Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(46)

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“My brother is no longer who he once was,” Alexander said to Titus. The young archangel and child of his comrade-in-arms and most trusted general, Avelina, had somehow become his friend though they were separated by eons of life.

Big and brash and honest, Titus had filled a little of the void left behind by Nadiel’s death, Avelina’s decision to Sleep, and Caliane’s descent into madness and subsequent vanishing. Nothing would ever fill the gaping hole that was the absence of his Zani, but he’d learned to live with that, had even come to see the wisdom of her actions.

Had she remained in the world, they might well have killed each other by now, their spiral of love and anger a toxic stew. She’d set him free to be a better man, a better archangel—until today he was known as wise, an Ancient who’d even acted the peacemaker. That didn’t mean he wasn’t yet half-angry and half-in love with her. As he’d accepted the wisdom of her choice, he’d accepted that she’d be forever a part of the tapestry of his existence—even should they never meet again.

Today, he stood with Titus on a flourishing green mountaintop, the wild monkeys chattering in the trees and the humid breeze carrying across the myriad scents of this land full of flora and fauna unseen anywhere else on the planet. As a young angel, Alexander had often overflown this region, racing the cheetah below and keeping company with the winged creatures, but he felt too old for such games now, his bones heavy and his heart on the edge of exhaustion.

Titus was often accused of not having a subtle bone in his body, but today, he said, “This is why you won’t Sleep, even though you know it’s past time.”

Alexander narrowed his eyes at the young pup who’d never held back his words—which was the very reason why he was Alexander’s close friend. “Are you calling me old, you young pipsqueak?”

Throwing back his head, Titus laughed that booming laugh that made him such a favorite among all. It was big and warm and beguiled all bystanders to laugh with him. Even Alexander, worry a heavy stone crushing his ribcage, couldn’t help the upward tug of his lips.

Titus bumped his shoulder. “I told you I saw a white hair in your golden locks.”

“Careful, child,” Alexander said in his most pompous tone, and Titus laughed again.

Afterward, as they walked the plateau, the other man said, “You’ve never really talked much about Osiris.”

“No, I suppose I haven’t. Not since you’ve known me.” Titus, after all, hadn’t yet completed even his third millennium of life. “I adored him as a boy, looked up to him in every way, was so proud of his discoveries, his inventions.” Osiris was responsible for many innovations that would go down in angelic history.

“I hear you speak only of the past, my friend,” Titus said, his breastplate gleaming in the morning sunlight. “What has changed that you no longer talk of your sibling with pride?”

Alexander stared out into the distance, at the sprawling forests teeming with life. He’d seen a leopard prowling with feline confidence as they overflew the green, the creature halting to look up at the angels with a gaze that said it would take them down given half the chance.

Its confidence had memory piercing through him—of an archangel whose laughter made him a younger man, and who had eyes that held the silvery light of the stars. Oh, how Zanaya had adored her haughty felines and loyal hounds, spoiled one and all. She’d even made friends with the raucous birds on Osiris’s island.

What would she say about his brother now?

“Osiris,” he explained to Titus, “began his life working with natural elements—and that work, I understood.” Alexander’s own power was connected to the earth, most specifically to metal. “After a time, he began to move into plants, then small organisms such as those that live in the oceans.”

Alexander hadn’t comprehended that work as well, but he’d appreciated it. It was Osiris who’d pioneered the bioluminescent moss that many vampires and even mortals used in underground structures to safely light their way.

While it might not be an innovation that was directly useful to angelkind—for most angels didn’t enjoy being underground—you couldn’t say that it hadn’t been of great benefit to their kind. Their vampiric and mortal servants could now safely use cellars and the like without having to go in with fiery torches or flickering candles.

“I,” he continued, “was a touch disturbed when Osiris began to experiment with larger oceanic organisms, but he made the point that his work wasn’t much different from hunting for food, and from all I saw, he did nothing that could be considered abhorrent. He did indeed do much the same as the fisherman who stabs his prey with a spear—only instead of eating his kill, he’d dissect it to learn everything of it, piece by piece.”

Alexander’s stomach had churned at the idea of it, but Osiris was so logical and methodical about the entire operation that his own reaction had felt na?ve, devoid of maturity. “He never took more than what he needed and often far less than what I’d have on my own table as food.

“It would’ve been hypocritical to argue against his actions simply because I didn’t appreciate his scholarship. And, in the end, his anatomical drawings of sea creatures became—and still are—a staple resource for other scientists and scholars.”