I’m no longer a broken doll who needs to be protected from those who might play roughly with me.
It seemed so long ago, that fight inside Elena and Raphael’s now-destroyed home in the Enclave, but that had been the beginning of everything. All the anger, all the frustration, it had been building and building inside Aodhan for years . . . only to explode outward in a merciless fury.
Of course it had landed on Illium. Because Illium had always been there, the strongest foundation of Aodhan’s life.
That was the problem.
Aodhan had become so used to standing on that foundation that he’d forgotten to rebuild and strengthen his own—and he’d blamed Illium for it. He needed to apologize for that part of it. The blame was equally his. He’d allowed Illium to take the reins, allowed him to pave the way, allowed him to be Aodhan’s shield against the world. That was on him.
But Illium had made his own mistakes. He hadn’t listened when Aodhan tried to speak, hadn’t accepted that his healing was done, that he no longer needed a keeper. Aodhan’s jaw tightened even as he picked up his finest brush to add in the details of Illium’s crouching form.
In this image, everything was as it should be, their friendship unbroken by time or atrocity or pain. But life moved on. To stagnate was to die.
Aodhan knew that better than anyone.
11
Yesterday
Sharine held one small hand in each of hers. She was holding on far too tight, but it was necessary for the two mischievous monkeys in her grasp. Honestly, she was giving serious thought to putting a leash on each of them—if Illium was naughty on his own, add in his quiet little accomplice and dear Sleeping Ancestors!
“He has never made mischief before,” Aodhan’s mother had murmured the last time around, after Sharine’d had to deliver Aodhan home with clumps of tar in his beautiful hair. She’d wanted to clip it, but hadn’t felt she had the authority.
In truth, Sharine wouldn’t have been surprised had Menerva decided against allowing Aodhan to play with Illium—though Sharine would’ve pled the boys’ case. Yes, they got into mischief, but it was never anything mean or more than what could be expected of two smart little angels.
But Menerva had given her a small, shaky smile. “Rukiel and I used to worry that we’d stunted our son’s development by taking him so far from all other angels his age. He’s such a serious little man.”
Affection in her gaze as she watched Aodhan sit glum-faced on a garden bench a little distance from them—but mingled with the affection was a sense of bewilderment. “I never expected to conceive a child so many hundreds of years after my first. I had settled into the next age of my life.”
“I can but imagine your astonishment.” The strange thing was that Sharine was far, far older than either of Aodhan’s parents, but she’d been revived by Illium’s birth. Menerva and Rukiel, in contrast, seemed perpetually perplexed by having a little angel in their vicinity—as Menerva had put it, they’d settled into an age of contemplation and scholarship, and for so long that they couldn’t alter course after Aodhan’s birth.
That day, Menerva had turned to Sharine, a touch of desperation in her tone. “But we love him. Never doubt that.”
“I don’t, Menerva. Of course I don’t.” Sharine had taken the other woman’s hand, held it in both of hers. “And you don’t have to worry about his development. He acts exactly as a boy his age should.”
A look of gratitude from the fair-haired angel. “Do you mind his continuing friendship with your son? I know they are naughty together, but Aodhan makes friends so rarely that I would not get in the way of it.”
“They are naughty,” Sharine had agreed, “but they’re also very good for one another. The way they encourage each other, it is a joy to watch.” She’d squeezed Menerva’s hand. “I think our boys will be just fine if we set them on the right path.”
Which was why Sharine was today taking the two miscreants to school, to make sure they got started on that path. “Aodhan, you’re technically too young, but Jessamy is happy for you to join in. The school has a morning session once a week for littles where the teacher tells stories, then the students play games.”
“We play games,” Illium said, a pugnacious look on his face.
Aodhan nodded firmly.
“These games involve more than just two players. They’re about making more friends and having fun together.” She didn’t worry about Illium—her boy could talk to anyone. He already knew and played with most of the Refuge children. By the time Illium became a man, he’d no doubt have friends from one end of the globe to the other.
He’d gotten that from Aegaeon, she thought, a kind of wild charisma that swept everyone up in its wake. Illium’s charm, however, was far kinder and without arrogance. But then, he was only a babe.
Aodhan, however, was like Sharine. Withdrawn around strangers, reticent with new people. Not that he was shy. He knew his mind, could speak it. Illium might’ve made the first move in their friendship, but Aodhan had chosen to accept the overture.
She’d heard them argue over decisions on what to play, which way to walk, and Aodhan never simply gave way. He won his fair share of battles. Theirs, she’d been pleased to see, was no uneven balance, but a true friendship of equals.
Now Aodhan looked at her with big eyes. “My friend, Blue.”
“Yes. You’ll always be friends with Illium. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have other friends.”
“Adi, my friend,” Illium said in his most stubborn tone of voice, his little forehead scrunched up darkly.
Oh dear. It looked like her son had inherited a possessive nature, too. From whom, she wasn’t quite sure. Neither of his parents held on to one another. Perhaps she could find a grandsire to blame. Be that as it may, she’d have to watch him to make sure he didn’t accidentally stifle Aodhan’s attempts to make other friends.
Yes, Aodhan could stand his ground, but she wasn’t sure he would when it came to making more friends. He had one true friend, and that was enough for him. Sharine understood. She had one true friend, too—that Caliane Slept at this time and place made no difference to their bond. But she was an adult, and she did have other friends who weren’t as close to her as Caliane.
No, she’d make it a point to tell Jessamy to put the boys into different groups for games. Else, they’d pair up, demolish everyone else, and not widen their circle.
12
Today
Not counting the Tower, Illium had attended meals at the court of more than one archangel. The most recent had been at Titus’s. His “stepfather” had threatened to deck him if Illium called him that one more time, while his mother smiled in a way that was dazzling sunshine full of humor.
For that alone, Illium would’ve loved Titus. But the archangel had many things to commend him—chief among which was how he treated his warriors. Never were they expendable to Titus. The Archangel of Africa valued each and every person in his forces and was known to take the time to train with even his most junior squadrons.
Of course, he did believe Illium too young to have so much power.
“You need seasoning, boy!” he’d boomed, slapping Illium on the back. “There’s a reason ascension happens at a certain age.”
The word “ascension” shot terror up Illium’s spine any time someone spoke it in relation to him. He had no desire, none, to become an archangel. Maybe that would change in the future, and maybe it wouldn’t, but one thing was true: he was too young for it to even be a whispered idea. The power would tear him apart. Even should he somehow survive—so remote a possibility as to be negligible—he’d be eaten alive by those of the Cadre who had no reason to care for him or call him a friend.
But the worst casualty of all would be having to leave the Tower, the Seven.
No, Illium was not on board with any talk of ascension. As a result, he’d been qui
te happy to watch Suyin ascend on the far end of the war. She might be untried, but she was thousands of years older than him, had a grace and a maturity that he was still in the process of developing.
He could be envious of her relationship with Aodhan and still accept her qualifications as a member of the Cadre—and more specifically, as archangel of this ravaged territory. This land needed an architect, a builder, far more than it needed an archangel of warrior blood.
As for Titus, despite his misgivings about the accelerated speed of Illium’s power curve, the archangel had treated him with the respect due to a warrior of his skill and experience. There’d also been no formalities at his table, the three of them eating as family.
Even prior to Illium’s mother’s entanglement with Titus, the other archangel’s table had been easy. Nothing could be like it was when Raphael got together with his Seven, but it had been close.
Neha’s table, by contrast, was a thing of formal manners, every dish a work of art. Elijah’s table fell somewhere in between—the familiarity of a warrior at ease in his home, but with a touch of elegance in the presentation. To be expected, since his consort was an artist.
Suyin’s table reminded him of Dmitri’s stories of how things had been when Raphael first became an archangel. Young and untried and with a furious intensity to him, as he learned to rule the land that was his territory.
The table at which they were to sit today was a huge slab of wood on sturdy legs. It had been sandpapered to take off the roughness, but that was about the extent of the polishing. Illium didn’t need to ask why Suyin wasn’t using the formal table that must surely exist in this stronghold.
All the polish and shine would’ve brought Lijuan into the room with them.
This table represented Suyin alone.
Two long bench seats ran along either side, while at the head of the table was a single chair built for an angel. Four warriors were already at the table when he entered and they waved him over.
He knew Xan, of course, but hadn’t yet managed to catch up with the other familiar face. His own cracked into a huge smile. “I heard you’d joined Suyin’s court,” he said after exchanging the embrace of warriors with a small bronze-skinned woman with wings of a blue so dark they were near-black.
Yindi would have the perfect wings for spying if she didn’t have large splashes of white on the primaries. Also if she wasn’t so loud and exuberant. He always had a good time with her when they met—the previous time around, they’d gone ice-flying below a massive glacier, nearly frozen off their butts, then drunk copious amounts of Illium’s potent liquor.
“A better decision I’ve never made,” she said, before introducing him to the vampire and the angel he didn’t know.
Jae was the vampire, quiet but with a glint to her eye, Maximus the angel. And a bigger angel Illium had never met. The other man was more heavily muscled than Titus or Aegaeon, his body white marble sculpted to define every possible line. It was a wonder his wings could lift him aloft.
Beside him, long and lean Jae, her skin a rich brown, appeared as insubstantial as air—until you noticed the razor-sharp throwing knives in her arm sheaths. She’d braided her curly hair into two side braids that began close to her skull and carried all the way down to the middle of her back.
She looked nothing at all like Ellie and she reminded Illium of her all the same. When he said, “Are those garrotes woven through your braids?” she grinned, and Maximus leaned in close to examine the lethal tools that once more put Illium in mind of Ellie.
“Forget about Jae’s obsession with hiding weapons,” Yindi said with the rudeness of long friendship. “News, gossip, breaking stories, we want it all.”
“We’re insulated here.” A freshly showered Xan, with a shirt on for once, threw back whatever deadly concoction was in his glass before continuing. “Not so much technologically—those links have been put back up, at least to a basic degree—but in terms of distance.”
“The amount of work doesn’t help,” Maximus said in a voice deep and rumbling, but it wasn’t a complaint. “We have little time to look to the outside when there’s so much to do to rebuild China, build our archangel’s land.”
“And we’re going to be building in truth soon,” Xan said, the warrior’s face bearing the refined beauty of an old vampire—the olive-gold of his skin so flawless as to be unreal, his cheekbones knife blades, and his lips delineated as if by a master artisan.
His eyes—thin, slightly hooded—gave him an enigmatic air, the entirety of Xan coming together to form a face so compelling that Xan only slept alone when he wished it.
“To tell my descendants that I helped build the court of an archangel?” Xan shoved a hand through the damp strands of his hair, broke out that berserker grin. “I will be even more of a legend than I am now.”
They all laughed, and Jae threw a bread roll at him—which he plucked out of the air and began to eat. Feeling at home among the friendly group, Illium updated them on how the other territories were doing, what had been rebuilt, what hadn’t. Additional senior members of Suyin’s court joined them in the minutes that passed, the conversation flowing with ease.
Yet still—and though he had his back to the door—he felt it when Aodhan entered the room. The others had left a space to Suyin’s right, and that was the spot into which Aodhan slid.
Because he was Suyin’s second.
Illium forced himself to keep his wings motionless, didn’t clench his fingers on the cutlery at hand, didn’t even look away from his conversation with Yindi to meet Aodhan’s gaze. The effort cost him, his abdominal muscles rigid and the tendons at his nape stiff.
“Mead?” It was a soft, feminine murmur at his shoulder.
He turned to smile at the mortal woman who’d appeared next to him, a jug in hand . . . and his heart, it stopped.
Kaia.
It was a roar of sound in his head, a thunder in his blood even though he knew Kaia was long dead and buried. But this woman, she had Kaia’s face, had her high, flat cheekbones, her soft lips, her wide and uptilted eyes, the long black silk of her hair. Only her skin tone was different. Kaia had been mountain born, her skin sun brown. This woman’s skin was white with a pink tint to it.
“Angel?” A questioning lilt to her voice as she spoke in a dialect that was one of three he’d heard in common use here.
“My name is Illium.” His voice came out rough, his breath stuck in his lungs. “Yes, thank you.”
He watched her as she poured the old-fashioned drink into his tumbler, and he tried not to stare. He failed.
She had to be one of Kaia’s descendants. The resemblance was too striking. But he couldn’t ask her. She wouldn’t know. Humans rarely had such long memories, or kept such records.
Smiling shyly at him, she moved away, to head to Aodhan.
Whose eyes were locked on Illium.
Do you see? Illium asked his friend, desperate to know if he was going mad.
Aodhan nodded. She must have arrived with the newest group of survivors. I haven’t seen her before. He glanced up then, spoke to the woman.
Her reply was too soft to reach Illium, but it made Aodhan’s face go eerily quiet. After she left to refill her jug, the shattered blue-green of Aodhan’s gaze met Illium’s. Her name is Kai. A family name she tells me.
Kaia. Kai.
Illium swallowed hard, then picked up his tumbler of mead and drank it down to the last drop. He was aware of conversation going on all around him, but it was all just a buzz of noise to him. It took everything he had not to get up and go after her. He just wanted to . . . what? Wanted to what?
That mortal woman wasn’t Kaia, wasn’t his long-dead lover.
And still his eyes watched for her, his skin tight with anticipation.
* * *
* * *
No matter Illium’s reputation as open and f
riendly, Aodhan knew he was expert at hiding his thoughts when he felt like it. He’d learned to do it to protect Lady Sharine in her fractured years. Back then, no matter how bad his day had been, Illium could put on a perfect facsimile of joy to protect his mother’s heart.
But Aodhan had been his friend too long not to see through any shield he might attempt. Right now, his friend’s entire attention was on the pretty mortal woman who’d disappeared into the kitchen area.
Aodhan had witnessed Illium’s shock, his own as powerful.
He’d never liked Kaia. She’d treated Illium as a trophy, her angelic lover to show off. He’d seen her as young and foolish and frivolous, a woman who’d never really mature. It had had nothing to do with her mortality—there were angels of three thousand who had as much air in their heads. It was a thing of personality.
He wished with all his being, however, that he hadn’t been proven right.
Aodhan would’ve rather gritted his teeth through Kaia’s entire mortal lifetime if it would’ve meant an end to Illium’s hurt. Which made his next decision simple. Illium.
When his friend’s head jerked his way, he said, Suyin has been held back by fifteen minutes.
Rising at once, Illium stepped away from the bench and toward the doors that led into the kitchens. Aodhan watched him go, unsure of his emotions. Illium had always been fascinated by mortals, compelled by them. It was by looking through Illium’s eyes that Aodhan had first learned to value mortal hearts, mortal dreams.
But Kaia . . .
She’d been Illium’s first love. Illium had given all of himself to her in that generous, uninhibited way he’d had as a young man. The same generosity existed in him to this day, but he’d directed it toward his friends, never again loving as he’d loved Kaia.
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