He ruled with a firm hand, but he’d never sought to unman or humiliate anyone, for these people were mothers and fathers, elders and healers with their own pride and honor. But the people in front of him weren’t like his own . . . though they belonged to him now.
Charisemnon, he reminded himself, had somehow convinced his populace that for him to take their young daughters to his bed was an honor and not a perversion. The memory caused a crawling sensation across his skin and his voice was harsh when he said, “Rise! I wish to talk to your faces, not your asses!”
Whimpers whispered into the air, but several trembling citizens got to their feet. At least a few of them had some backbone. Beside him, Sharine might as well have been formed of iron, so stiff was she. No doubt she’d have sharp words for him when they were alone, but this was beyond ridiculous. “Why do you have so many burned buildings in your village?” he asked, wanting to confirm his theory.
It was a man old and shriveled, his beard unexpectedly lush, who answered, his hand shaky on his cane and his bones all but clattering. Yet he spoke, and for that, Titus looked at him with respect. “The rotting ones came,” the old man said in his whispery voice. “They took some of our own and we knew that none could be saved.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “The last one to be mauled, he saw what had happened to his neighbors and friends, and before his mind was gone, he used himself as bait to lead them into one of the houses.” Water spilled from his eyes. “We were able to lock the door and burn down the house, saving the untainted. And so we learned how to kill the rotting ones.”
Titus thought he’d seen and heard of every horror, but this . . . “Did one of your people always act as a lure from then on?”
The speaker’s jerky nod was followed by a muffled sob from the crowd, one quickly quieted. A being brokenhearted at the loss of a loved one.
“The old do it,” the speaker rasped. “I am next.”
Yet he stood here, spine bowed but courage undaunted. Indeed, he was a man to respect, as were all those who’d gone before him. “How many people did you lose?” he asked, already calculating how he could redeploy troops to assist on this side of the former border. “Both to the rotting ones and in the war draft.”
The answer shook him; if he was right in his calculations, the village had lost at least half its people. The survivors had a glazed kind of resignation on their faces, their bodies brittle and emaciated.
And . . . he saw no children.
That was an impossibility. In every village in which he had ever before landed, he’d seen the curious face of a child or two peeking at him from behind a door, or from on top of the stoop. They were inevitably inquisitive, smiles carving their faces and energy bouncing through their bodies. A bold heart would approach him once in a while and then Titus would tell the child to come join his stronghold when they were grown.
No small hearts beat in his vicinity today, the lack of their high voices and bright eyes a sharp pain. “Did the reborn take your children?”
From the fear that carved the old man’s face, he suddenly realized this was something else altogether. And he wondered what else his enemy had taken from his own people. Had he demanded their young? For what purpose?
His stomach churned. Was it possible Charisemnon had somehow been able to do what Lijuan had and turned the most vulnerable members of their society into a horrific melding of vampire and reborn? If so, where were they?
17
“I am your archangel,” Titus said from the deepest depth of his chest, so his tone would vibrate in their bones. “You do not need to hide your children from me.” It came out far harsher than he’d intended, but he needed to know if the villagers were hiding infected children.
Ugly as it was to consider, those children were already dead, their only aim to infect more and still more until no one truly alive was left in the world.
The old man’s bones appeared ready to rattle down to his feet.
“Be quiet,” Sharine muttered to him, far too low for anyone else to hear. “I’ll handle this.”
He was so astonished at her gall that he was struck dumb. She stepped forward. “We are on a long journey,” she said in her voice so lush and rich with texture. “We want nothing from you but water and a place to rest for a moment or two. You know well that you cannot hide anything from an archangel. It’s better that you are honest.”
Fresh tears rolled down the old man’s face as he mumbled words to one of the women close at hand. She was crying, too, but she went to a nearby door and opened it, reaching out a hand. A small hand clasped hers and then out came a little boy with his own hand clasping that of another girl—and so on until a string of five little ones stood in front of Titus.
Unlike most children who came face-to-face with an angel, these babes showed no wonder, only a terrible fear that destroyed him. He didn’t know what to do, looked to Sharine for an answer. Smiling, she went down on her knees, her wings spread out on the dirt behind.
“My son looked just like you when he was younger,” she murmured to one particular boy. “Always with dirt on his knees and scrapes on his cheeks. He was off on one adventure after another.”
Though the child didn’t respond, Sharine kept on talking in her gentle voice warm with love until that small face twitched at last into a smile. As Titus watched, Sharine ended up seated on the ground with a circle of little ones in front of her, all enraptured by her stories.
When she reached into her backpack and removed the energy bars she’d brought for herself, handing them out to the children, they reached for the food with grateful little hands. Soon, the smallest one of them all, a girl of perhaps two with a thin face and huge shining eyes, was sitting in her lap.
Awestruck by her magic, Titus thought about how he might do the same with the adults. But he wasn’t like Sharine. And so he did what came naturally to him. “I would speak to you,” he said to the elder who’d spoken first. “You are, I think, the headman of this village.”
Two younger males started to step forward, protective fear bunching their muscles, but the elder shook his head. “I will come, my lord Archangel.” Breathless words, his skin losing blood. “Until I am gone, this duty and any punishment we must take is mine.”
Titus saw it was all going wrong; he looked to Sharine once more. Her mind touched his—he hadn’t known she could do that, but as he was coming to learn, there was a lot he didn’t know about Sharine. She was an old, old being and simply because she preferred to live in a world of art had no bearing on her levels of power.
The world—and Titus—should’ve paid attention to the biggest clue out there: Illium. Sharine’s son was already being talked off as a future archangel though he was barely past five hundred years of age. Why had they all assumed such power had come from his father’s blood alone? Even Raphael, the son of two archangels, hadn’t been that violently powerful at such a young age.
Why had no one ever considered what gifts Sharine had bequeathed her son?
Ask for tea, she said into his mind.
I don’t drink tea, he said, after taking a moment to cope with the song of her voice; it was even more luxuriant on the mental level. They will think me deranged if I ask for tea.
A narrowing of her eyes. Then ask for ale, your archangelic lordship. The last words couldn’t have been more sarcastic had she tried.
But since she seemed to know what she was doing, he looked at the scared and angry young men who’d tried to step up, and said, “Bring us ale!” Then he turned his attention to the old man. “You and I need to discuss the future of this village now that I am your archangel.”