Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(20)

Aureline’s nod was slow, her gaze pensive. “I wish you luck, Zan. You know I hope for only the best things for you.”

Zanaya cherished that knowledge more than Aureline could ever understand. “All the way, Auri,” she said. “Together. General and lieutenant.”

Auri grinned and raised her staff. “All the way.”



* * *



*

Two days later, they had to deal with a skirmish on the border after the neighboring archangel got into a state over some ridiculous slight or transgression. A contretemps that was so common that all of them rolled their eyes. Zanaya put out extra food for her most assuredly spoiled twin cats, then they got on with it.

It was a normal day in the sky above the border, with no one out for blood . . . until Aureline took a heavy battle spear directly through the throat.

The weapon was so brutal that it all but decapitated her.

Screaming, Zanaya sliced off the head of the angel who’d dared come for her best friend with such a deadly hit when they all knew this was a fight for show, for nothing but ego. The rest of them—on both sides—had been careful not to do anything that could lead to a final death. Such restraint was an unspoken rule when it came to border skirmishes that would blow over by the next day.

Her squadron locked in a vicious line above Zanaya, blood in their eyes.

Stunned by the speed of both the blow and the retaliation, the other side fell back as Zanaya landed beside Aureline’s crumpled body. Terror such as she’d never before felt shot through her veins, cold as ice. She didn’t want to see her best friend’s head separated from her body, wings twisted and torn. But she made herself look, for she wouldn’t give up on Auri unless all hope was lost.

Her best friend was a broken sculpture painted in red.

That horrific spear pinned her to the earth, her legs and spine shattered from the violent impact of her fall from the sky, and her pretty wings crumpled so badly that it looked as if she lay on a bed of blood-soaked feathers. But her eyes . . . “Auri!” Zanaya’s heart started to beat once again. “Auri, hold on.”

Eyes of translucent brown, the pupils huge pools of black, clung desperately to her own, but Zanaya could already feel the life of her drifting away. Aureline was young, without the healing capability of an older angel. But if Zanaya could keep her throat from ripping apart, her head from separating fully from her body, she might be able to keep Auri alive long enough for a healer to work on her.

Hands trembling from the force of her need to do something, Zanaya halted her instinctive desire to pull the ugly weapon from her throat. That would tear Aureline to pieces. Instead, she yelled up to the squadron. “Meher!”

Their friend landed beside them an instant later, his face a mask of rage and pain. “What do you need us to do?”

Zanaya realized he believed Aureline dead, was ready for vengeance. “She’s alive, but I need to cut off the end of the spear so I can fly her to a healer.”

Expression crumpling for a heartbeat, Meher then recovered and put away his battle-ax to pull out the short sword with the teeth of a sawblade that he’d brought from the homeland his parents had chosen after he was old enough to leave the Refuge. It was a traditional blade in a mortal tribe there, one given to youths after their majority.

Where many angels would’ve just taken the blade without regard to the traditions of the mortals, Meher had actually completed the landbound tasks required to earn it. It had been a difficult odyssey for him because of his wings, and he often boasted about his prowess. But there was no sign of that laughing, bigheaded Meher today.

His skin taut over the bones of his face, he crouched down beside Auri.

While Zanaya held Aureline’s neck and head steady, Meher began to saw gently at the end of the spear that stuck out of their friend’s throat. “Don’t go, Auri,” he whispered as he sawed. “I haven’t built up the courage to ask you to walk with me yet.” Tears rolled down his strong, stoic face, but he never hesitated in the sawing. “I’ve been making a courting gift for you. Please don’t go.”

Zanaya’s heart was breaking, but she made it stone as she held her hands around Aureline’s head. And when she saw her friend’s eyes begin to flutter shut, she said, “No,” in her harshest tone. “You don’t get to die, Auri. I forbid it.”

Aureline’s lashes lifted, the barest hint of laughter in them. But she couldn’t speak, blood bubbling out of her mouth. Zanaya heard her all the same. “Yes,” she said. “I have no problem with confidence. Now you stay. Otherwise I’ll have to console Meher, and you know how I feel about redheads.”

Meher continued to saw, flecks of wood falling onto Aureline’s face and chest.

It took a long time. Zanaya knew there was no way to rush it without killing Aureline, but every one of the muscles in her body was bunched up with the urge to yell at Meher to go faster. And in the end, Aureline couldn’t stay conscious anymore. It wasn’t a matter of will; her body no longer had the strength.

“She’s still alive,” Zanaya told Meher when he began to breathe in short hard puffs, his hands shaking. “Complete the cut.”

He did so with gritted teeth.

In the interim, one of the other members of their squadron had flown down and ripped off her tunic of a fine handwoven fabric—to reveal a skirted loincloth and breasts strapped in place by the wide bandages used by most fighters whose breasts weren’t small enough to not become painful from the intense motion of combat. Since their wings didn’t permit a simple around-the-body strapping, their squadron mate’s bared body was a complex matrix of lines in cloth.