The world had forgotten that Michaela had once been a mother; no one thought of her as maternal. He hoped for the sake of her babe that continued to hold true. Not everyone was a fan of the Archangel of Budapest and attacking her while she was weak could be a temptation.
“I hope you have a good reason for this,” she muttered now, her words knife blades sinking into unguarded flesh. “Emergency calls are not to be made lightly.”
Astaad had on a rumpled tunic, his hair windswept. “You must all see this.”
His feed altered to show a turquoise blue ocean under a Pacific sun; that ocean was choppy, the water foamy. From the jerkiness of the image, one of Astaad’s people must be flying overhead with a recording and transmitting device. As they watched, the foaming of the water turned into a whirlpool so powerful that Raphael hoped the angel involved was high enough up not to get caught in its drag.
“Astaad, my desert territory is currently suffering its twentieth ice storm.” Alexander pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, his words clipped. “Such a phenomenon is not reason enough to—”
“There!”
Raphael’s entire body stopped moving. Because the water had just erupted up and outward, and Astaad had frozen the image.
Archangel, am I seeing things or is the water spout in the shape of a face?
His gut tensed as he recognized that face. You are not imagining it.
Water god?
Just an archangel of arrogance. Mortals have called him by many names over time, but he is said to prefer Aegaeon.
You sound like you know him.
He took a short sojourn from his Sleep during my lifetime. All of the Cadre here but for my mother would’ve met him at that time—and she is likely to have known him during another waking.
“How long has this been going on?” Neha, her hair unbound and held back with jeweled clips, but her body clad in warrior’s leathers as she stood in a room with rough redstone walls.
“Three or so hours, but initially, I thought it a weather phenomenon as suffered by Alexander.”
“My apologies, Astaad,” Alexander said, the edge in his tone different this time. “Aegaeon went to Sleep roughly a century before I did. I had forgotten his penchant for drama.”
Alexander’s not a fan.
Neither was Raphael. If Aegaeon woke, it would destroy the lives of two people Raphael cherished.
“He’s what, fifty thousand or so?” Charisemnon’s tone was offhand. “Not an Ancient in the same way as you or Lady Caliane then.”
Caliane raised both eyebrows. “Is that what he spread around? He did always have a strange vanity about his age. The truth is, he was born when I was a youngling. He is of an age with Alex and me.”
I did not know he claimed to be fifty thousand, Raphael said to Elena. Perhaps he never tried with me because I had one of his compatriots for a mother.
“Aegaeon’s overall level of power in comparison to the current Cadre is impossible to calculate,” Alexander muttered.
“He will be a power in age and experience alone,” Neha pointed out. “I remember him from his last waking—he did not enjoy that time, did not stay long—but he was an impressive being while he walked the Earth.”
Meanwhile, Neha is a fan.
Aegaeon had a way with women—though I would not call it charm. It had been too rough for that, too reckless.
Raphael? Why are you so angry at him?
I cannot speak of this, Elena. It is not a promise . . . but a trust I hold dear.
Elena didn’t force the issue; she was a warrior, understood the import of such things.
“The Cadre is missing a member.” Elijah, calm and thoughtful. “It may be that we are being brought back into balance.”
“I will inform you of any further signs of waking,” Astaad said, white lines around his mouth.
Astaad had reason for his tension. Should Aegaeon indeed rise, the Archangel of the Pacific Isles would have to share his territory, as Favashi had initially shared with Alexander. Astaad, however, was in a better position to hold on to the Pacific than Favashi had Persia—while Aegaeon had no doubt ruled that territory at some point during his long existence, the last time he’d woken, he’d held dominion over the lands Michaela now called her own.
Not only that, but if he was as old as Caliane had said, then most of his people had to be dead or in a long Sleep of their own. Maybe that was why Aegaeon hadn’t stayed awake for an extended period the last time. Just long enough to irreparably break a precious gift to angelkind.
“Since we are all here,” Neha said, her hands on her hips, “what is the situation in China? Lady Caliane, you have been there most recently.”
More than one head turned toward Michaela; she ignored the pointed looks. Caliane, by contrast, was too well respected for anyone to ask why she’d stepped in.
“No new infections among those who watch over the territory for the Cadre. The half-consumed discovered by Raphael are all dead—they would not feed, even when sustenance was placed into their hands.”
“So nothing has really changed. Good.” Michaela logged off.
“So nice to have the princess back in the fold.” Charisemnon’s tone was pure poison before his screen, too, went black.
The others followed one by one.
Elena’s face was forlorn when he turned to her. Crossing the carpet, he ran his fingers through her hair. “We did what we could to save the villagers. But they were doomed at Lijuan’s first touch.”
Leaning her head against his thigh, his hand curved over her nape, she looked out at the soft rain that had begun to fall. Manhattan glittered beyond the veil. “You didn’t mention the snow owl.”
“Let us allow Cassandra to Sleep in peace as long as she is able.” The two owls who dozed in one corner of the room, on a low perch that Dmitri had used long-rusty skills to make, rustled their wings as if in a dream. “One more Ancient, the Cadre can absorb, but two?” He shook his head. “It may tip the world into an archangelic war.”
35
His fears proved groundless.
Three days after the meeting, Cassandra’s site was dead calm and Astaad reported the same of his territory. “It is as if Aegaeon had a nightmare and cried out in his Sleep, then laid his head back down.”
Raphael took a silent breath at that. He’d been weighing up how to share the news of the Ancient’s possible awakening with the two people who’d be most affected by it, all the while aware that, by speaking, he would devastate both their lives at a critical time. He would hold his silence now, speak only when a waking was confirmed.
The violent weather systems had also settled, including Alexander’s ice storms as well as the geothermal activity in Raphael’s territory.
“It almost feels like the prelude to a tsunami,” Elena said one night as they stood atop the Legion building after Elena had spent the day getting her hands dirty. “How everything goes still and the water retreats and retreats from the shore . . . only for a huge wave to return and pummel everything to death.”
“Your positive thoughts overwhelm me.” Raphael watched the purple-hued horizon as day fell into night, almost expecting to see the wave crashing.
“That’s me, chipper as a spring bean.” Lightning dancing through her wings, she threw a blade at him without warning. “You gonna tell me what was in that package from Amanat?”