The trouble was he’d expanded so much in the subsequent time that to go back required a certain reduction, a paring off of the most expansive versions of himself to something more manageable on a strictly physical, linear plane. It would make him vulnerable—becoming smaller always did. But when was the last time he’d taken any risk?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If any of his progeny had been successful, he’d imagined giving them that little nugget of wisdom. But of his many attempts, none had ever ascended to a level that would be worth his time, attention, and tutelage. None had ever shown such promise—until now.
It fit him like an old suit, this form. He stretched, rolling his awareness to the edges to remind himself of what this form was—and wasn’t—capable of. It wasn’t bad as these things went. For this time and place, he was quite powerful. A god. One of many. Older than most, and more powerful, but also more rarefied. That would be the vulnerability.
They would outnumber him—the younger, stupider gods—and given enough battering, even he could be felled. So that necessitated caution and stealth. He reduced himself even more to avoid them, still tracing the echo of the sensation.
He was drawn to the physical plane that they’d evolved from and the mammalian lives they still tied themselves to so dearly. Human. Ah yes, the memories came back to him, their tangible world and limited senses as enticing a challenge as he’d ever had.
The infinite bred ennui. Limits, borders, made everything more interesting.
Finally, deep in a cavern of the mountains on the edge of a vast steppe, he watched a many-mouthed creature writhe and spend the last of its life on the floor. On a ledge above, a man stood beside a woman. A thousand years or more of life separated them, but he had the sense in the way they stood together that they were kin. Partners-in-arms. Siblings of war. Dirt and sweat coated their skin—his pale, hers rich brown—but it was the matching wonder on their faces that drew him.
“He just… went,” the woman said, unbelieving. She wasn’t speaking of the creature.
Here he did not have command of time exactly, but he found that with focus he could move himself through it. He stepped backward. There were three originally. These two and one greater. Something more. Their maker and their leader. Watching them brave the deep caves and rally to fight off the attack, he studied their missing companion. The god froze himself in the moment before the monster attacked. He stalked around the third man—not a man, something more—with dawning recognition.
The spark of a god ran through the threads that bound this younger creature together. A laugh began to build in him, a full, belling thing that rippled through the air and sent the frozen tendrils of the man’s dark hair flying. This one was his.
How could he have forgotten? He had tried for so long to breed himself into these animals. So many had failed—gone mad or destroyed themselves—he’d simply given up. And when the ungrateful little whelps had bound him from this tiny, forgotten world with the others, he’d turned his back on them and moved on. There were always newer experiments.
Now this. He sized up the dark, wavy hair, bronzed skin, high cheekbones, and full mouth. The slightly bowed nose and upturned eyes of silver. He too was old by the standards of this world. And judging by the ties he’d created to his companions, he was powerful.
Mine.
The god moved forward through time, stepping lightly out of the way as the man was attacked, thrown against the wall, recovering swiftly and fighting back. His warriors leaped to his defense, fearless and ruthless as only creatures on the verge of immortality could be. They barked conversation between them. A woman’s name. Isela.
The monster fell, leaving the man facing his companions with a look of wild power building in his eyes. A look he well recognized. Then the man simply disappeared.
The god watched the moment the man vanished, recognizing it as the source of the tug that had called him back. This was his gift, his power, and one he had given up hope of ever seeing in these physical creatures.
He returned to the moment he had come, standing unseen beside the two warriors at the edge of the precipice. He admired their faces, the naked loyalty to each other and their master. It was impossible to think, after so long, that everything he’d hoped for was finally coming into being. The man and woman raced into the dawn, back to their own world.
Another human nugget of wisdom chided him. Impossible only means it hasn’t been done yet. He smiled, and the force of it made the mountain tremble as caverns gave way under the weight of rock. Indeed.
Chapter Nineteen
Arms closed around Isela. “Listen to my voice.”
She was going to take out the castle, kill his progeny and guard and her own family, and Azrael sounded almost calm. He should be furious. Or at least concerned. He wasn’t really here. This must be a figment of her mind as it fractured under the pressure of trying to keep it all together.
“Isela, stay with me. Breathe.”
Agar. Toasted cinnamon. Molasses. His scent convinced her he wasn’t the delusion of a dying mind. She dragged her face away from his neck, but his arms held her firm. Her mind made words when her body could not. How is this possible?
“We’re going to shut this down together,” he informed her coolly. “I need you to focus on your exhale.” His left hand tangled in her hair, fingers knotting in the loosened braid at the base of her skull. “Look at me.” Silver pools locked her gaze. “That’s it.”
She no longer felt the exquisite pain of impending rupture. The power was being siphoned off her. And into him. His silver eyes flared.
Incrementally the pressure eased. Her ears popped. She felt the energy abating, safe enough now to return to its origin points without threat of overwhelming them.
She sat half in his lap, half on the floor, her weight against his chest. Bruises faded on his face as she watched. A long gash had been opened from below his eye to his left jaw, and it bled sluggishly. His clothes were in tatters, exposing raw and broken flesh beneath. But his attention was on her. He cradled her face in his hands, stroking beads of sweat and tears that she hadn’t known she’d shed. Around them, she could hear the others beginning to stir. In spite of everything, a tiny part of her that had tensed when he left released. He was all right. He was home.
The effort to remain calm strained Azrael as they left the crowded confines of the fireproof room for his apartments. That the others inexplicably followed pushed him that much closer to the edge. When Gus flung herself onto a kitchen barstool with the temerity to joke, “at least we know the walls held,” his restraint shattered.
“You risk my consort, my allies, and my progeny, and you laugh?”
Azrael had always found Gus’s distinct lack of obsequiousness to anyone or anything amusing. With her teenaged appearance and insouciant gaze, most underestimated her. But he’d never, ever mistaken her for a child. She was too powerful for that. He had always known it would be Gus, not Tariq, to equal the strength of the members of the Allegiance first. Now it seemed his permissiveness to her innate sense that the world could be manipulated to her pleasure without responsibility for her actions had been his mistake.
Foolish, selfish, stupid girl. The words brushed the back of his mind like a snatch of overheard conversation. With them came a creeping chill, remarkable because he couldn’t remember feeling the sensation of cold in a thousand years.
She seemed ready to say something else—likely flippant and glib, as was her way—but his look silenced her.
Gus straightened up from her slouch. Her eyes went from iris-less black to a completely obsidian sheen.
The quiet clattering and mental buzz of so many bodies in the space drew to an abrupt halt.
What risk she takes, mocking your beloved, the voice insisted against the back of his skull.
“I take responsibility,” Tariq interjected.
The eldest ready—yet again—to shoulder blame. Azrael surveyed his progeny. Dante looked as if he’d gained ano
ther decade since the last time Azrael had seen him. Wiser, more mortal than the Dauntless and Gus, he would always be the weakest. It grieved Azrael that he’d never been able to bring Dante to enough power to halt the aging process. Whatever they had done in that room had cost him years.
Azrael had failed them. He’d brought them into their power, kept them alive during those critical years when the transition to the upper echelon of their kind killed the lesser among them. What grounding had he provided to keep them from trying to reweave the threads of nature to their own purposes?
Overconfidence and a blatant disregard for the lives of the mortals they endangered infuriated him. His consort had almost been ripped apart trying to protect her family. Had he not arrived in time, he would have lost her.
He wanted his progeny alone so he could exact the punishment deserved in all its force.
Mine. That hissing, stealthy voice vibrated against bone. They threatened mine. Make them pay.
Isela sat stiffly upright in the high-backed chair, doing her best to keep anyone from seeing how the use of power had drained her. Rory said she’d been senseless after she brought Dory back. Her voice was still raw from hours of screaming in pain. What had the attempt to restore the phoenix done to her? Azrael had tried to send Isela to their quarters to rest, but it seemed everyone else found an excuse to follow and busy themselves once they’d arrived.
The youngest witch made pots of tea, stepping lightly over the wolves sprawled on the floor to deliver cups to everyone. The high priestess and the blond witch attended to Dante. Rory took over the office, making arrangements to get Gregor and Lysippe back to the castle as quickly as possible, leaving Aleifr and Ito to take up casual sentry positions by the doors.
Azrael was, by turns, furious with all of them—that his allies insisted on staying when he’d given them permission to leave, that his Aegis lingered because the pack remained, that his own consort refused to take the rest she so clearly needed.
And now Gus challenged him. “You would have never permitted any of us to remain so ignorant and she’s just as powerful.”
“Isela is no necromancer,” Azrael said.
From her place beside Dante, Beryl looked up for the first time. “Nor is she witch. But she must be taught. Who else but us?”
From their various seats around the room, her coven raised their eyes and nodded as one.
Gus snorted. “You keep a god like a pet. And you call her consort. You dishonor her.”
Who are they to tell you how to protect what is yours? the voice taunted.
Aleifr took a step toward the younger necromancer threateningly.
Gus pushed off her barstool. The move angled her shoulder between him and the youngest witch in the kitchen. One hand slid to her hip—part attitude, part easier to get to the blade at the small of her back. Tariq stepped a little closer to the little curly-haired witch, Bebe, placing himself between her and Azrael’s Aegis.
The irony struck Azrael. This moment might be the first time necromancers and witches had cast their lot together in recorded history, and it was against him.
Isela rose as Aleifr’s palms went to the small of his back, pounding her hands on the table.
“This fighting among ourselves is wasting time.” Her voice was so low every eye went to her. “We should be working together to figure out what Vanka and Paolo mean to do with an army of mud men at the bottom of the river. The phoenix was a test. They’re trying to recreate my bond with the god. We have to stop them before it’s too late.”
At her shoulder, Dory stood a silent witness. His lips were sealed in a thin line, and Azrael knew he could feel the echo of Isela’s pain. The link she’d created, breaking Dory’s Aegis bond to Azrael, ended with the miracle that was Dory standing whole at her side. What she’d done, bringing him back, was impossible. No necromancer could truly resurrect the dead. Dory should have been a zombie now. Instead, they’d formed an Aegis contract. Her first, and unwillingly, as he’d been told.
And yet she sat erect, looking as magnificent as she had on a stage. His fireproof room had always been a theoretical precaution; thankfully he’d never needed to test it. At least now he knew it would withstand a phoenix’s immolation. That wasn’t a minor claim. The cracks in the walls could be sealed and the wards repaired.
The greater gain was that she had not failed, not completely. Azrael had never known an immortal creature to be bound by the sanctuary vow. Now a phoenix trapped in human flesh owed its existence to the woman at the table. According to Dr. Sato, its vitals were stronger than ever.
Only he saw the pain behind the grace, the slight tremble of her hand when she lifted it to stop Dory from helping her or following. She moved slowly but stood before Azrael with her shoulders back and her chin high. She placed her back to the room and her body between him and the others.
“What happened is my responsibility.” Her gaze snapped to the room behind her, cutting off Tariq’s protest.“They have my friend and my dance recordings. I wanted answers.”
Azrael covered her hand on his chest with his own. Her cheek softened into his other hand at his touch. Her attention returned to him. His thumb tugged at the corner of her mouth, and she angled her head just enough to press her lips to his palm. The vibration of her, the light, tingling coolness of her power, thrummed against the shell of his fury. Like waves on a rocky shore, given time it would smooth even granite to sand.
“Come, Azrael.” When gray eyes fissured with gold met his, he realized that Isela knew his struggle even if she didn’t recognize the source. “When I met you, you would put a dozen mortal lives at risk to achieve your ends, the least of which was mine.”
Azrael wondered how he’d ever doubted she would be capable of fulfilling the duties of his consort. The god, Dory, the phoenix. Three times the supernatural had pulled her past human experience, and with no training at all she had risen to each moment and conquered. There was power in threes. He’d failed her.
“I’ve been trying to shield you from the full duties and responsibilities of a consort,” he said. “I wanted to give you time to get used to what you’ve become.”
“I love you for wanting it.” She touched the edge of his brow with her fingertips where the jagged wound was now a fading scar. “But you’re preparing to defend us against the Allegiance. That’s why your progeny have come home. And not taking advantage of what I am only makes the world more dangerous—for all of us.”
That burgeoning ache in his ribs swelled at her words. She canted her eyebrow in question.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever said that,” he confessed.
Her lower lashes sparkled with liquid gold. She caught her own lips with her fingertips in surprise, but her eyes were sad. “Is it?”
He nodded slowly, not realizing how much he’d hungered for the sound of those words in her mouth. What had become of him that three words could create an ache and bloom in him stronger than any of his accumulated powers?
“I’m sorry.” She paused, swallowing hard. “It should have been…”
Her voice trailed off and he started to protest. She pressed her fingertips to his lips with a small shake of her head. Their mingling energy crackled at the contact. When he cupped her fingers in his own, he felt the slight tremble of vibration. Shadows smudged the skin beneath her eyes, and her pupils were small as if even her eyes were bracing themselves against pain.
He brought his free hand back to her neck, rubbing the knotted muscles with his thumb. The tension there resisted, pain and weariness greater than her still vulnerable body could bear. She rested her forehead against his collarbone. He took her weight easily. His mouth brushed the edge of her ear when he bowed his head, and he felt her shiver at the fleeting contact.
“I have been a fool. I don’t deserve you, Isela Vogel, daughter of wolves and witches, vessel of a god. But I am going to try.”
He took in the room in a single sweep of his gaze. Let them watch, all the better. He nee
ded them to see. Needed them all to witness what this was. Because if he lost control of the voice in the back of his head, he needed them all to recognize that he was lost and stand beside her.
“You’re right. All of you. This ends today. I am sure between the witches and the necromancers, we will devise training suitable for a god.”
I’ll see about that, Gold said, an edge of humor in the gilded voice.
Azrael laughed. I expect you will.
“Do you forgive me, my lord?” Isela murmured, gazing up at him through a net of dark lashes.
The velvet waves of hair teased his fingers, earthy silk that begged to be tangled around his fingers.
She went up on her toes as his mouth obligingly descended. He unfurled a tendril of heat with the words that caressed her lips. “Don’t ‘my lord’ me now, woman.”
She shook her head slightly, the electricity of the almost skin-to-skin contact racing straight into his groin. He wanted to groan. Gods help him. A thousand years of training in self-discipline and he was helpless to resist her.
I am going to punish you for this later, you do understand that. It was not a question.
She could not keep the smile contained in her eyes. I hope so. Very much. In the meantime—
“You have some explaining to do,” she said sternly.
And that was it. The tension went out of the room and the buzz of activity resumed. The youngest witch arrived with a cup blooming with the aroma of lemon and ginger. Azrael escorted Isela back to her chair, took the cup, and cradled Isela’s hands around it as she spoke. “I didn’t know necromancers could… materialize like that.”
At his age, he expected his abilities to be stable. Changes caused increased and unpredictable surges in power—that was what made a young necromancer’s transition to an immortal dangerous. Necromancers of power could project images of themselves halfway across the world or farther. But he knew of no other who had ever transported himself from one place to another, not from any distance. Even now he could feel this new ability in him. He feared it was connected to the voice that fed on his anger and spoke with cold, reptilian calculation. The whole room watched him, waiting. The time for secrets was gone.
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 23