Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(105)

Zani, he’s no ordinary archangel, said her consort, who would die inside should his grandson perish.

Zanaya was not about to allow that to happen. I’m an archangel and a general, lover. Your grandson is but a youth. Our duty is clear.

A wrenching moment of eye contact before they landed.

Antonicus stood a number of meters from them, his wings folded back to reveal the barest arches over his shoulders. What arches he had were mismatched and mutilated. To her, it looked as if his bones remained unbelievably soft and malleable, Antonicus a melted doll.

“You’re yet in the process of healing,” she said, not able to believe how he’d even reached the sky when his frame was so emaciated, patches of green rot on his face, his neck, his arms . . .

“Thank you for not mentioning the smell.” At that moment, he sounded like a cultured Ancient.

“It is of no moment. You have but risen.” But no Sleeper ever came out of Sleep so damaged. On the other hand, Antonicus had been a rotted corpse when he was buried, so perhaps it was to be expected. “Where is the angel you brought down?” She had to be the one to speak, because Alexander was vibrating with the need to kill—and it was clear Antonicus was baiting him.

Antonicus bared his teeth, the loose skin of his face quivering in a way that made it seem as if he had things crawling beneath. “I gave him to my creatures.” A small, mean laugh. “They will fill their bellies with him while we converse.”

She snapped out a hand to press it against Alexander’s chest when he would’ve stalked forward. He wants you close. A cold realization. He wants to make us like him. It was there in the greed of his gaze, in the breathless quiver of him.

I must find Xander.

Antonicus hissed. “Why is he beside you . . . mistress?” The last word seemed torn out of him, his face twisting through a hundred emotions before it settled into one of utmost devotion.

Queasy unease in every part of her. Archangels served no one, were laws unto themselves. But she wasn’t about to walk away from this opportunity. “Antonicus, where is the angel you took down?”

A sly smile. “I left him by the river with my reborn.” His features twisted, his next words gritted out through clenched teeth. “By the river, mistress. You can hear the waterfall.”

Alexander, go! Save the boy!



* * *



*

Alexander lifted off, Zanaya’s hair blowing back in the wind of his passage. Did he possess that intangible thing the mortals called a soul, it was now torn into two ragged pieces that fluttered in the cold morning gray of the rainforest.

In the power games of archangels, Xander was the innocent, had to come first.

Zanaya knew that, too. She would have asked him to make the same choice had she been faced not with one reborn archangel but an entire Cadre of them. I’ll return as fast as possible, he promised her. Keep him talking.

I can’t get anything beyond the river out of him. Can you spot the ribbon of it from above?

No. The entire forest was concealed by heavy morning fog as soft and welcoming as Lijuan’s had been an ugliness of black death. But its ethereal beauty made it no less an impediment to his need.

His grandson hadn’t yet developed mind speech, was too young for it, so Alexander couldn’t contact him that way.

That was when he saw it—a familiar black form in the distance, circling and swooping. My raven shows me the way. Zani, stay safe! I’ll be back soon!

She said nothing in reply, might even now be in battle. Teeth gritted as even more of his soul tore away, he flew so hard and fast that he wrenched something in his shoulder. The hurt was a welcome bite as he dove through the cloud of fog where his raven had circled . . . and heard the thunder of a waterfall.

He thought he knew where he was now, Titus’s lands as familiar to him as his own after his many visits to his friend. He lit up the sky with his power as he landed, and in the glow of gold, he spotted Xander. One of his grandson’s wings was torn and bloody, while the other had been sliced off at the back and not cauterized.

The blood loss must’ve been catastrophic, but Xander was somehow conscious—and he had a knife in his hand with which he was swiping at the reborn that scuttled around him, attempting to sink their teeth or claws into him. He was faster, more skilled, but he was tired, and Alexander saw a number of scratches and bites on him.

He didn’t roar out his rage.

He simply encased Xander in a bubble of his power, then killed everything else. He was certain he hit no targets but those he sought; the wild creatures who called this forest home would have long abandoned an area ripe with the stench of the unnatural dead.

Reborn erased out of existence, Alexander dropped his bubble of power to see his grandson shoot him a fierce grin. “I knew you’d come, Grandfather,” he said.

Then Xander collapsed, as if giving himself permission to let go now that Alexander was here. The knife that fell from his hand was one Alexander had given him, a blade that he wore in a hidden sheath in his boot.

Already running to him, he reached out to his love. Zani, he’s alive! Xander is alive! Broken and battered but alive.

Her voice in his mind, a breathlessness to it. Burn out every scratch and cut he has on him. I don’t know if Antonicus’s creatures carry the same poison as him, but we can’t risk it. Deeply excising the wounds may stop it from reaching Xander’s bloodstream.