Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(64)

Her thoughts skittered this way and that, gathering together the more frayed edges of her memories. This wasn’t normal, she kept thinking, but at the same time there was no point in wallowing in the irregularities. She had to work out what was going on, what was—

A piercing stab that had her dropping Firelight to slap her hand over the side of her neck . . . where Lijuan had bitten her. Clinging to her like a mongrel dog and sucking her blood as if she were a vampire and not an archangel.

But no . . .

Zanaya squeezed her eyes shut, unraveled more tangled threads. Lijuan hadn’t wanted blood. She’d been able to feed on the lifeforce of others—even archangels, it appeared. She’d fed on Zanaya.

Rage was a storm vortex inside her.

She’d fought back, she remembered, had called up the whirlwinds that were her trademark power, but Lijuan, this evil that had grown while Zanaya Slept, had been too powerful, a monster unleashed.

Zanaya had felt her body go cold as Lijuan sucked up all her energy, all her warmth, all her life! She’d seen her limbs begin to shrivel, felt her heart stutter. Her sight had faded at rapid speed, until the last thing she remembered was blurred gray. Then . . . nothingness.

She must’ve fallen from the sky, her wings crumpled and her body emaciated.

Half-terrified that she remained in that mummified state, that Lijuan had somehow turned her into one of her reborn, a shambling parody of life, she lifted one of her arms. Lit by the glow from the fiery cocoon, her skin proved as midnight dark as always, and as smooth, her flesh what it should be.

Her breath pulsed out of her in a ragged exhale, but she held back the wave of relief. Because she didn’t feel like herself. Something was off. Perhaps it was her legs that remained shriveled.

Dropping her arm, she bent one leg at the knee, and the living fire of the cocoon rippled around her to make space. She looked, her skin cold, but her leg was whole, too, her flesh rejuvenated. Still uncertain, she ran her hands over her body—and realized she wore a simple linen shift that stopped midthigh. She made a face.

Zanaya didn’t do linen or simple except when she was sparring or going into battle.

But she supposed it had been an emergency measure, the choice made by healers—who tended to be pragmatic by nature. She’d take care of it as soon as she rose and had access to her own resources. The thought made her wonder where she’d emerge this time around—she couldn’t predict it, not when she wasn’t the one who’d chosen the place of rest.

Alexander.

Her breath hurt in her lungs. She’d been trying not to think of him but to not think of her beloved general was an impossibility. She’d glimpsed him fighting his way toward her as Lijuan sucked her dry, but she didn’t know what had happened from that point on. Had he fallen victim to the monster, too? Was Alexander trapped in a mummified state?

Or even worse . . . had he borne damage akin to Antonicus?

Panic beat its wings inside her, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. She could take anything but a world in which Alexander no longer existed.

Zanaya. You wake. The voice was beyond ancient, an echo of boundless time.

Zanaya went rigid, one hand on Firelight’s hilt. Who are you? An archangel’s imperious demand.

Laughter, the tone so very old that it made Zanaya’s bones ache. Her stomach dipped. Are you one of the Ancestors? The old ones who were rumored to Sleep below the Refuge, the very first of angelkind.

Perhaps, child. Perhaps I am. I do not believe so, but I cannot remember my childhood any longer. A sigh. I didn’t expect any of you to wake so soon, yet I have Slept with one ear open, listening. Waiting. Your brethren continue to Sleep, caught in-between.

Zanaya’s muscles began to unclench. She hated that she was in this unknown place, with this unknown voice, and yet . . . She felt no sense of threat. It was warmth and protection that she heard, that she felt. That witch bit me in battle.

The voice shifted, became songlike: Goddess of Nightmare. Wraith without a shadow. Rising into her Reign of Death.

Every tiny hair on Zanaya’s body shivered in a prickling wave. And some crumb of knowledge in the far recesses of her brain came to the fore, had her saying, Archangel Cassandra?

I was once her, came the answer. Now, I do not know who I have become. Qin, my Qin, he knew me. A world of sorrow. I dreamed of you, child. Long ago. I had forgotten.

Sky of silver.

Sky of night.

Wild tempests and a storm of gold.

Queen of the Nile.

Warrior beloved.

Battle born.

Death and resurrection.

Zanaya didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Cassandra came to a halt. “That’s it?” She threw up her hands, disrupting the liquid fire of her cocoon. “I know all that! I need to know what the future holds.”

Laughter in her mind, unused, rusty, and yet oddly infectious for all its weight. So many pathways I see for you, angel of tempests born. You could take any one of them. If I tell you the strongest thread I see, you will surely take the opposing one, so my sight is meaningless to you.

Zanaya wished the Ancient were wrong about Zanaya’s contrariness, but she wasn’t.

“It’s what makes me love you—and what infuriates me,” Alexander had said to her once, laughter in that silver-kissed gaze. “If I say the sky is blue, you’ll argue that it’s green for no reason at all.”