“Hundreds of years ago.”
Walking to the edge of the pond, she fought her habit of pretending things didn’t matter when they did, and admitted the truth. “I knew I’d run into one of your lovers sooner or later. I just never expected the first one to be so impressive.”
Raphael thought of the centuries he’d lived growing increasingly remote from the world, the power at his command eating away at the boy he’d once been, and knew Elena didn’t understand the piercing depths of who and what she was to him. Tasha, scholar and warrior, was a friend, but she’d seen the surface of him and been content with that.
In all his existence, Elena alone had torn at that surface, heedless of the risk, until she revealed the man beneath the archangel. And Elena alone had challenged his decisions and his views, forcing him to look at the world in a way he’d never before considered. “There is no comparison,” he said to the only woman he’d ever claimed for his own. “You know me in ways no one else ever has or ever will again.”
The ring of silver molten around her irises, the bones of her face strong and exquisitely unique, she parted her lips on his name just as another message touched his mind. So quickly, the moonlit night was no longer a place of beauty but a reminder of the putrid darkness that slithered on the outskirts, waiting to ravage and violate.
24
“Keir has returned.”
An immediate change in Elena’s expression, his consort shelving their personal discussion for one that affected their people.
Gathering her into his arms, he flew them directly to their suite, having made sure Keir was assigned the suite next door. When they walked through to Keir’s living area, it was to find the healer staring into the cold fire, his eyes grim.
His report was deadly in its familiarity.
“The disease destroyed the victim’s internal organs.” Keir’s jaw strained white with the force of his emotions. “As with the others, the sores were a secondary effect. It is categorically the same infection, and, given the lack of further victims and the fact of her humanity, I agree she was meant to be the carrier.”
Keir rose to pace across the room, his anger vicious in a way Raphael had never before seen, his wings held so tight to his back it had to be painful. “The only good news is that while the infection was identical to that found in New York,” the other man continued, “it was appreciably weaker to the senses that make me a healer. Had Kahla not already been compromised, I believe she and any of those who fed from her may well have made a full recovery.”
“Even Lijuan,” Raphael said slowly, “cannot create reborn after reborn with no rest in between. Doing so causes their infectiousness to decline.”
Keir paused in his pacing. “Jason has been spending time in interesting places.”
It was what his spymaster did best.
“If we’re right,” Elena said, from the armchair into which she’d curled, “and the disease maker’s run out of juice, that means New York and Amanat are both safe, at least for the short term.”
“We cannot predict how long it’ll take for the architect of the disease to recharge,” Keir murmured, “but I think it will not be soon. He or she has done too much too quickly.” Pausing, he stared at the carpet before raising his head. “I cannot say this without any doubt, but I believe the Falling was caused by an attempt to seed the sky with a disease targeted at angelkind, as this bloodborne disease is targeted at vampires.”
Raphael had thought as much, the risk to his people one he had to find a way to negate. “The energy expended in that attempt would also explain why the disease maker is exhausted after creating only two carriers that we know of.” Seeing the healer sway slightly on his feet, he said, “Rest now, Keir.” Do not let the rage eat away at you.
Keir glanced up. Now you quote my own words back at me.
They were wise ones. Said to the angry, broken youth he’d been. “We’ll leave you in peace.”
The healer’s expression remained tense, but he was no longer pacing when they walked out the door. Leaving Elena getting changed in their suite, Isabel on watch outside, Raphael flew to his mother. He knew she wouldn’t be asleep—angels so old as Caliane slept but rarely and the two of them needed to talk; not only as mother and son, but as archangels who might soon be drawn into a global war.
“I’m not ready for war,” she said, as they walked through the quiet corridors of her home, her arm tucked through his, her wing a warm weight against his own. “My power has returned, my people are strong again, but my spirit? It wants only peace.” She smiled and it was a creation of sadness. “I’ve fought too many battles. Now I feel only the driving need to enshield Amanat and wait this out.”
Raphael couldn’t blame her for that choice. “You should protect your people. They are yet babes in this new world.”
Eyes so similar to his own, yet with such age, such pain, such loss in them, met his. “You are the babe of my body, Raphael. I will not abandon you as I once did.” Steel in the blue. “My resources are yours. I will not permit your city to fall.”
“Mother.” He held her against him, continually surprised at how small she was, for she had always loomed larger than life in his memories. “I’m no child, and if you divert your resources to New York, you know Lijuan will attack and destroy Amanat.”
Drawing back, she took his arm again and led him toward the wide stairs to the roof, her voice unyielding. “What use is my city if my son is dead?”
Realizing he wouldn’t win this battle if he spoke as a son to his mother, he spoke as one archangel to another. “Victory in New York will be meaningless if Lijuan gains a stronger foothold in this part of the world.” Amanat’s simple existence was a symbol that Lijuan was not as all-powerful as she would have the world believe.
“And if you move your people to protect them,” he added, “thus abandoning your city, it’ll be viewed as a capitulation.” In wars between immortals, perception could often be everything. “Those who might now be undecided on a side will begin to see her as the true power, once it becomes known she drove you from your city.”
The elegant lines of her face exposed by the way she’d pinned her hair into a loose knot, Caliane pulled away to walk to the edge of the roof. “I’ll be making a choice, not being driven anywhere by that repugnance who styles herself an archangel.”
“That isn’t the story she’ll tell, nor the one people will believe.” When there was only silence from Caliane, her feathers limned with power against the starlit night, he reminded her of the one fact against which she couldn’t argue. “We cannot know how long the coming wars will last, and we cannot coexist in the same territory, Mother, not for anything beyond a short term.” It was the reason the members of the Cadre were separated from one another by water and land, their powers too violent to permit long-term proximity.
There were two known exceptions to that rule. The first was pregnancy—had Michaela truly been with child, he could’ve offered her sanctuary, for the vulnerability that came with carrying a child would’ve dampened the effect. The second was love of the kind shared by Caliane and Nadiel, their deep emotional bond somehow ameliorating the effect. Michaela and Uram, by contrast, had never lived together, their love affair conducted over short periods of intense intimacy, followed by weeks of distance.
An adult child fell into neither exception. “I would end up viewing you as a threat, and you would feel the same about me, our instincts driving us mad as we fought the urge not to kill.” It was a prediction borne out by angelic history. “You need to maintain and hold this territory.”