Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(83)

Alexander fought past thousands of years of being, of personality, to say, “And I’m sorry I put you in that position. I should’ve listened to you.” If he had, she might’ve agreed that the two of them could, together, go into a shorter Sleep. But he’d refused to even listen, and he’d lost her for endless millennia.

A jerky laugh. “Look at us, being so mature.” Sighing, she put her head on his shoulder, as around them, the seabirds went about their business without a care, having clearly decided that Zanaya and Alexander were simply two extra-large birds.

“I can’t do it again, Zani,” Alexander confessed, slicing right to the agonizing core. “I can’t lose you. Not for a few weeks, much less any longer. I’ve lost too much, am too old and scarred. I want an absolute and unassailable us.”

Zanaya felt no shock at his words. She’d known exactly what he was about to say—because she’d been about to say the same. “It’s always been you, Alexander. Never anyone else.”

“Consorts then.”

That did make her jolt, stare at him. “We’re archangels,” she said, her voice lined with grit. “If we become consorts, we’ll no longer have a choice as to what we do when the war drums roll. We’ll have to pick the same side.” Because the enemy would treat one the same as the other.

Eyes of liquid silver locked with hers. “Yes,” he said. “We can argue as much as we want behind closed doors—but to the world, we present a united front.”

Zanaya had spent her entire lifetime fighting to be her own person. She was too old now not to see why—Rzia’s efforts to mold her had turned into a kind of emotional prison that Zanaya had been running from her whole life. Even now, her heart stuttered at the idea of being bound so inextricably to this man who’d battle her tooth and nail when they disagreed.

Yet . . . hadn’t she held her own with him since before her ascension? “I refuse to be frozen in amber,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “Rzia lies long in my past. I’m no longer the child she attempted to shape with bitter vengefulness.”

Alexander understood as only a rare few people in her life would. “As I’m no longer the powerless boy who can be crushed under the boots of others.” Even the memory was faded now, hidden by the weight of a reign that had spanned thousands upon thousands of years. “I don’t need to cling to power with every ounce of my being.”

Zanaya shifted so that they were face-to-face, her expression fierce. “Consorts don’t break, come what may. It’s a bond to the death.”

“I died when you fell, Zani. I have a promise to keep to my son, but it’s the only thread holding me to this world should you not be in it. And that thread will break as Xander settles into adulthood.” He clasped the back of her neck, beneath the softness of her hair. “I won’t be in the world once it does unless you walk beside me. It hurt me to even breathe these past ten years. I’m yours.”

Her eyes flared, then she gripped his jaw. “My ability to Sleep is currently compromised—but it’ll heal. I’ve been wounded too many times not to sense that it’s not a permanent injury.” The certainty of an archangel. “But even if it doesn’t, I don’t intend to live until madness eats my mind, swallows all I am. I intend for my rule to end.”

That was the natural order of life, of immortality. “I won’t do this, lover, until you promise that you will Sleep. Should I not be able to Sleep, well . . . that will be the end of Archangel Zanaya, and you’ll be free.”

Zanaya pressed a hand over Alexander’s mouth when he would’ve spoken, her heart thudding as if she stood once more in the ice of the Refuge, Alexander in front of her. A moment that had altered the trajectory of her destiny. “Not soon. You have your grandson, and I’m only just awake. In ten thousand years at the most.”

A scowl. “Why ten?” he said when she dropped her hand.

“Because that’s a sprawling span of life,” she pointed out. “Long enough for us to love . . . but not so long that we’ll squander it as we’ve squandered most of eternity. Wasting time because we believed there’d always be more, an infinite hourglass. We need to shatter the hourglass for it is a seductive cage that keeps us stuck in time.”

Harsh words. Brutal in their truth.

“And this Cadre?” she added. “It’s too full of Ancients. It’s lopsided and wrong. We should always have a balance of young to old, or we’ll remain static. From there, it’s not too long a journey to stagnant.”

Alexander looked out at the ocean for a long time. She wasn’t affronted. She’d rather he contemplate the point, be sure where he stood. Because once they declared themselves consorts, there’d be no coming back. Becoming a consort was a choice and a risk so precious that to turn their backs on it would be to spit upon the very structure of angelic society.

And they, neither one of them, was an oath breaker.

Alexander turned to her. “Ten thousand years or less.” It was a promise. “And Zani, if you can’t Sleep, if you move beyond the veil, have no doubt but that I’ll follow.”

Zanaya felt her entire world tremble, break, reshape into a new form. Because a promise from the Archangel of Persia was a thing bound in stone. “Alexander, Consort of Archangel Zanaya,” she said, the words husky, “I pledge my being and my life to you.”