Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(27)

Exhaling in a rush, he gave a half laugh. “We are acting like halflings.”

Her eyes were huge when she looked up, but a smile broke out over her lips at his words. Then she laughed, too, the sound a little rough around the edges, but her eyes bright. “It’s not every day an archangel asks me to wear his amber.”

“I should hope not.” He tried for a grim tone, but he was too happy to be here with her to manage it. “If you need time, Zani—”

“No.” A quick, firm word. “I was just startled.” She blinked. “I never expected amber in my life.”

When she looked away the instant after those words left her lips, he realized she hadn’t intended to say them. And though he knew little of her family, he knew that, unlike his, her parents had never been a unit. To him, amber with her had always been a given. To her, it was a surprise.

Tenderness swamping him in a crashing wave, he cupped the back of her neck, the soft silk of her braid a caress against his knuckles. “I thought if I tempted you with a sword, you’d be more likely to wear it.”

His words teased a smile out of her. “I think you’re right, General.” Then, at last, she picked up the gem, held it to the light. “Such a deep hue. Wherever did you find it?”

“In a secret place in my lands. I’ll show you when you can next visit for longer.” As he watched, she lifted Firelight in a way that meant she could settle the amber inside the spot created for it in the hilt.

“A perfect fit,” she murmured. “It’ll break my heart to leave Firelight here so that Master Llisak can affix the amber, but”—she looked up with a dazzling smile—“that’ll give me time to find your amber.”

Alexander’s chest expanded, sunshine in every drop of blood in his body.





15


Four centuries of loving Zanaya later, Alexander blocked a blow of dazzling ocher light as he returned the volley with his own power. He wasn’t quite fast enough and Sha-yi’s angelfire clipped him on the shoulder. Hissing out a breath as the angelfire tried to burn through to bone, he nonetheless kept up his aggressive attack. It was a glancing wound, nothing his immortal blood couldn’t heal.

Not that that stopped it from hurting like acid.

He didn’t bother to ask Sha-yi to surrender. His previously sane, stable, and wise neighbor had gone mad over the bitter winter just past—long after she should’ve put herself to Sleep so that her mind could repair itself. The Ancient had turned instead into a constant antagonist with no control and delusions that her power was greater than Alexander’s. It wasn’t, the two of them equally matched.

What would turn the tide here were their armies.

Alexander’s was a ruthlessly oiled machine, his soldiers in lockstep. Then there was the Wing Brotherhood, who were a lethal strike all their own. A small and tightly knit unit that chose to mark their skin with his raven, they were both advance sentinels and expert stealth fighters. And they simply did not surrender.

Sha-yi’s army, in contrast, was a shambles. It hadn’t been so while Caliane acted as her second, but it had been many centuries since Caliane left that position. Perhaps the first sign of Sha-yi’s decline was that she’d never replaced Callie. Neither had she replaced the generals who’d chosen to work out their contracts, then follow Callie to her new court.

The latter wasn’t an unusual move. Neither was it a dishonorable one. A new archangel’s people often came from various other courts—many older angels and vampires enjoyed the challenge of setting up a territory under a newborn archangel. It was an expected thing that an ascension would shake up long-settled courts.

The problem was that instead of putting out the call for qualified warriors who wished to join a highly stable territory, Sha-yi had simply promoted more junior people into the open senior positions. Those junior people had been nowhere near suitable—and this was the outcome.

“Surrender, you upstart!” the other archangel yelled, her once-content eyes red with blood fury and the burnished sunlight of her skin streaked by golden paint; it was all she wore but for a short loincloth, her taut breasts also painted gold.

Alexander’s paint was silver, his own loincloth covered by a short skirt studded with metal. He still fought naked at times, but there was something to be said for not having his private parts exposed to the wind and the rain and the snow.

“Your time is done, old one!” Alexander yelled back, burying Sha-yi in silver lightning. “Look below! My people have swarmed your stronghold!”

Sha-yi looked down for but half of a moment—and that was all the time Alexander needed to land a fatal heart blow. He was no bloodthirsty monster, didn’t usually go for a death blow when fighting another archangel. Most of the time, the battles came out of pent-up aggression, with neither party willing to battle to the death.

Sha-yi, however, was far beyond any reason or sanity. To leave her alive would be to prolong the war, lose more innocent lives. Because both their people were dying for her madness.

Now, she screamed, a burning star of angelfire in her chest.

Alexander flinched, hit by a wave of pity woven with a breathtaking sense of loss.

Sha-yi had been an unquestionably good archangel once, a woman Alexander admired deeply and wished to emulate. She’d helped him countless times over the years, and they’d broken bread anytime the other felt the need to converse with a fellow archangel without flying to a more distant territory. Of all the older archangels on the Cadre, she’d always been his favorite.