Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(92)

It had made him question himself, question what he was . . . but now he knew that he’d simply roused himself too early. His power had needed a little more time to recover back to the levels appropriate to an archangel.

He wiped his sword on the dead man, then slid it into the sheath at his back. At least he hadn’t had to acquire that; the others had entombed him in what he was wearing on the day of his—

His mind buzzed, cutting off the images.

He didn’t pursue it, some part of him aware that he didn’t want to see the things he’d seen that night, much less hear the nightmare screams.

Once, his heart might’ve thudded at the thought, but today, his chest was silent.

Ignoring that oddity, he flexed his hand and smiled at seeing the crawl of power beneath the green-tinged delicacy of his skin. This was his true waking. His archangelic powers hadn’t disappeared after all, as the others would soon see.

Antonicus, Archangel of a fabled city named Elysium, had risen.





50


Strange how slowly time moved when he was far from his Zani.

Now, at last, the time had come that Alexander would see her again. His grandson had, in the interim, taken up a post at one of Titus’s forts in order to learn a specific set of skills from a warrior stationed there.

So it was that Alexander and Zanaya had decided that they’d meet at her fortress. That gave Xander enough time to get to them, stay, then return before his leave ran out. But Alexander intended to precede him by a day.

He needed that time to be with his consort.

The skies were a cerulean blue when he took off—the hue so pure and so deep that it reminded him of Callie’s eyes. Reminded him too of the son she’d had with Nadiel.

Two archangels in love.

It could be done.

His friends’ love story had spanned countless mortal generations, only ending because of Nadiel’s descent into madness.

What Alexander had never told Caliane was that—and he was well aware that Zanaya would have raised an ironic eyebrow had she been awake—he’d tried to talk Nadiel into Sleep. But in his defense, he’d only done so because he’d glimpsed signs of Nadiel’s subtle decline. “Sleep exists for a reason,” he’d said in an effort to make his friend and fellow archangel interrogate his own behavior. “You’ll lose nothing by going into it.”

But Nadiel had been intractable. Not a man prone to anger, he’d laughed at Alexander’s worries, slapped him on the shoulder, and told him not to be “such a grim Ancient.” So young and vibrant he’d been, with his hair of mahogany gold and eyes of a vital green mingled with the barest hint of blue, his heart brimming with courage. Raphael might’ve inherited his coloring from Callie, but his features were an imprint of his father.

So much so that, at times, he wondered how Callie could bear it.

But then . . . Xander carried so many echoes of Rohan in his face and his manner. Alexander loved him all the more for it, for being a living piece of his son. It must be the same for Callie.

He was thinking that perhaps he and Zanaya should discuss hosting a small gathering for their friends in the future when the sky began to darken above him. Alexander grimaced. He could handle the cold and the wet like any other angel—but that didn’t mean he liked it. Especially since he was wearing his favorite set of leathers, black with accents of silver in the fastenings and buckles.

His third had taken one look at him and said, “Going courting, sire?” a glint in the greenish hazel of his eyes.

Alexander had been ready with his riposte. “Lemei mentioned that General Keemat’s favorite flowers are daffodils. In case you had an interest in that knowledge.”

Valerius, stocky and contained and not prone to displays of emotion except with his closest intimates, had actually begun to turn red under the naturally pale hue of his skin. “You should lift off now,” he’d muttered as he tugged at the collar of his tunic. “Go impress Lady Zanaya with your sartorial splendor and leave me in peace.”

Alexander would much rather do exactly that than turn up at Zanaya’s home bedraggled by rain.

But the sky didn’t turn the bruised hue of clouds heavy with rain. It went a sickly green, ugly and putrid . . . and reminiscent of how Antonicus’s skin had appeared when they buried him.

Life in the process of rotting.

Halting, he hovered in the sky, looked first to the east, then to the west, then north followed by south.

The entire sky was sick.

Gut tight, he turned and resumed his journey at the highest possible speed. Zanaya was waiting for him on the rooftop of her fortress and as soon as he landed, she said, “It’s worldwide.” Lips pressed tight, she added, “Titus saw it first, asked to initiate a meeting. I sent a message that you were en route, so he’s holding off.”

His hairline damp with sweat and his wings aching, Alexander nodded. “Let’s go.”

But when the faces began appearing onscreen, two of the Cadre remained missing. They had, however, been replaced by two people who weren’t archangels but who did have the right to speak in the place of the two missing archangels.

“Elijah has flown to the cairn,” said Hannah, consort to the Archangel of South America, he who’d also become known as King of the Pride in the aftermath of the Cascade. “In absolute terms, he’s located the closest to the cairn, can make the journey the fastest.”