by Nalini Singh
“Izzy,” she said, striding quickly to the young angel. “You know you’re not supposed to do that without a spotter.”
He gave her a guilty but stubborn look. “I can’t be in here much longer, Ellie.” Not fighting when she tugged away and set the weights aside after seeing his biceps muscles quiver, he added, “I’ll go mad.”
Elena’s heart clenched. Izak was the youngest angel to have survived the cowardly attack that had sent so many of New York’s angels crashing to the earth, and the terrible nature of his injuries meant his road to this point had been a long and painful one. Charisemnon had a lot to answer for, and answer he would: Raphael would never forget this crime of war. Neither would any of his people.
“Izzy,” she said, keeping her voice light, “you have an eight-pack that would be the envy of any man.” She patted his abdomen, happy to feel warm, healthy skin where there had only been raw, bloody flesh.
Blushing, he didn’t meet her eyes.
“I spoke to the healer in charge of you,” she continued. “He says you’re a remarkable patient who is recovering far quicker than anyone expected.” Izzy was only a hundred and seventeen years old, a baby soldier in angelic terms. “Galen was so impressed with the healer’s last report that he sent you homework.”
“More?” Izak looked so horrified it was comical.
Giving in to his shuddering legs, he collapsed into a seated position on an infirmary bed, his wings spread out behind him. “I can barely do all the exercises he’s already sent me.”
Stifling her laugh lest his young heart take it the wrong way, Elena showed him the tablet she’d picked up on her way out of Raphael’s office. “Not that kind of homework and it’s not all from Galen. Some of it’s from Jessamy.”
“Jessamy?”
“Uh-huh.” Sitting down beside him, their wings overlapping in an affectionate intimacy she knew would comfort him, she said, “Being in a consort’s Guard isn’t always about strength.” Since she’d somehow ended up with a Guard, she was doing her best to understand how it worked. “Apparently, you have to understand all the courtesy stuff so you don’t accidentally insult an archangel and, you know, start a war.”
Izak gulped.
Patting him on the upper arm, she said, “Don’t worry. If I can learn this stuff”—or at least enough not to stick her foot in it—“then you’ll be an ‘A’ student.”
“Can I rethink being in your Guard?”
“Funny.” And because his small, mischievous smile was adorable, she kissed his cheek.
He went bright red.
“What’s this? An orgy?” came a slow male voice that held a Cajun cadence. “Seems like we’ve been invited here under false pretenses, sugar.”
Looking up, Elena saw Janvier and Ash in the doorway, both wearing leather jackets and holding a helmet in one hand. Ash’s long black hair was unbound, the knives strapped to her thighs only the most visible of her weapons. “These two miscreants are your study buddies,” she told Izak.
“Hey.” Ashwini scowled, not shifting her lithely muscled dancer’s body from the doorway when Elena moved toward it. “What about you?”
“I’ve been in remedial etiquette school since I became Raphael’s consort. I’m way ahead of you.”
Loud grumbling from Ash at her smug statement, but the other hunter’s dark eyes weren’t laughing. Everyone liked Naasir, but he, Janvier, and Ash were especially close. “No news,” Elena said softly.
Janvier ran his free hand through the dark mahogany of his hair, a lopsided smile on his lips. “Don’t worry, cher,” he said, throwing his other arm, helmet and all, around Ash’s shoulders. “Naasir once got the two of us out of an alligator-infested swamp in the middle of a raging hurricane at night, and had fun doing it. He’ll be fine.”
Elena and Ashwini both stared at the Cajun vampire. Fangs flashing and moss green eyes laughing, he gave a sinful grin that illustrated exactly why he was such good friends with Naasir. “I’ll tell that tale when Naasir is here to tell it with me. He always says I forget the good parts.”
“Yes,” Ashwini said firmly. “It’s Naasir.”
Sneaky and strong and with the scent of a tiger on the hunt.
21
Even with the handicap of Andromeda’s wings and the unexpected resumption of search squadrons that forced them to hide out for an entire five hours on the forest floor, Naasir got Andromeda to the nearest water border in the dark of night two days later.
Part of that was because at one point, he’d cleared her to fly at night while he ran below. She’d never seen anyone move that gracefully, that dangerously on the ground. Like a silver tiger shadowed with darker stripes.
Their arrival at the border was almost anticlimactic after the stealth required for the rest of the trip. She’d expected guards bristling with weapons and air squadrons crisscrossing the skies, but Lijuan’s people were distracted, drawn to another part of the border. “Jason?”
“Or one of his people.”
“How did they know when to act?”
“They didn’t. I’m guessing there have been annoying incursions or manufactured dramas along this border for at least twenty-four hours.” He lifted a finger to his lips as a harried guard ran past them to join in the melee in the distance. “Now,” he said once the guard was clear, and held out his hand.
Taking it, she followed him to a battered barge which Naasir told her was run by vampires allied with Astaad. It appeared the Archangel of the Pacific Isles had chosen to fly his flag with Raphael’s.
“Naasir,” she said quietly after they were safely on board.
Her wings would’ve made her stand out, except that no one had seen her and Naasir board, and as soon as she was on deck, she moved so she was hidden from view of the bank. He didn’t have to tell her that she could only take to the air once they were past the last of the aerial scouts.
“What is it?” Naasir asked, his eyes scanning the shore as the barge pulled away mere seconds later.
“I think we should go to Amanat, get supplies, and head to the most probable location.”
“Did you tell Lijuan that location?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I lied.” Being forced to witness Heng’s torture at the teeth of the hounds had only strengthened her resolve. “Very convincingly, I might add. Xi is probably somewhere near Mount Kilimanjaro right now.”
“I knew you were sneaky.” Eyes glinting on that approving statement, Naasir wrapped an arm around her neck and hauled her close. This time, the snap of his teeth was playful. “You fly to Amanat once we’re out of range of the sentries. I’ll make it there on my own.”
Her instincts and her heart both rebelled. “I’m not going to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be able to travel faster on my own once I hit land.” He took something from his pocket. It was a heavy gold ring with the letter N engraved on it, the engraving embedded with diamonds. “This will get you into Amanat. Stay outside the shield until a sentry appears, then show this to him.”
Taking the ring, she ran her thumb over the jewels. She wouldn’t have thought this was his kind of jewelry—the identity bracelet he wore suited him much better. “Why are you carrying it instead of wearing it?”
He kept his arm around her and rubbed his jaw against her temple. “I like shiny things but not to wear. Caliane gave that to me as thanks for my help in protecting her city when it first woke.”
“I’ll keep it safe,” she said, just as he reached out and unhooked the simple gold chain she always wore around her neck and that had survived all their adventures. Sliding the ring onto it, he hooked it back around her neck, his fingertips brushing her nape.
Her nipples tightened, a shiver rippling over her skin.
She should’ve protested the familiar handling, but it didn’t feel wrong—as it hadn’t felt wrong to stroke her fingers through his hair. Andromeda couldn’t think too much about that or it started to hurt deep inside. “Is there someone I should ask for when I ar
rive in Amanat?” she asked instead, glancing away lest he see all she sought to hide.
“Isabel.” Naasir pulled her back against the heated muscle of his body. “She was my partner during my time there and she has chosen to remain in the city.”
Andromeda had no will to fight his hold. “I’ve seen her at the Refuge.” A tall, competent warrior who chose to walk the path of an ascetic.
Four hours later, she flared out her wings in readiness for flight. “I’ll wait for you.” Nothing would be right until he was with her again. “Stay safe.”
Naasir watched her soar into the sky, his silver hair bright in the light of the moon.
22
Having taken advantage of the renewed border aggression between Titus and Charisemnon to stealthily invade Titus’s territory, Xi and his squadron had spent multiple days in and around Kilimanjaro, searching the demanding and often harsh landscape for any sign of Alexander. He’d flown up and down all three of the volcanic cones that made up Kilimanjaro, studied the cold, deep crater that scored one, walked on the glaciers, and far below, in the caves.
He’d found nothing, though if Alexander had gone beneath the earth like Caliane, that would be expected. Still, even the closest villagers had heard no whispers, guarded no legends. He knew they spoke the truth because they were too afraid to lie. While he would’ve ordinarily ignored such weak mortals, he couldn’t permit these ones to live. If Titus discovered the intrusion, he might decide to launch a retaliatory attack and Lady Lijuan needed more time to return to her strength.
“Is it possible the scholar lied?” one of his lieutenants asked after another futile day’s searching.
“No.” He thought of how Andromeda had sat with Heng, how she’d stayed even after Xi told her it was a foolish thing she did. “Her courage is of the heart and the mind, not that of a warrior. And she accepts this is the right path.” The world was in chaos and needed Lijuan’s millennia-deep wisdom to steady it.
Cassandra’s prophecy made it clear Alexander was a threat to that future peace.
Xi would permit no threat to his lady. “However, the scholar may simply have been wrong in her estimation of Alexander’s attachment to his land and to his son.” Unlike Xi, Andromeda had never had any direct contact with Alexander, so the error was understandable.
“Love may have made a fool of even an Ancient.” The extraordinary thing was that Xi understood Alexander’s instincts because he was driven by the same. Despite the strategic weakness of such, should he ever go into Sleep, he would do so near his lady.
His lieutenant stirred. “We go to Favashi’s territory?”
“Yes.” To the home of Alexander’s only and beloved son. “Leave two men here to carry on the search, on the chance the scholar was right. Ready the rest for flight.”
23
Andromeda flew straight and true toward Amanat, her sense of aerial direction good enough that three hundred and twenty-five years earlier, she’d got herself to the Refuge while not yet an adult. With each wingbeat, she had to fight not to turn back, return to Naasir, make sure he was safe.
She knew her thoughts were irrational. Naasir was one of the Seven for a reason—he was strong and lethal. She’d seen that when they fought the reborn. He’d taken down three for every one of hers.
He was so beautiful to watch in motion, pure grace and wildness.
Riding a powerful sea wind, she dropped low enough to feel the salt air. Below her, the water was a sprawling emptiness in every direction. Not a single vessel, no birds, nothing but the night and the ocean. There was a deep peace to it, to feeling the wind push back her hair as her wings rode it.
She wondered if this was how Naasir felt when he set himself free and ran full tilt. She’d ask him, she thought with a smile that faded all too soon. The only good thing about Lijuan’s insanity was that it had brought Naasir into her life, allowed her to spend her last days of freedom with a man so extraordinary she knew eternity with him would be a constant and wonderful surprise.
Her heart hurt.
Eternity with Naasir was beyond her reach, but she could help him stop a heinous crime. For Lijuan to attempt to murder Alexander while he Slept wouldn’t only shatter one of the deepest taboos of the angelic race, it would destroy hundreds of thousands of years of history. Alexander carried that history in his bones, in his mind, in his memories.
Lijuan’s plan could not be permitted to succeed.
Jaw clenched, she rode another strong wind . . . and thought again of the silver-haired vampire who wasn’t a vampire who was her partner in this critical quest, and of how he made her feel heartbreakingly young and wild. This time, she didn’t fight the fantasies that whispered at her, fantasies of an eternity where she could explore and play and tangle with him forever.
On this night as she flew alone over a midnight dark sea while the stars glittered overhead, it didn’t matter. On this night, she was free and wild with a bloodline that was her own, unconnected in any way to that of a court built on pain and brutality and sexual acts devoid of love or even affection.
But of course the night, secret and sweet, couldn’t last.
Dawn was a blush-pink kiss in the sky, the morning light cool as she flew over the thick, dark green forests of Kagoshima, Japan, heading in a straight line to a city that should not exist here. Fog whispered a sinuous lover around the treetops, the mountains covered in sleepy-appearing white clouds, but Andromeda herself wasn’t the least drowsy; her breath caught in anticipation of seeing the lost city risen anew, of walking its ancient streets, of speaking to the people Caliane had taken with her into her Sleep.
Andromeda had read every one of the reports filed by others, pored over the sketches made by artists who’d visited. There were no photographs, for something in Amanat caused cameras to malfunction, perhaps the simple low hum of an Ancient’s close proximity.
Regardless, nothing could’ve prepared her for her first sight of the legendary city.
It appeared out of the green like a mirage, a city of stone and flowers and curves protected by a shield of delicate blue-tinged light that warned against trespass. Mouth dry with thirst and with wonder, Andromeda brought herself to a passable landing directly outside the shield, her wings strained from the long flight after days of near-inactivity.
She only had to wait a matter of seconds before an auburn-haired angel stepped out from behind the shield to face her. “What is your purpose here?” His green eyes were as cool as his voice, his body clad in the combat leathers of a warrior.
She recognized him from the descriptions in the reports: Avi, one of Caliane’s most trusted people, and an angel who had quietly returned to her side as soon as Caliane awoke. “My name is Andromeda,” she said. “I’m a scholar recently escaped from Lijuan’s citadel, thanks to Jason and Naasir.” Lifting her hand to her neck, she pulled out the chain that held Naasir’s ring. “I come to see Isabel.”
“Naasir is not with you?” No cool mask now, Avi’s concern darkening his gaze.
“He’s coming overland.” Andromeda’s fingers curled into her hand, her worry for Naasir a constant echo at the back of her mind. “It made more sense for me to fly.”
A small nod and the angel led her into the city after somehow causing the shield to part. Or perhaps it was his archangel who had parted the shield for him. “Suyin?” she asked.
“In anshara,” Avi told her shortly.
Andromeda refused to be brushed off like a child. “She will be all right?” she asked, unable to forget the agonizing sorrow that marked Suyin’s gaze.
Turning to pin her with those penetrating green eyes, Avi took his time to reply, but when he did, his tone was gentler. “Keir says it is the best thing for her. Her physical wounds will heal, and when she wakes, she’ll do so in a city where she was often a treasured guest before her imprisonment.” An unexpected touch on Andromeda’s hair, as a father might do to a child. “Have no fear, young one, Suyin has friends here who will protect her and help
her heal wounds not so visible.”
Throat thick, Andromeda nodded. Dropping his hand from her hair, Avi led her deeper into Amanat. It took her a minute to get her emotions under enough control to see clearly, and then, she had to fight not to gawp like a fledgling.
To a historian, Amanat was a fever dream taken vivid form.
With each one of her steps, she walked in history itself. The architecture, the ethereal carvings on the stone of the walls that made up the buildings, the mineral-veined cobblestones of the path on which she and Avi walked, the window gardens that spilled blooms in every direction, they all fought to capture her attention, but she focused first on the people who had Slept so long beside their archangel.
They were clothed in bright flowing gowns when it came to the non-warrior females, and embroidered tunics and pants for the non-warrior males. A rare few of the men wore flowing kaftan-like robes. In contrast, as with Avi, the warriors were dressed much the same as warriors anywhere in the world. They also had the same grim-eyed and alert appearance.
All in all, not so different from the men and women of Lijuan’s court. Only here, no one avoided her gaze, and instead of glimpsing shivering fear on their faces, she heard laughter drifting through the streets, was gifted with smiles by those who weren’t warriors, and curt nods of welcome by those who were.
And this in the home of an archangel once judged insane, an archangel who had sung the entire adult populations of two thriving cities into the sea. Bloated corpses had littered the beach in the aftermath, pecked at by birds, and found by motherless and fatherless children who’d been so traumatized by the horror that they’d curled up and died “of such sorrow as immortals will never know.”
Keir’s words, as recorded for the Histories by an equally heartbroken Jessamy.
Was it possible Lijuan, too, could one day become a better version of herself? Andromeda bit her lower lip, unable to see that future. Caliane had Slept away her madness while Lijuan was intent on feeding it on the lifeforce of her people.