Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(37)

Inj’ra had once told her that “archangels are playthings to the Cascade.” It had been her then sire’s opinion that the Cascade was a natural event that took place to “humble” the most arrogant creatures in the world: the archangels.

Zanaya wasn’t sure she didn’t believe Inj’ra.

But Alexander gave a slight shake of his head. “I do not think the Cascade will let you Sleep.” Folding his arms in a silent repudiation of her, Alexander said, “I will call a Cadre meeting about you, but first, I have to rescue a village buried under ice and snow.”

She couldn’t help it; she never could when he got this stiff and formal. “Why so bad-tempered, lover?”

Silver fire in his gaze. “I am an Ancient. Treat me as such or . . .”

“Or what?” She winked at him because she knew very well that he couldn’t stand being winked at, but even so, her heart sighed to see him hearty and whole. Never would she want to be awake in a world where Alexander didn’t exist—even if it was only in Sleep. “So, tell me what you’ve been doing since I decided I’d caused enough mayhem for ten immortal lifetimes.”

His glare warned her that he hadn’t forgiven her for going into Sleep while they were yet angry with each other. Oh, that’s how he’d think of it, she was certain. Forgetting all the many, many times when she’d spoken to him of her need for Sleep—and his. Not that he’d ever agreed with her. Not Alexander.

Now, he snapped, “I have work to do,” and lifted off.

Laughing because she knew this man, no matter if they’d been apart for millennia, she rose with him, her wings glorying in flight.

She was about to ask more about this Cascade when the world turned a black that was flat and hard and cold. So, so, cold. Akin to the inside of a human crypt. With it came a silence that felt like a pressure on the lungs, a crushing force that would snap the spine and crack the skull. Then . . . the screams. Shrill, ugly, the most horrific sounds she’d ever heard.

“What is this cacophony!” Firelight in hand, she searched for an enemy, found none. “No archangel I know wakes with such darkness!”

“You do not know her.” Alexander’s tone was grim as he came to hover beside her, his wing just brushing hers. “Her name is Lijuan.”

That was how Zanaya first learned of the Archangel of China, this being who could make the dead walk—and who believed that the shuffling corpses she produced equaled “life.” Alexander told her that Lijuan had named her creatures the “reborn” but it seemed to Zanaya that they were nothing but the fetid and despoiled dead, blank and mindless.

“This Cascade,” she said to Alexander some time later, after she’d absorbed all she could of the current world, “isn’t like the others.”

They’d both lived through other Cascades, many small, several large. None had threatened to break the world, leave it a crumbling ruin.

“No,” Alexander agreed, his face tired in a way she’d never before seen it. “Lijuan treats us all with contempt, believes herself a goddess above even her former brethren in the Cadre.”

Standing side by side with Alexander on the balcony of his fortress, Zanaya stared out at the snow that still draped his lands. The two of them had helped clear multiple regions of the crush of ice, but she knew without asking that such actions were only a temporary solution. “How do we stop her?” That was the true test, the true question.

“The Cadre is to meet soon.” Alexander rubbed a hand over his face, then put his hands on his hips again, his eyes trained on the lands beyond. “Too many of us are awake, Zani.”

She might’ve teased him for thawing enough to fall back into using his old pet name for her. But that Zanaya was a creature of peacetime. Now was the time for her warrior avatar. “We must be needed,” she mused, setting aside the shock that still reverberated through her at his earlier comment that Caliane had woken before he did.

If he’d woken, that meant he’d Slept at some point in time.

Zanaya wanted to ask him what or who had convinced him to take that step. Because Zanaya hadn’t been enough—and yes, that wound throbbed to this day.

The pain of the woman, however, could wait. Today, it was the archangel who needed to reign supreme. “Perhaps it’s the only way to defeat this Lijuan.” And though she’d long forgotten fear, that was a terrifying thought. How could one archangel be such a power that the Cascade would wake so many Sleepers to stand against her?

There were more surprises to come—including a Cadre meeting beyond her experience. She’d expected them to fly to a central meeting point, or for it to be assumed that they’d use a mental power that was only of the Cadre—though Zanaya would’ve refused the latter, the price it demanded too high. To use the archangelic ability was to lose their empathy for at least half a day, become cold and heartless monsters.

Zanaya had used it exactly once. Never again. She would not allow herself to go into the Quiet, become the very creature her mother had tried to raise her to be.

If that meant flying a significant distance, so be it.

Alexander knew all of that and had never pushed her to use her power. So she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t bring it up. She was surprised when he led her into a large internal room with flat black paintings on the walls.