Archangel's Light (Guild Hunter #14)(87)

A shrill sound from the window nook.





43


Jinhai had jerked awake and was staring out into a world gray with dawnlight under a rain of snow, both his hands pressed to the glass. They began to move toward him as one, and were by his side by the time he began scrabbling at the latch Aodhan had closed to keep out the cold.

Aodhan didn’t stop him, just said, “What is it?”

His voice made the boy jolt, his eyes rounding as he stared at Aodhan. As if he’d just realized he wasn’t alone. Chest heaving, he turned, looked at Illium, then back at Aodhan. Then he did the oddest thing. He reached out a single trembling hand and touched Aodhan’s arm before jerking back his hand as fast.

“We’re real,” Aodhan said. “You didn’t dream us.”

Jinhai went as if to speak, but then wrenched his face to the glass again, making small, mewling sounds in his throat as he pressed his hands to the clear pane, his body straining.

“What’s out there?” Illium asked. “Is it danger?”

A quick shake of the head.

“Do you want to be outside?”

Another shake of the head, those eyes so like his mother’s—but with a heartrending innocence to them—looking imploringly at Illium.

“Talk to us,” Illium said with the same patient gentleness as earlier. “We’ve helped till now. We’ll continue to help you.”

Skittering eyes, jagged breath.

A trapped animal sound.

Neither one of them pushed, for that would only engender fear.

Then, a single word potent with teary need: “Quon.”

A name. A person.

Aodhan looked out into the steadily falling snow, saw only a sheet of white. “Is Quon out there?”

Jinhai nodded.

Two chairs, Illium said, his cheekbones blades against his skin. A very large bed.

“Does he need help?” Aodhan searched the landscape, but knew the boy could be hiding behind a tree, in the shadow of one of Zhangjiajie’s pillars. “I’ll go out and bring him—”

A sudden darting movement, Jinhai’s hand locking around Aodhan’s forearm. “He hurts you.” The melodic clarity of his voice suddenly a rasp of sound. “He wears your skin.”

Fuck.

Aodhan echoed Illium’s mental reaction, though he managed to keep it from escaping his mouth. “Quon did that to the people in the hamlet?” When the boy only stared at him, he said, “Took off their skins?”

A spasmodic nod. “Take the skin. Wear the skin. Be the person.” It was a singsong sound. Almost as if Jinhai was repeating something he’d heard.

“Who said that?” Aodhan murmured, while Illium remained in the background, his eyes on the snow outside. “Quon?”

“Mother said. Wear many skins. Many faces.”

Ice crawled through Aodhan’s veins. “Your mother? His mother?”

“Our mother.”

Do you think she realized they didn’t understand she was speaking metaphorically? Revulsion in Illium’s voice, directed at the Archangel of Death. Surely even Lijuan wouldn’t turn her own children into monsters?

Blue, she buried them underground. They were always going to be monsters. Aodhan met his friend’s eyes for a moment, wished he could grab hold of him in a hug, protect him from his own soft heart.

Even as the thought passed through his head, Illium said, “You stay with Jinhai.” He shook his head when Aodhan would’ve argued. He’s bonded to you, will panic if you try to leave.

Aodhan looked down at the way the child clung to him. Illium might as well not have been present for all the attention Jinhai gave him—though he still wore Illium’s watch. As if he’d forgotten Illium now he had no use for him. That, too, was disturbing. But one horror at a time.

“Be careful.”

A speaking look from the man Aodhan had banned from looking after him, but Illium didn’t point out the hypocrisy of his statement. Instead, a small flash of a smile flicked over his lips as his voice entered Aodhan’s head: If a crazy child can bring me down and skin me, he deserves to wear my stupid dead pelt.

Scowling at the other man was a waste of time—Illium was already heading to the door. He reappeared outside the window soon afterward, a dazzling brilliance of blue in the white.

Aodhan’s heart stopped.

Sometimes, he forgot the sheer depth of Illium’s masculine beauty, and then it’d strike him hard without warning, especially when light sparkled in Illium’s eyes and a playful smile flirted with his lips. But it faded too soon into solemn vigilance as he said, Ask Jinhai how he knows his brother is out here.

When Aodhan did, Jinhai said, “I know. He knows. Two skins. One son.”

After repeating that to Illium, Aodhan said, I don’t know what Lijuan thought she was doing, but it appears she achieved some type of bond between them.

Or—Illium frowned as the snow settled on his hair, his shoulders, his wings—they might be twins.

Twins were rare in angelkind, but when it did happen, those births came with a high chance of some kind of a mental connection. Parents of angelic twins knew to watch for that during early childhood. Without intervention, the bonded ones could often begin to act like one being, the stronger personality overwhelming the weaker.