by Nalini Singh
She followed the exquisite sound to a set of open doors at the far end of the hallway, knocked softly. “Hello?”
The humming trailed off. “Yes?” A gentle voice.
Entering, Andromeda found herself in a light-filled room decorated with white fabrics and colorful cushions. The angel who looked up at Andromeda from the sofa on which she sat, a sketchpad on her lap and her legs folded under her, had Lijuan’s sharp cheekbones and ice-white hair against cool white skin, though her eyes were a rich obsidian. A tiny beauty spot dotted the delicate skin just below the far edge of her left eye.
You have spots on your face.
The mental echo of Naasir’s growly, fascinated voice snapped her out of her stunned shock. Because this angel’s distinctive features, when added to the arching snow-white wings with bronze primaries that Andromeda could see behind her, made her identity impossible to mistake. “Suyin.”
Lijuan’s niece and one of the greatest architects the world had ever known.
The angel smiled, and it was startling to see such open, kind welcome on a face that could’ve been a duplicate of Lijuan’s but for the color of Suyin’s eyes and the beauty spot. “And who are you, youngling?”
Andromeda supposed she was young in comparison to an angel many thousands of years old. “Andromeda,” she said. “A scholar.”
“Ah.” Returning her eyes to her sketchpad, Suyin motioned her head toward the opposite sofa. “Sit, Andromeda,” she said in the same aged dialect she’d used earlier. “Tell me what you do here.”
Andromeda saw no reason to lie.
Pencil motionless on her sketchpad, Suyin looked at her with sad eyes once she was done. “My aunt will not allow you to leave.”
“I know.” It was no longer Lijuan she saw when she looked at Suyin. The other woman’s own spirit was too bright and too gentle both. “Have you been imprisoned here all this time?” It must’ve felt like living death to an angel who, according to the histories Andromeda had read, had loved to fly the world.
“I was given the choice to Sleep or to die. And in this, I was . . . lucky, for others who helped build this citadel and thus knew its secrets, were all executed.” Sorrow in every part of her as she flipped a page and began to sketch again. “I chose to Sleep, but I wake every few hundred years to see if this prison I built has fallen and I can fly to freedom.” The quiet horror of her pain made Andromeda’s eyes sting. “Yet each time I wake, my aunt is more powerful, more a nightmare.”
Andromeda wanted to trust this woman who appeared to be a fellow captive, but she couldn’t. Not so quickly. Yet she risked asking, “Did you ever try to escape?”
Setting aside her sketchpad, Suyin rose to her feet and turned. Andromeda cried out, one trembling hand rising to her mouth. Suyin was missing most of the lower half of one wing, the exposed muscle and tendon of the bottom edge hot and red.
“I tried to escape the first time I woke,” Suyin said after sitting back down, the faint breathlessness in her voice the only indication of what must be agonizing pain.
She nodded to the crossed swords mounted on the wall behind Andromeda. “The blades used to clip my wings each time I wake.”
Andromeda couldn’t imagine the endless horror. “How are you sane?” she whispered.
“I do not know myself.” Suyin’s fine-boned hand moved over the paper in confident strokes. “Perhaps because I was old enough before my imprisonment that I understand time passes like an inexorable river, bringing change with it.”
Wise, sad eyes met Andromeda’s once more and for an instant, her skin prickled with a dizzying sense of déjà vu. As if she was facing Lijuan again, only this Lijuan was who the archangel should have become.
“I have heard whispers of a change called the Cascade,” Suyin said. “Is this true?”
There was no reason to hide the knowledge. “It’s said to be a time when the archangels grow so viciously in power that the consequences could shatter the foundations of the world.”
And the archangels were not who they should be, and bodies rotted in the streets and blood rained from the skies as empires burned.
Nothing could ever soften the grim impact of those words, the first specific mention of a previous Cascade that Jessamy had discovered in the Archives. “A small number of ordinary angels have also been affected.”
Illium was the most dramatic example. All the older immortals had begun to notice the violent acceleration of the blue-winged angel’s development. There were rumors that he might break away from Raphael’s Seven and seek to rule a territory, but those who believed that had forgotten Dmitri. The vampire was one of the most powerful in the world and he chose to be Raphael’s second.
“If the world is on the brink of catastrophic change,” Suyin said softly, “then, perhaps the next time I wake I will be free . . . and the world will be a ruin. One nightmare to another.”
* * *
Naasir ran under the moon after his latest truck ran out of fuel, his skin covered by a fine layer of sweat and his muscles straining, but he was still too far from Lijuan’s citadel. Be smart, he thought to Andromeda. Be sneaky. I’m coming.
12
Andromeda woke knowing there was only one feasible course of action.
Bathing, she braided her hair while it was still wet. It was the only way to control it since she didn’t have access to the modern tools that had made life so much easier of late. Before that, she’d simply made it a habit to wear her hair in a tight bun. Jessamy had commented on the hairstyle that didn’t suit her youth, but Andromeda had shrugged and said it was convenient.
It was, but that wasn’t why she did it.
Clean and fresh, she put on a robe and ate from the tray that had been brought in soon after she woke, then dressed in the clothes that had been delivered with the food: another cheongsam-style tunic, this one in a deep, intense pink with black accents, and black pants that hugged her legs. Lovely, but the cut of the pieces made it impossible for her to secrete her blades on her body.
Feeling naked without them, but aware she couldn’t risk betraying her one small advantage, she hid the blades deep under the mattress, slid her feet into the black silk slippers that had come with the outfit, and opened the bedroom door. Her waiting escort was a female vampire this time, the other woman’s skin creamy as fresh milk and her cheekbones wide and flat below eyes of dark hazel, her uniform the familiar formal black worn by the citadel’s household attendants.
The trip to the throne room passed in silence.
On arrival, Andromeda discovered Lijuan speaking to Xi. She walked to the edge of the steps and waited politely for the two to finish. With an archangel as traditional as Lijuan, simple good manners might be enough to save her life at some point. No need to waste that chance when it cost her nothing.
It wasn’t till a minute later that Lijuan looked at her, her face normal enough for the moment, though anger had darkened her expression. “Before you tell me your decision, scholar, I have a small matter with which I must deal.”
Relieved at the reprieve, Andromeda stepped aside and away from the throne. An angel with wings of dirty cream was dragged into the room soon afterward. Dressed in the colorful silks of the courtiers, his broad face was pale, his brown eyes beseeching. “My Lady.” Tears ran down his cheeks, his breath hiccupping. “I meant no betrayal.”
“Yet you were feeding Michaela information about my court.” Ice hung off each word.
Andromeda’s chest squeezed at what was surely to come.
Prostrating himself at the foot of the stairs, the angel sobbed. “I was seduced by her beauty, my Lady. I was weak and she took advantage.”
“You are a fool.” Lijuan was pure regal goddess in that moment. “But I will be merciful because Michaela has a way of bewitching men. You will be permitted to live.”
The angel began to blubber his thanks, but Andromeda, her gut twisting, knew he was speaking too soon. She’d seen the wooden frame that had been brought out of the shadow
s behind him. Two minutes later, the wild-eyed courtier was manacled to that frame in a spread-eagle position. He was still wearing his clothes, but they were slowly, methodically cut off him by the blond guard until he was totally naked.
Then the frame was turned horizontal by four guards, one on each corner, leaving the angel being punished facing the floor.
“Come,” Xi said to Andromeda as the guards began to move the frame out of the throne room. “My lady believes you may find this edifying.”
Bile burning her throat, Andromeda walked out with Lijuan’s favored general. The guards took the frame to the courtyard and placed it on four posts that seemed to have been erected in the center of the open space for exactly this purpose. The angel now faced the cobblestones, held up about a foot from it, his spread-eagled body exposed to the air and to the pitying gaze of others.
Walking over to the sobbing angel, one of Xi’s men began to slice him, the cuts relatively minor. Andromeda’s stomach stopped lurching as she took her first real breath since the angel had been brought into the throne room. If this was his punishment for such a deep betrayal, he’d gotten off with nothing more than a rap over the knuckles in immortal terms. She hoped he understood the depth of his luck.
Perhaps he was a favorite of Lijuan’s.
Then the guard with the blade backed off, and Andromeda heard the barking. “No,” she whispered, stepping instinctively toward the helpless angel.
Xi caught her wrist in an unbreakable grip without taking his eyes from the brutal scene about to play out. “Do not intervene or the hounds will tear you to shreds.”
Two seconds later, the first hound appeared. Drawn to the blood, the sleek black animal licked at the sobbing angel . . . and then it bit. The angel screamed. Andromeda closed her eyes but she couldn’t close her ears to the horrific sounds. She forced her eyes open a heartbeat later. She would escape this place and when she did, she would record this horror.
Of course, the vast majority of angelkind would find nothing wrong with the punishment. Being immortal wasn’t always a good thing. It meant the ones meting out the sentence had had centuries to think of suitable punishments . . . and that to fit the crime, sometimes that punishment was brutal. There was no point lashing an older angel when the wounds would heal within days.
Even Raphael, an archangel not known for cruelty, had once broken every bone in a treasonous vampire’s body. The unfortunate vampire, his body hanging together by stringy tendons and shattered bone that stabbed through his skin, had been left on display in Times Square for three hours.
To betray an archangel was to make a mistake that could never be undone.
The angel who’d made that mistake in Lijuan’s court was covered in bites within minutes, his skin streaming liquid red. He was also missing pieces. The frenzy continued until his screams of terror and pain eventually died down to whimpers, then to silence. That didn’t mean he was dead—Lijuan had given him her word that he’d live, and so he’d live.
Feathers flew into the air as the hounds began to rip at his wings for what appeared to be the fun of it, having already feasted on the flesh that had been their first target.
“How long?” she asked, her voice a rasp. “How long will his punishment last?”
“Until my goddess wills otherwise.” Xi finally released her wrist. “You know his crime deserved no less. Why are you shocked?”
Andromeda swallowed. “It has been centuries since I witnessed such a punishment.” Hundreds of years since she’d run from the terror-soaked home where she’d been born.
“Yes, you are a scholar,” Xi said, as if that explained everything. “Come.”
As they turned to reenter the citadel, Andromeda tried to temper her visceral response to what she’d seen, but she knew she was pale, her skin cold as frost. Not that Lijuan could be surprised by that. Fear, slick and choking, had been the archangel’s intention when she made sure Andromeda witnessed the punishment. A thin scream rose into the air at that instant, as if the angel had found a final dreg of strength.
Andromeda’s hands clenched. “He’ll go mad,” she said to Xi.
“An unavoidable side effect.” The general stopped without warning. His eyes were unblinking when they met hers. “Any one of the Cadre would have meted out a punishment as severe for such betrayal. Heng was a trusted member of the inner court.”
Thinking once again of the vampire in Times Square, Andromeda was forced to nod. And Raphael wasn’t the only other archangel who’d delivered pitiless justice. Astaad had once staked a duplicitous angel in a pit filled with poisonous beetles whose bite caused flesh to necrotize, and left him there for an entire month. As for Michaela, she’d ordered every part of an angel flayed off piece by piece, including his eyelids . . . and by the time the task was done, the angel had started regenerating enough that the cycle could continue.
A shiver crawled up Andromeda’s spine.
“I take your point,” she said to Xi through teeth that wanted to chatter. “Our world is a harsh one.”
Xi started walking again. “Immortality equals arrogance for many.”
Andromeda wondered that he didn’t see the irony of his own statement. Lijuan was unquestionably the most arrogant of all the archangels. She believed herself a goddess and perhaps she was: a goddess should be able to give life, and Lijuan had created a whole new entity.
Simply because the reborn were ugly mockeries of life didn’t change the fact that Lijuan had the ability to alter the very nature of mortals and immortals both.
This time when Andromeda entered the throne room, the guards closed the doors behind her, cutting off all evidence of the outside world. Watching Andromeda and Xi walk toward her, Lijuan glanced at Xi, clearly speaking to him as an archangel could with those she chose.
Whatever his report, it seemed to satisfy the Archangel of China.
Andromeda had braced herself for Lijuan’s attention, but the touch of those bloody eyes still caused her primitive, survival-driven hindbrain to attempt to take over.
“Now, scholar,” Lijuan said. “You’ve had a night to sleep on your decision. Will you share your knowledge of Alexander?”
Unspoken was the silent threat that if she didn’t, she’d suffer a fate similar to that of the unfortunate angel in the courtyard. “My Lady,” she said, “it is difficult for me to break my vows when it comes to those who Sleep, but I believe you are right. The Sleeping ones need to wake to help steady the world.”
“Tell us,” Lijuan said.
Cold perspiration threatening to break out over her skin, Andromeda lowered her gaze, as if in deference. “All my research suggests that he would trust his Sleep to Titus.” The friendship between the Ancient and an angel who had once been a child in Alexander’s court was legendary.
Lijuan’s eyes grew sharp. “Yes.”
Andromeda pushed on. “The difficulty is in pinpointing the exact location.” Titus controlled the sprawling landscape of southern Africa, the line that separated his lands from Charisemnon’s cutting the continent in half. “However, after reading through all known records of their friendship, I believe he must lie beneath or within Mount Kilimanjaro.”
Lijuan smiled right as her face took on that impossible, haunting beauty. And for a moment, she was piercingly young. “I remember the stories of what those two did on Kilimanjaro’s peaks.” Her laughter was light, carefree. “A young and headstrong Titus once challenged Alexander to a climbing contest and beat him. At which point, they challenged one another to climb down in the dark.”
Andromeda was astonished at the warmth in Lijuan’s tone. It was as if she was a different woman. And the history that was her memory . . . Andromeda would’ve been no kind of historian if she hadn’t been drawn by it. “Did you know Titus as a youth, my Lady?”
“Yes. Always obstinate that one, but with such a huge heart that none could hold a grudge against him.” Smile fading, youth fading, Lijuan herself faded and came back into focus in a way that seemed
more . . . blurry than before. “I can see Alexander choosing to Sleep under the mountain he well loved, in the lands of a friend he trusted.”
“Alexander was known for his attachment to his people,” Xi said into the whispering quiet that had fallen. “And he left behind a son who even now resides in his palace.”
“Rohan was an overconfident infant.” Lijuan’s features turned skeletal, the maggots crawling in her eye sockets making Andromeda’s stomach turn. “Instead of alerting the Cadre after Alexander chose to Sleep, he attempted to hold his father’s territory, almost caused a vampiric bloodbath.”
“Regardless,” Xi said, “he was deeply trusted by his father.”
Lijuan gave a small nod. “Scholar, what say you on this?”
Biting her lip and hoping her voice wouldn’t break and betray her, Andromeda shook her head. “I considered Alexander’s attachment to his people and to his son,” she said, “but as you yourself noted, he was a great tactician. I do not think he would make such an obvious choice.”
“Emotions can blind,” Lijuan said, before glancing at Xi. “However, it could also be said that Alexander would not place his son in danger by going to Sleep below his palace.”
Xi inclined his head in acceptance of the point before saying, “It could also be a double-bluff.” He glanced at Andromeda. “Friendship alone isn’t why you believe it’s Kilimanjaro.”
“No.” Andromeda told them of the scrolls she’d read, the stories she’d found in the Archives, even requested a piece of paper and mapped out Alexander’s possible location on the mountain. “A bare year before his disappearance, Alexander was seen on this exact spot by another angel, and yet it was later discovered that Titus knew nothing of the visit.” Andromeda had been so excited when she’d discovered that piece of what had then been an intellectual mystery.
“I follow you,” Xi said, examining her hand-drawn map. “No archangel would cross over into another’s territory without permission unless the need was critical. And to not tell his friend, it suggests an attempt to protect Titus from the weight of the knowledge.”