Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(85)

“Xander.” Alexander swept down so he flew wing to wing with his grandson, and he wondered if he’d ever been this young. “What are you doing here? Are you on patrol with your squadron?”

“No, Grandfather. I came to meet you.” His gaze was open, his heart on his sleeve.

The child had been hesitant and quiet when he first met Alexander, but Alexander couldn’t blame him for that. He’d been nothing but a memory of Rohan’s to Xander—and the boy had been grieving for the loss of his parents.

Alexander wasn’t a gentle man, but he’d made an effort to be so for this boy. Until one day, Xander had broken down during a private sparring session. Alexander had taken his sobbing grandson in his arms and when Xander tried to apologize, Alexander had said, “Never apologize for loving, Xander. That capacity is what keeps us from becoming monsters.”

The boy had splintered that day, and then he’d rebuilt himself.

“Oh?” Alexander said now. “How did you know exactly where I’d be coming from? Surely my spymaster isn’t leaking my whereabouts?”

Laughter from his grandson at the mere idea of Alexander’s tight-lipped spymaster breathing so much as a word. “I’ve been learning how to use the mortal device that tracks their flying craft. Angels can’t be tracked the same way because—”

“Just as well,” Alexander interrupted, his tone granite. “We are not playthings for mortals.” On this he would never budge—there was a hierarchy in the world for a reason.

“But,” Xander continued, “every time I was on the device, I watched for any hint of a ‘shadow’—that’s what the mortals call angels glimpsed on the system. And I particularly watched for a shadow with your speed. It was difficult in the extreme—you were invisible but for a split second.”

Alexander wanted to be infuriated that the mortal devices could track angels at all, even in so fleeting a way, but he couldn’t bear to rain on Xander’s joy. “Come then, Grandson,” he said, awash in love for the son of his son. “Since you’ve found me, let us race home. I’ll go at half speed.” Otherwise, it’d be no race at all, the boy a stripling yet.

Giving a loud “Woop!” Xander took off, a dark streak in the falling darkness. Look only at the top of his wings and you’d never realize the metallic underside.

Alexander laughed and took off after him. And he thought that an awakening of only ten thousand years was worth it to have such life in his veins, such energy. Zanaya was right, had always been right. He’d just been a stubborn fool to deny her.

It won’t be easy, lover. If it was, we’d have gotten it right a hundred times over. We didn’t. If we want forever, we need to work harder than we’ve ever before done. This is our final and most important war.

She’d said that to him on the flight home, an unknowing echo of Cassandra’s prediction: This time will be the end.





44


Antonicus knew he was damaged. Knew he was not the archangel who’d woken— His thoughts fragmented.

He couldn’t recall why or when he’d last woken, the memories flash-fire flickers in his mind. Images of a devouring black fog. Of screams so piercing they were tiny insects in his brain. Of agony unending.

He turned away from them.

That was the past.

This was his future.

Flexing his hand, he heard the fracture of ice. He’d been encased in ice, left locked in cold. They would pay. All of them.

He’d already started to win, hadn’t he?

No breath at all. No warmth. No sign of life.

She hadn’t sensed him.

A small part of him that had once been an archangel, once understood life, knew that he should be worried. Angels needed to breathe. They wouldn’t die without breath, but it was agonizing after a long enough period. But Antonicus literally didn’t need to breathe . . . wasn’t sure those organs even worked.

He glanced away from that, too.

The state of his body was . . . less than optimal.

But he could fix that. He knew how. He’d been told how inside the black fog, an insidious whisper worming its way into his mind as the dying mortals screamed and screamed and screamed.





45


Zuri and Nala proved to be as skilled and as trustworthy as Alexander had promised. They were also familiar with Zanaya’s territory, having watched over it for their brother when Titus was in the southern half of the continent—and they were generous in sharing their knowledge with Zanaya.

“Are you open to a permanent transfer?” she said a month into her new reign, “Alexander will take no insult if you wish to do so and I’ll take no insult if you don’t. The choice is wholly yours.” She had another thought. “Or perhaps you don’t wish to remain this close to Titus?”

Wild laughter from the two beautiful warriors with their long black tails of hair and sharply slanted hazel eyes over dramatic cheekbones, their skin a richness of brown and their wings an amber-hued cream dusted with green that ended up in primaries of dazzling jade. “We adore being able to visit more. Our brother, in contrast, would be delighted to get rid of us,” Zuri said. “We are a plague upon him.”

Nala, the quieter of the twins, nodded. “Our poor brother. He is besieged by sisters who love him and also think they know better.” A grin. “We can’t help it. To us, he’ll always be our little brother who we carried around as a babe.”