Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(103)

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.