Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(41)

They didn’t speak further until Alexander said, “Lijuan’s territory isn’t on our direct route, but I suggest we detour over it in order to gather intelligence.”

“I was considering the same.” Wars were won on information—or a lack of it. “We’ll fly high until we see the edge of the fog. I can’t imagine she has the power to send it up into the higher atmosphere, but let us not die because we have turned into prideful idiots like certain buffoons who give old angels a bad name.”

Laughter in her mind, warm and masculine and reaching both her sex and her heart. One she could bear; the other might yet succeed in breaking her. Agreed.

So it was that they were high in air thin and frigid when they first overflew a border section of Lijuan’s lands.





21


Zanaya was built to withstand cold, but her skin shivered at first sight of the stygian blackness beneath. No light peeked through, no hint of any civilization. Nothing. “It’s like she’s thrown a blanket over existence itself.”

Alexander, who’d come to a hover next to her, pressed his lips together. “We can only hope her people aren’t suffocating below.”

She glanced at him. He caught her look, nodded. And they flew down for a closer inspection—but not so close that they were in any danger of touching the fog. What they discovered was that the fog was far from uniform. “Some patches are almost viscous,” she murmured, pointing out one.

“Yes, but even the thinnest areas are opaque. China has become a locked room without windows.” Alexander’s words were grim.

They flew on, not landing until they reached the roof of a border fort in the territory of Neha, Archangel of India. There was no chance of making a mistake as to where they were supposed to land. This close, the location was a beacon to her senses—it pulsed with the aggressive power of the archangels who’d already arrived.

She landed, folded back her wings, and took in the lay of the land. Alexander had come down beside her, but was pulled into conversation with Antonicus. Better you than I, she muttered into his mind and walked to the edge of the rooftop.

Flaming torches lined this side of the border, casting a red-gold glow against the black fog that swallowed all life. Neha’s warriors stood in a line against the black—but far enough back that there was no risk of accidental contact with Lijuan’s murderous creation.

Black was Zanaya’s signature. She loved the night, had ascended in a velvet darkness so opulent that bards had written songs about it. Her skin was as close as a mortal or immortal could get to that midnight shade, and if she’d had a vanity in her life, it was that skin so smooth and rich in color.

But this . . . this fog wasn’t black. It was nature twisted, with a disturbing unctuous feel to it. Like an eel . . . but no, it was too sickeningly aberrant to compare to that slippery denizen of waterways, its coat gleaming wet and lovely in sunshine-dappled water.

A presence by her side.

“Lady Zanaya.” Titus bowed his head slightly in greeting, big and bold and rather beautiful. “Alexander told me about you once, long ago.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

Eyebrows lowering, he said, “That you had the ability to drive ascetics devoted to peace into a flaming rage.”

Zanaya laughed so hard it made her stomach hurt. Afterward, she said, “You are a good friend to him indeed.” There were very few people with whom Alexander was so open.

“He’s a good friend to me, too.” Titus measured her with those dark eyes, a sudden solemnity to them that told her he had far more depths than were apparent on the surface. “I’m not sure, however, that you’re good for him, Lady Zanaya.”

“Oh, young Titus,” she said on a renewed wave of aching tiredness, “we were never good for each other.” Not quite the truth—there’d been incredible moments, decades, centuries of beauty and grace between them. It was only that the years had been tempered by as much pain and anger and frustration. “Perhaps the question will be moot after this waking.”

“Why say you that?”

She nodded at the fog peculiar and chilling. “I’ve woken to a terrible world. I don’t know if I’ll survive it.”

A cold wind across her neck, as if Cassandra herself had brushed her fingers over her nape.

Zanaya straightened her spine, stilled her heartbeat. Death held no fear for her. She’d lived a vast span of time.

Then a masculine voice carried over to her on the night currents, familiar and beloved.

Glancing over her shoulder, she thought, But I have not loved him enough. It will never be enough.

This time, however, wasn’t theirs, even had they not already been squabbling. This time was for the Cadre to step up and eliminate a menace that had been born of one of them. And it was to that topic they soon turned, discussing what knowledge they had of Lijuan’s fog. At one point, Neha showed them a line of birds who’d all fallen on this side of the strange border. As if they’d begun to fly in, only to die.

Neha confirmed that, as far as they were able to tell, the birds had died the instant they made contact with the fog. Caliane followed that up with the information that Neha’s people had discovered other small animals, including snakes, with their heads in the fog and the rest of their bodies in Neha’s territory.