Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(76)

She jerked away, feeling slimy and dirty. Infected.

Alexander looked at her with a frown. “Zani?”

“Has anyone checked Antonicus’s grave since we buried him?” she blurted out.

Alexander’s forehead furrowed. “Yes,” he said. “We’ve maintained the regular patrols from Elijah’s and Titus’s territories, and each one of us does at least one personal flyover a year.” He searched her face. “We’ve seen no change in the ice island where he rests, felt no indication that he stirs.”

The stretching inside Zanaya persisted. Insisted. “I want to see for myself.” Wouldn’t sleep easy until she did.

“Zani?”

“I’m different, Alexander. In a way subtle and insidious.” No point hiding from that. “I can sense Antonicus as if I have within me a thread that ties us together.”

Expression grim, he said, “The others? Michaela, Astaad, Favashi?”

“No, I sense only Antonicus.” She had no doubts that he was the one calling to her. “Maybe because the others are inside Cassandra’s fire, shielded from the world.” It was the only thing that made sense—though none of this made sense. “I must see where he lies. I won’t rest until I’m certain he doesn’t walk.” Because he couldn’t have recovered, not given what had happened to him.

Then again, neither should she. So perhaps they’d both come back monstrous.

“I’ll go with you.”

Burning lines on her cheekbones, she glanced over at the others. “I don’t want anyone else to know.” Not yet, not until she knew what she’d become.

“No,” Alexander agreed, his skin pulled taut over the bones of his face. “You can’t leave straight after taking over your territory either. It’ll be noticed.”

Zanaya flexed and tightened her hand. “I’ll make it seem as if I’m doing a high-level flight over my new lands, taking in all that is now mine. That’ll give us enough time to fly there and back.”

Alexander’s skin felt as cold as the place where they’d laid Antonicus to rest. The idea of Lijuan having left an echo in strong, honorable Zani was an abhorrent one. “Wherever you go, I’ll be at your side.”

To his surprise, his fiercely independent lover didn’t voice a protest. Rather, she said, “I think you should. Just in case there’s something seriously wrong with me and I try to dig Antonicus up and bring him back to life or commit another act equally repugnant.”

Alexander’s jaw worked. “Lijuan left pieces of herself everywhere. I was speaking to Neha—she says she just discovered a small cave full of nesting reborn who somehow managed to survive by taking only one person at a time from different villages. A deadly level of cunning.”

“Insurance,” Zanaya muttered. “Lijuan really believed that, no matter what, she’d survive to come back, even if she lost the war. She believed herself a god, a being far beyond anyone’s touch.”

“Archangels who lose themselves to power madness often do.” His eyes went to where Raphael spoke with Elijah. “I became many things while you were gone, Zani. A father, the most Ancient member of the Cadre for a time, and an angel who almost lost himself to power.”

He nodded over at Raphael. “I all but went to war with Caliane’s beloved son for no reason except that he was young and had ideas of his own and I was somehow insulted by it all.”

“You?” Zanaya’s eyes flared. “You were the wildest of the archangels, the one who thumbed his nose at all the settled members of the Cadre.”

“Yes.” Such an age ago that had been. “It was another young one, our current historian, who made me confront the path I walked.” Echoes of that long-ago conversation in his mind. “Had you not been in Sleep, you would’ve stood against the man I was becoming. You would’ve fought at Raphael’s side.”

Zanaya was yet staring at him. “Did you really come so close to the edge that you would’ve forced me to raise my sword against you, thus breaking my heart forever?”

Alexander’s chest ached at the blunt words. But never had he been a liar. So he said, “Yes. I see it now, looking back. Then, I was in the grip of a conceit that skimmed the edge of the egotistical madness that consumed Lijuan—that she allowed to consume her.”

That was what Alexander could never forgive, and why he felt no sorrow for Lijuan’s death. “She could’ve chosen to Sleep. You will know exactly how viciously hard it was for me to let go of my territories, to leave the world, but I had a moment where I stood on my fort and I thought . . . Zani would be ashamed of me if I do this. And so I Slept.”

Zanaya’s throat moved. “I know little of Lijuan’s history, but I think she didn’t have a friend or lover akin to what you are to me and what I am to you—a being whose opinion matters deeply enough to make us change our course and confront our less-than-humble archangelic natures.”

She touched her fingers to Alexander’s heart. “You are my touchstone, too, my Xander.” A tug of her lips. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that name is taken now. Will you introduce me to young Xander?” The words were followed by a hard shake of her head. “No, not until I know what is happening to me. What has happened to me. I would not inadvertently harm this most vulnerable piece of your heart.”