Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(88)

“Should we take the body to the healers?” Tzadiq asked.

“No. Have the healers fly here to examine it.” Titus wasn’t about to spread any kind of infection.

Staring at the body, he felt a faint hint of familiarity, but this mortal wasn’t anyone he could’ve known. Regardless, it wasn’t her face that was familiar. It was . . . He blew out a breath, unable to quantify his response. “Ask the healers to check the creature’s brain for differences to the other reborn.” Titus had no idea what was occurring, but he knew it was aberrant. “Make sure to station a full guard over the body. The creature might be in some unknown form of stasis. The last thing we need is for it to rise up and attack.”

Tzadiq nodded, the mist green of his eyes meeting Titus’s over the body. “Did you notice the progression?”

Titus nodded. “No way to miss it.” This was the oddest find to date, but their troops had eliminated a number of weak and sickly reborn over the past weeks; the first had been close to the southern tip of his territory. After that, each new reborn had appeared progressively farther north.

As if the reborn who was making the other reborn was heading to a specific location.

“Could be linked to Charisemnon,” Titus muttered. “Any sign it’s a reborn angel?” An abomination no one had ever expected to exist. “It could be trying to get to what was once home.”

Tzadiq shook his head. “But there’s no evidence it isn’t, either. We have nothing.”

Thoughts grim, Titus rose to his feet, Tzadiq echoing him, both of them big men with wide shoulders and muscled thighs—but that strength was useless against this invader cunning and stealthy. “I’ll warn Zanaya.” Whatever the creature was, it remained far from her at this point—but it would have gained strength with each kill.

It was possible that the Queen of the Nile would yet have to battle this scourge in her new territory.





47


Zanaya had intended to act on her decision to wake Aureline and Meher within the two days following, but—after receiving his message about the unusual reborn activity—she ended up flying to Titus instead. The two of them did a combined flight over a huge span of territory, searching for any indications of the creature’s path.

Neither one of them found anything . . . but Zanaya felt eerie beats of sensation that weren’t hers. Grass rustling over her skin when she was high up in the air, the bright metallic rush of blood inside a body, the feel of dirt under her fingernails. And then, without warning, a wrench on the same thread that had led her to Antonicus’s grave.

She landed, her heart thudding as she readied herself to face the half-rotted archangel resurrected . . . but nothing existed around her but waving grasses and trees with a pretty filigree of leaves. The thread, too, had broken. Or had it unraveled when it didn’t find what it sought?

When Titus came down beside her, she made the decision to trust him with the knowledge of her flight to check if Antonicus stirred—and why. “Lijuan left a piece of herself behind in me,” she gritted out at the end.

Titus grimaced. “I can see that, Zan.” A subtle-for-Titus nod toward her eyes.

Clenching her jaw against the curses that wanted to escape, she hissed out a breath through her teeth. “We need to go over this area with a fine-tooth comb, and then I need to fly to check the cairn again.”

“I can do the latter.” Titus held up a hand when she would’ve objected. “You’re in the midst of setting up a territory, while mine is stable. And if Antonicus has risen as not what he was, it’ll affect us both.”

To trust another archangel but for Alexander so deeply, it didn’t come easy to Zanaya. But there was an integrity about Titus that shone like the sun. So she nodded. “I hope you find that he Sleeps, Titus, and that what I’m feeling is nothing but the awareness of a smarter-than-usual reborn.”



* * *



*

Her discussion with Titus was yet uppermost in her mind when she was finally able to head out toward Aureline and Meher. She’d timed her journey so that she’d arrive in the darkest part of night, be cloaked from any watchers. She was one of the Cadre who had no glamour, but her coloring made up for that in the night hours. She was a ghost, the flecks of white on her wings easily mistaken for stars if she flew high.

She remained in the thin air above the clouds until she reached the point along the rich waters of her Nile where she’d helped Auri and Meher go to Sleep. At the time, the area had been uninhabited due to its dangerous geography. She was pleased to see that, despite the march of civilization, that remained true to this day.

Coming to a hover above the river, she used the power of her tempests to push aside the water and create a tunnel all the way to its chill heart. Dropping into that tunnel while the water swirled around her in a perfectly controlled spiral of liquid, she went down in a measured descent until her boots touched the riverbed.

Aureline and Meher Slept deep below the bed of stone and sand. Once they’d initiated Sleep, Zanaya had closed up the stone chamber she’d built for them using her power as an archangel—however, they were each strong enough to blast through the stone and emerge without her help. They’d get wet without her assistance, but they were of an age not to need to breathe for the duration.