Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(103)

Below them spread a rolling span of land golden and rich through which meandered a herd of elephants while birds caught rides on their backs in return for taking care of troublesome insects. One intrepid flyer, black as soot, its beak a familiar curve, came to sit on the railing of the balcony alongside his leaning arm.

Alexander chuckled. “We have an honored guest, Zani.”

“A raven.” Zanaya smiled. “I’ve never seen one this far north—but then, you’re here. Obviously, it’s come to greet you.”

As if hearing her, the raven turned and gave her the gimlet eye, then walked over to peck at Alexander’s arm hard enough that he frowned. “My ravens rarely act in such a fashion.” His wasn’t a true gift; he couldn’t control or call ravens as Elijah could the pumas and other big cats that prowled his territory.

Regardless, he did have a bond with them—they’d often acted as both harbingers and messengers for him, and once, when he was in great peril, they’d appeared en masse to peck out the eyes of his enemy.

Now, he nudged the bird’s beak away. It opened that beak and croaked at him in that way that was distinctive to ravens, impatient and demanding and far deeper than a crow’s caw. The marks on his arm were inconsequential, the kraa call of the raven familiar . . . except that his grandson should’ve been here by now.

Heart encased in ice, he said, “Zanaya, ask your squadrons if they’ve spotted Xander.”

Well aware what ravens meant to him, Zanaya hissed out a breath and went silent as she communicated with her people. The guards had already been informed that Xander had free reign to come and go from this territory, so Zanaya’d had no reason to tell them to keep watch for him today.

Hands clenched to bone whiteness on the balcony railing, he stared at the raven. “Where is the child of my child?”

The bird croaked again, loud and angry.

And in the distance lifted an entire conspiracy of ravens, a massive black wing that arrowed south with the same loud kraa-kraa.

As if yelling at him to follow.

At the same instant, Zanaya said, “He hasn’t been spotted.” Words edged in steel. “Not by the fortress guard nor by the border guard.”

Alexander was already shoving back from the railing to spread his wings. “Follow the ravens.”

Then they were aloft and racing through a sky afire in all the hues of flame—toward the border that Xander had never passed. Zani? It came out curt, hard, for Alexander had to be a general now and not a grandfather.

All squadrons alerted, Zanaya replied in a tone as curt and martial. Message is being forwarded to the border, and from there, will be passed to Titus. He knows how to use the phone device, is apt to have searchers in the air within minutes.

Alexander couldn’t speak, not even with the mind. His entire focus was on finding his grandson. Even now, the raven who’d landed on the balcony flew to his left, keeping up with an archangel going at relentless speed. Impossible. Perhaps it was no real raven but the ghost of the one who’d burned up during his ascension.

So it was written in myth: that Alexander’s raven would rise with Alexander’s need.

Zanaya flew with equal speed next to him, and her voice when it entered his mind was fierce. We’ll find him, my love. He’s strong and he’s smart.

Alexander swallowed hard. He’s not an archangel, Zani. Because they both knew the biggest threat out there: an archangel touched by a murderous black fog, an archangel whose rising had caused the sky to sicken.

None of them knew what had returned wearing Antonicus’s skin.

The two of them flew on into the rapidly encroaching night, then farther still, halting only when hailed by a squadron commander near the border. “Sire,” he said to Zanaya, “Archangel Titus has activated all his squadrons and they search along Xander’s most likely flight paths. So far, there’s no news.”

Gut a creation of ice by now, Alexander looked forward.

His ravens, black against the moonless night, invisible except when they moved, had landed on the buildings of the border but croaked in harsh impatience now.

Black wings filled the air.

Zanaya swept out with him in the ravens’ wake, any orders or comments she had for her border commander given on the mental level. “They’re tiring,” she said at one point, and he realized she was right. Members of the conspiracy had begun to drop away, their tiny chests heaving and wings drooping as they searched for a place on which to land.

Alexander went through his arsenal of power, but he had nothing with which to help the birds that were so loyal to him in their own independent way. Intelligent and capable of far more than most knew, ravens were ever their own masters—but they never forgot a favor or a friend. And for reasons of their own, they’d chosen Alexander generation after generation.

That was when he felt it, a subtle wind that kept the birds aloft without forcing their flight path. He always forgot that Zanaya had not only tempests at her fingertips, but this far-more-subtle control over the air. It was why she was the best endurance flyer among archangels living, dead, or in Sleep.

Thank you, he managed to get out past the fear clogging his throat. It was an emotion he despised, but had come to accept came bundled with the fury of love and protectiveness he felt toward his grandson.

I’m here, Alexander—anything you need, was the fierce reply from the consort who didn’t expect grace from him in this endless beat of time where his heart threatened to shatter inside his chest.