Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(33)

“Don’t worry about that, Alexander. Truth is that I’d be a terrible host if you were to fly to me more often—I need large swaths of time alone to work on my research.” He shoved wet strands of hair out of eyes the same shade as Alexander’s. “That’s another thing I need to work out.”

Alexander raised both eyebrows in a silent question.

“My work area,” Osiris said, switching from the local language they’d been using to the tongue that had been their first. “While it was perfectly acceptable in terms of my previous area of specialization, working with living organisms requires a colder climate.” He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t, however, wish to leave my island.”

“If you need assistance locating a colder place,” Alexander said, “a number of areas in my territory never thaw out—mostly in the mountains.”

“Thank you, little brother. I may well take you up on that offer.” Osiris looked at the bountiful green all around them. “I hesitate only because there’s so much life here, so much inspiration. I’m not sure I’m ready to leave it. At least I can put off the decision awhile longer—for now, my experiments are stable enough in the workspace I’ve built. Layers upon layers of dirt formed into walls keep it cool inside.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“It’s a technique some among our kind consider archaic, but it works far better than many newer innovations.” Osiris waved his hand on the heels of his words. “But enough about that. I notice you haven’t mentioned Zanaya. Have you two parted ways again?”

“No. We’re together.” He rubbed a fisted hand over his heart. “She is the brightest star in the sky for me.”

Osiris was quiet for a moment. “She’s your weakness, is she not, brother?”

Alexander had never quite thought of it that way. “Zanaya isn’t weak in the least. But if you speak from the point of view of others in the Cadre, then I suppose you’re right.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.” Osiris drew down his eyebrows. “She still refuses to join your court so you can protect her?”

“It would destroy us. She can’t ever be my subordinate.”

“I suppose I see that.” Osiris sighed. “I know our parents thought me lost in my world of alchemy and experiments, but I worry about you, too. The last time you two parted ways, you were . . . unlike yourself. Angrier.”

“We’re different people now,” Alexander assured his brother. “Our relationship has grown and matured.”

“I hope so, for your sake,” Osiris said before he dove down into the dark green depths of the pool.

Alexander thought nothing of their conversation until after the next winter, when he went to see Zanaya and found her laughing with a fellow general who had far more than admiration in his gaze.

Of course he did. How could he not when Zanaya was a star vivid and compelling?

His jealousy where she was concerned, his need for her devotion to mirror his own came to violent life inside him, a thing so vicious that it almost signaled the end for that general. While the general survived due to Zanaya literally standing in Alexander’s way, Zanaya’s fury was knives coming at Alexander.

“Either you trust me or you don’t,” she said in the aftermath. “Decide!”

“It’s not you I don’t trust.”

“Can you even hear yourself? That’s the platitude of a being who can’t control his own emotions.” Her eyes glittered.

Alexander fisted then opened his hands. “I understand and accept that you can’t live under my rule.” It was hard, so fucking hard, to keep his voice even, but he refused to allow this to devolve into harsh words without reason or sense. “But why won’t you take a position in a territory that neighbors mine instead of one so far distant?”

“Because I’m my own person, with my own dreams and my own plans.” She thrust a thumb into her chest. “You are not the sun around which I revolve!”

He felt as if she’d stabbed him. “You’re my sun,” he said quietly.

“Lover, you’re an archangel who only visits me when politics allow you to leave your territory.” She held up a hand, palm out, when he would’ve spoken. “I’m not blaming you for it. It is what it is. All I’m saying is that if I make you my sun, the balance between us breaks. For I will never be your sun, regardless of what you might believe.”

That day, that argument, bruised and battered them both, and it was the start of a rot. Not birthed by anger this time, but by a kind of disappointment that had them pulling away from the relationship as each nursed their own emotional wounds, certain in the knowledge that their love could never be returned in the way they needed it to be returned.

Their very devotion became a poison in its voracious demand.

It asked them to fall into each other—and only each other, shutting out the rest of the world, all their responsibilities, all their friendships, anything else that might steal the air from the inferno that scalded them. It was a thing of madness that could never be satisfied, a devotion so pitiless it could lead to murder and to war.

It refused to allow either of them to breathe.

And in so doing, it succeeded in choking the life out of the love that bound them to one another, until one day . . . they just weren’t together anymore. It hurt worse than the first break, because their love had been deeper this time around, their understanding of each other much more profound.