told them of the scrolls she’d read, the stories she’d found in the Archives, even requested a piece of paper and mapped out Alexander’s possible location on the mountain. “A bare year before his disappearance, Alexander was seen on this exact spot by another angel, and yet it was later discovered that Titus knew nothing of the visit.” Andromeda had been so excited when she’d discovered that piece of what had then been an intellectual mystery.
“I follow you,” Xi said, examining her hand-drawn map. “No archangel would cross over into another’s territory without permission unless the need was critical. And to not tell his friend, it suggests an attempt to protect Titus from the weight of the knowledge.”
Andromeda’s pulse pounded. “Yes, exactly.”
“Head to Kilimanjaro,” Lijuan ordered Xi. “I will decide our next course of action once you either find Alexander, or clear the region.” Blood-drenched eyes held Andromeda’s again. “While Xi is gone, you will write down every other possibility, no matter how small.”
Only one answer was safe. “Yes, Lady Lijuan.”
“I will send advance scouts today, make preparations to leave on the next dawn.” Xi’s wings caught the golden lamplight as he resettled them in what Andromeda knew wasn’t a restless move but that of a warrior who wanted to ensure his wings didn’t cramp. “We must take extreme care. Titus has ramped up his security since the rise in hostilities with Charisemnon.”
The general glanced at Andromeda, the intensity of his gaze a glistening black blade. “You are certain Kilimanjaro heads your list?”
You have secrets. You wear another skin, too.
Andromeda clung to the memory of Naasir’s words, to the skin of an intimidated and scared scholar that was her shield. “Yes.”
Lijuan leaned back on her throne, her body translucent. “Remember this, scholar.” Words that echoed with so many screams, Andromeda’s eardrums threatened to bleed. “If I find you have lied to me, Heng’s punishment among the hounds will appear as nothing.”
Andromeda bowed her head. “Lady, you must understand I can offer no certainties.” No one could. “I am but an apprentice.”
No answer, and when she looked up, Lijuan was gone. As if she’d turned into her noncorporeal form. Even as Andromeda’s breath caught at this evidence of Lijuan’s “evolution,” she wondered if the choice to become noncorporeal had been a conscious one. It seemed to her that Lijuan had simply been too tired to hold the physical manifestation of her form.
“I hope for your sake that you do not lie.” Xi’s voice was a scalpel.
“I would be a fool to lie.” She was proud her voice didn’t tremble. “There is nowhere I can go to escape punishment.”
13
Naasir entered citadel territory after nightfall.
Jason’s spies in the villages that lay directly below the flight paths to that citadel had confirmed that Xi and his squadron had flown in at dawn the previous day. They’d been carrying an unknown burden in a sling.
Andromeda.
A growl built in his throat at the idea of Andromeda trapped and treated like prey.
But his anger turned into a teeth-baring smile the next second. Because Andromeda wasn’t prey. However, she was smart enough to fool Xi and Lijuan into believing such, so that she’d be left alone to think up an escape. Gritting his teeth at the realization she might try it before he was there to help watch her back, he continued to lope through forests in the shadow of mountains, just another shadow among shadows.
The sky hung low and sullen above him.
It was in the last patch of forest before the grasslands that Jason had told him surrounded the citadel that he caught the ugly, rotting scent that denoted the presence of the reborn. He hissed out a breath. The world believed Lijuan’s infectious creations erased from the earth, but clearly, she’d managed to save this nest. To survive, the reborn must’ve been allowed to feed on mortal or immortal flesh—or had been fed.
Naasir wanted to kill each and every one, but Andromeda was waiting for him.
An angry, rumbling sound vibrating in his chest, he avoided the creatures—not difficult given their stench to his sensitive sense of smell—and made his way to the grasslands. Those grasslands were a good precaution by Lijuan’s generals, ensuring a direct line of sight for the sentries.
Too bad the grasses had been allowed to grow to knee-high. That was plenty long enough to hide Naasir’s form, such grasses an environment which part of his nature knew how to utilize instinctively. He reached the outer wall of the citadel without being spotted. From there, it wasn’t difficult to avoid the vampiric guards, but it did take precise timing to make sure he remained unseen by the winged squadron.
He could smell rain on the winds. That could be an asset or it might be a threat. It would depend on the skills of the woman with secrets who smelled like his mate. The heavy cloud cover was an undisputed gift, hiding as it did the light of the moon. Naasir could use the moon’s light to his advantage, his body a rippling ghost, but Andromeda’s lickable, honeyed skin would’ve been spotlighted by it.
Prowling along the edges of the wall, he watched the guards, listened to their conversations, and when one of them went to answer the call of nature just as the sentry in the sky angled off in another direction, he slipped over the wall right under their noses.
Cunning and stealthy and unseen.
Reminding himself of Jason’s words, he spilled no blood and left no trace of his presence as he went over the second wall and jumped down into the inner courtyard. He landed in an easy crouch on the cobblestones, his bare feet absorbing the impact through his entire body without giving him a hard jolt.
Slightly spoiled meat and blood and the ugly miasma of fear.
A predator at home in the moonless night, he made his way toward the tainted meat that must’ve been lying in the sun for hours. It was alive, he realized as he got closer. Alive and marked by the scents of multiple dogs. Feathers told him the meat had been an angel before being fed to the dogs. It was now in pieces, though the head remained attached to the gleaming, exposed spinal cord.
Either exhausted or simply weak, the meat was motionless but for a closed eyelid that flickered in a rapid pattern—as if the angel was dreaming. His other eye socket was a gaping hole clotted with viscous fluid that had either dried in the sun, or was a result of his body attempting to regenerate itself.
Brutality didn’t interest Naasir; he’d seen more than one pitiless punishment over the centuries and he wasn’t going to judge this one without having the details. What did interest him was the scent that lingered around the man.
Andromeda.
She’d been here recently. Why?
He looked at the meat again and had the thought that maybe the woman who smelled like his mate might have a soft heart. From the position of her scent, he could tell she’d stood or sat close by the head, possibly in an effort to provide what comfort she could.