Breathless in the aftermath, both their chests heaving, he pressed his forehead to Illium’s and said, “I’m never letting you go.”
All my loves leave me in the winter snow.
—Illium
50
When, all too soon, the time came for Aodhan to fly home, it was Illium who walked him to the beach area from which he intended to take flight. It was Illium who hugged him tight and whispered, “I’ll fucking miss you,” in his ear.
Face pressed to the side of his, Aodhan wrapped Illium up in his wings, suddenly terrified of leaving him in this land yet full of deadly mysteries. “You’ll be careful? Promise me. No racing off to explore interesting things. Who’s going to spoil your temperamental cat if you’re gone?”
Illium’s breath on the skin of his neck as he huffed. “I’m not an idiot.” It was a mutter, but he continued to hold on. “Am I allowed to ask you to be careful on the trip home? I’m not being overprotective,” he added quickly. “You’re exhausted, Adi. We just arrived here yesterday, and you shouldn’t really be going on such a long flight—”
“I’m heading to Amanat,” Aodhan interrupted, having intended to share that with Illium before being distracted by his worry. “Suyin spoke to Lady Caliane just before, arranged it.” His former archangel had hugged him, too, tears in her eyes. “I’ll stay there some days.”
“Oh. Good.” Illium’s arms turned bruisingly tight before he pulled away.
Aodhan had to force himself to let go. Of all the people in his eternity, it was Illium whose touch reached into the deepest, darkest places in his soul, bringing with it light and hope and all the vivid brightness that made him a favorite of so many.
But it was Aodhan he called his best friend.
And Aodhan whose hair he gripped as he pressed a hard kiss to Aodhan’s lips. It was over too fast, Illium stepping back with the jerky movements of a man who didn’t trust himself close. They’d barely touched the edge of this new horizon between them, and already, it was a thing of potent power.
Wings backlit by the rising sun, Illium swallowed. “I’ll see you in New York.”
A lump in his throat, Aodhan nodded. “New York.” It came out a rasp, his emotions choking him.
That playful smile a little shaky at the edges, Illium said, “Don’t get blinded by the big city excitement and forget me.”
Aodhan couldn’t speak, his throat all but closed up. Never, he managed to say mind-to-mind. Then he spread his wings and took flight, but he looked back again and again . . . and the dot of blue on the sands, it never moved.
Illium, watching him fly away.
The image haunted him during his sojourn in Amanat. It wasn’t that he and Illium had never been apart before this past year. They were warriors and members of the Seven. Both of them had also worked as couriers in their youth. It wasn’t in their nature to cling to one another.
No, it was something about that particular good-bye that troubled him, but he didn’t understand what until the day Lady Caliane found him walking in the forest outside Amanat, the chattering monkeys of the local troop following along in the trees, and the wild horses shadowy ghosts in the mist.
Having not expected the archangel, Aodhan said, “Lady Caliane. Is something amiss?”
“No, young Aodhan.” She folded back her wings, in her warrior avatar today—faded leathers of gray-blue, her hair braided, and a sword riding her hip. “I was flying for the joy of it, and caught a glimpse of your light.” The searing blue of her eyes held his. “Would you mind the company on this walk?”
Aodhan was solitary by nature, had been that way even before his abduction, and he and Lady Caliane weren’t in any way friends. She was an Ancient, while he was a whisper off half a millennium in age. But he was comfortable with her—for she was both the mother of his sire and the best friend of Lady Sharine.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “But I’m afraid I may not be the best company.”
“Things weigh on you,” Caliane said as they began to walk in the cool quiet of the forest. “I have seen you walking in silence often, in Amanat and outside.”
Aodhan went to give her a generic, polite reply but the memory of his earlier thoughts made him stop, think. Best friend to Lady Sharine. Two very different women, but there had to be a core of similarity hidden beneath that had made their friendship endure.
After all, look only at the surface and Aodhan and Illium were polar opposites. No visible sign of the value they both placed on things like honor and fidelity. No indication of the drive inside each of them, their ambitions for the future running on parallel tracks. And no sign at all of the love that meant one would die for the other without hesitation.
Perhaps, with Eh-ma so far from him, he could ask Lady Caliane for guidance. “May I ask you a personal thing?”
“Yes, child.” A smile that turned her from beautiful to astonishingly lovely. “You remind me of my son when he was young. Oh, your coloring is different and so are your personalities, but my Raphael can be as solemn, as thoughtful. Tell me what troubles you.”
“You know I left Illium in China. The final image I have of him—on the beach watching me go—I dream of it, think on it night and day, and I don’t understand my obsession.” It was hard for him to talk of such private things to anyone, far less an Ancient who was mostly a stranger to him, but he forced himself to keep going.
“Our duties mean we’ve often been apart. Why then, does that one image haunt me?” He wasn’t sure he’d ever said so many words to Caliane and was half-convinced she’d tell him she had no time for such foolish concerns of the young.
“Ah.” Caliane’s exhalation of air was somehow portentous. “Sharine’s son is a beautiful being, and I say this not about his outer shell, but his heart. I have seen this, though I wasn’t there when Illium was born, nor when Aegaeon deserted them in the most cruel way possible.” Her voice was a sharp knife, bloodying Aegaeon.
“I was also not there when Sharine’s mind fractured, or when Illium was separated from his mortal love. And, child, I was not there when you were stolen away, or when you retreated from the world.”
Aodhan didn’t ask how Caliane knew of his history. Archangels had their ways. He didn’t care, either, because her words had made him freeze under the snow-draped trees, his mind awash in the images she’d put together piece by relentless piece.
Aegaeon’s desertion.
Kaia’s forgetting of their love.
Lady Sharine’s broken mind.
The long winter of Aodhan’s withdrawal.
But for Raphael, all of the most important people in Illium’s life had left him in one way or the other.
Aegaeon by choice. Lady Sharine without, but the effect had been the same.
Kaia hadn’t made a choice, either—but Aodhan couldn’t be merciful toward her because she had made the choice to speak the secrets that led to the erasure of her memories and the breaking of Illium’s heart.
Illium was surely not the first angel to have whispered angelic secrets to a mortal lover. Love made people do many things transgressive and not at all sensible. Angelkind didn’t care if one mortal knew their secrets—so long as that mortal kept their own counsel. No one would’ve known Illium had told if Kaia had held his whispers close. But she hadn’t loved Illium enough to keep her silence.
As for Aodhan, he’d been abducted against his will, but the withdrawal, that had been a choice. Not at the start, when he’d been so horrifically emotionally wounded, but later. Later, he’d chosen to stay separate, keep everyone at a distance.
Even his beloved Illium.
Father. Mother. Lover. Best friend.
Illium had spent a lifetime watching people leave him.
Then Aodhan had done it again a year ago. Joining Suyin’s court had just been an escalation of the leaving that had already been taking place, begin
ning that night in the Enclave.
Breath jagged, he bent over, hands on his thighs. “I didn’t—” He couldn’t speak, his chest was compressed with such vicious force. He’d thought often of how Illium watched over people, how he’d been forced into the role of a caretaker, but never had he seen the other side of the coin.
Abandonment.
No wonder his Blue held on too tight at times.
No wonder he had difficulty letting go.
And no wonder he was afraid Aodhan would forget him.
All those messages he’d sent Aodhan, all the care packages, all the things Aodhan had seen as overprotective hovering, they’d been Illium’s way of reminding Aodhan of his existence. As if Aodhan would ever forget him.
Caliane didn’t attempt to touch him as she said, “We often don’t see the hurt we put on those we love most. And he is so bright, Sharine’s son, so full of life and laughter. He hides his bruises well, I think, your Bluebell, using that joyous self as an impenetrable shield.”
Heat burned Aodhan’s eyes, seared his throat. “How could I not see?”
“Oh, child. You’re young.” Husky laughter. “You think you’ve had so much time to heal from your wounds, but in immortal terms, you’ve had but a heartbeat. I Slept more than a thousand years to get over my madness, and I yet bear wounds that are open and raw.”
“I’m meant to be his best friend and I was so stuck in my own head that I didn’t see.” Aodhan wasn’t going to give himself a pass over this. “He’s the most important person in my universe.” A simple, profound truth.
Caliane’s wings were pure white in his peripheral vision as she spread them slightly, then pulled them back in. “You both have healing to do, growing to do. But you have one advantage over me and Sharine.”
Aodhan rose to his full height, feeling oddly old and heavy. Beaten. With the knowledge of all that Illium had borne and kept on smiling. It had taken Aodhan’s most recent abandonment for him to flinch and try to retreat. And even then, he’d forgiven with a wild grace that humbled Aodhan. “Advantage?”
Caliane’s eyes—those extraordinary eyes she’d passed on to the archangel who was Aodhan’s sire—were ablaze with light, fierce with emotion. “You are in the same time and place, able to hold on to each other, uplift each other. Do not squander that prize, young Aodhan.”
Aodhan felt an almost uncontrollable urge to take flight, return to China. But to do that would be to go against the unspoken wishes of an archangel. “I need to go back, need to find a way.” He’d ask Suyin; she wouldn’t deny him, even if it threw a wrench in the smooth transition of seconds.
“Oh, you young ones. Always moving before you think.” A faint affectionate smile. “This is a new realization for you, a new understanding. Let it settle. Think on what it means—and ask yourself if you can be the friend he needs.”
Aodhan flinched as if struck.
But Caliane was shaking her head. “I say this not as an indictment, but as advice. In all the times you’ve come to Amanat, including all the short runs you did to deal with important tasks for Suyin, I see a growing fierceness of independence in you—you don’t even like it when my maidens dare bring you trays of food.”
Heat burned his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“You never were,” Caliane said. “That doesn’t mean my maidens are not clever and able to work such things out on their own. They had no idea what to do about a visiting angel who wanted no assistance whatsoever, approached me for advice for they know you are dear to my own son. I told them to let you be and treat you as a resident rather than a guest, that you’d find your own way to food and supplies.”
Aodhan hadn’t even noticed the subtle change in how the people of Amanat treated him. “Thank you, Lady Caliane.”
“You have stood beside my son with fidelity and courage. That matters a great deal to a mother.” She began to walk again, and because he was lost, he fell in with her. A wild horse materialized out of the mist at that very instant, and she stroked its dark flank as they walked.
“My friend Sharine is also generous of heart.” An incredible depth of warmth in Caliane’s tone. “She gives without fear, without compunction. I think her son has inherited this tendency. Can you accept him giving to you? Or will you break his heart by insisting he not care for you in the way that is his?”
Aodhan thought of the care packages that had made him feel suffocated and trapped, suddenly wanted to gather each and every one close to him, hold on like a miser. But—“Care is one thing, but he can be protective beyond reason, and I can’t be protected anymore.” It would tear open barely healed things inside him.
“Is there no middle ground?” Caliane asked, then held up a hand. “Do not answer me now. This is what I mean when I say you should fly home and think.” Power pulsed off her now, a vastness of age and strength, but that wasn’t what held him in place. No, it was the wisdom in eyes that had seen more yesterdays than he could imagine.
“Look into your future, young Aodhan, and ask yourself if you want to hold on—or set him free. Because if he is like Sharine, then he won’t let go even if you hurt him—not unless you do an act of cruelty akin to Aegaeon’s. My friend’s heart is too generous and it’s a beautiful flaw that she’s bestowed onto her son.”
“Eh-ma has changed,” he pointed out.
“Yes.” Caliane’s smile held pure delight. “She is glorious, is she not? It gives me much pleasure to watch her confound Titus and even more pleasure to see her bloom ever brighter. But I think her boy walks a different path.”
Her smile faded, and she patted a good-bye to the horse, who ambled off to rejoin his brethren. “I would be sad to see his joy diminished—but at times, a short, sharp pain is better than drawn-out suffering.” She looked up at the canopy, a woman astonishing in her beauty, her eons of life a pressure against his skin, and her insight an echo in his head.
When she spread her wings, he said nothing, just watched her rise into the air . . . and he thought of Illium, and of the brutal collision of their competing needs. Could Aodhan let him go? Did he want to let him go?
“No.” A single hard word. Because Illium was the most important person in Aodhan’s universe, a man without whom Aodhan’s future would be a desolate wasteland. Even at his angriest and most distant, he’d never imagined eternity without Illium.
But his wasn’t the only heart on the line. For that was the other question Lady Caliane had asked of him: Did Aodhan need to let Illium go for Illium’s sake?
He shuddered, his wings drooping to scrape the damp, snow-dusted forest floor.
Who’d look out for Illium if Aodhan wasn’t there? Who’d hold him when no one else even knew he was hurting? Who’d cherish him for both his gifts and his flaws?
No, Aodhan had to figure a way forward into a future where neither one of them ended up fractured and lost.
Time passes like an inexorable river, bringing change with it.
—Archangel Suyin
51
Illium ran into Kai on his way back from the beach, where he and Smoke had gone for an early morning amble to shake themselves awake. Caught up in the endless work of building a new citadel—and using the work to stop missing Aodhan so much—he hadn’t had a chance to speak to her except for the odd fleeting greeting.
The morning light was a glow behind her, and she had a brightness to her step, her smile pure happiness. His heart hurt, she reminded him so much of Kaia, young and awash in a vivid delight in life.
“Illium,” she said, a small basket held to her side. “You’ve been to the water?”
Illium inclined his head, and as he did so, he caught the haunted, besotted look shot Kai’s way by a young man unloading equipment to the right. “An admirer?” he asked gently.
Her eyes sparkled. “He has asked me to be his wife. We’ve known each other man
y years.” Affection, perhaps even love in her tone . . . and yet Illium knew that he could have her if he pushed the merest fraction.
It had nothing to do with ego. It was the fact he was an angel. There were very few mortal women who’d turn down an angel. He could have her, and perhaps, if she proved compatible with the toxin that turned mortals into vampires, she could be forever by his side. If not, he could still cherish her for all her mortal years, their lives entwined and memories of shared joy her legacy.
But when Kai smiled and walked off to join her admirer, Illium didn’t stop her. The mortal male’s relief was a dazzling gratefulness, his love for Kai a shining glow, and Illium could’ve told himself that he’d chosen the noble path—but it was far more complicated than that.
Bending down, he petted Smoke, then the two of them headed off to breakfast.
He was still chewing over his reaction to Kai’s new love when he got stuck into the work—while Smoke, healthy and sleek, prowled away to do things feline and secret. She was a smart kitten, didn’t bother with the building site. Quite unlike a couple of the other pets, who’d had to be corralled in a safe zone after they kept on getting underfoot.
As one of the most powerful people in the area and one who’d helped rebuild Raphael’s Tower, Illium was in constant demand. Not only for physical labor, but to consult on structural issues—he was no architect or engineer, but he did have information on new building materials and methods that Suyin appreciated as she slowly rebuilt her own knowledge.
He was also good at sweet-talking outside suppliers over the phone, and using salvaged computer systems to track down useful items that might be stored in warehouses within a doable flight distance. The most useful computer was a laptop Aodhan had picked up from the main office in Lijuan’s central stronghold. It contained within it access passwords to Lijuan’s entire administrative network.
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