Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(60)

“That is troubling news.” Neha sighed. “I’d hoped . . .” She shook her head. “We cannot hope. We must deal with the reality.”

Alexander spoke into the resulting quiet. “Suyin, how is your territory?”

“Painfully quiet,” was the answer from the woman who was one of the greatest architects in all of angelkind, the dot of a beauty spot below the far edge of her left eye bringing attention to the resolute sorrow in those eyes.

“I intend to allow huge areas of the landscape to go wild for the foreseeable future. There won’t be enough people to maintain the fields, towns, and cities for many generations. The numbers are catastrophic.” She pressed her lips tight. “I’ll have to rebuild as if I were an archangel given a territory no one else had ever ruled—except that I must do so in the shadow of Lijuan’s horrors.”

At any other time, Titus said, his voice resonant in Sharine’s mind, such words would’ve left Suyin ripe for a takeover attempt from another member of the Cadre. Now, no one knows what surprises Lijuan left behind.

Sharine could see the reason behind the reserve: China had been Lijuan’s to rule for millennia, the landscape itself imprinted with her mark. Is Neha the only one of the Cadre helping her?

She helps at the border but doesn’t land inside China itself. Raphael, however, spent a full week with Suyin before he came to Africa—and Caliane will be by her side as soon as she rises. We won’t allow Suyin to drown before she finds her wings; we can’t afford to lose any one of the Cadre.

“Any resurgence of the poison Lijuan left behind?” Aegaeon’s tone had Sharine rolling her eyes.

Condescending ass, Titus said into her mind at the same time. Suyin is an archangel, not a child to be patted over the head.

In this, Titus, we are in absolute agreement.

“No.” Suyin’s response was firm. “Whatever it is she did with the fatal black fog, it died with her.” Obsidian eyes landing on Titus. “I think you have the most difficult task. If your enemy created a way to ensure the sickness thrived in angels . . .”

The meeting concluded soon afterward, leaving Titus and Alexander alone. The two spoke of precautions to make sure no threat could fly over the border. They’d just decided on a small squadron of winged fighters whose job it’d be to control the area when Sharine remembered something Illium had told her.

Titus, she said on their mental wavelength. I apologize for the interruption, but my son told me of eyes in the sky. Do you have those?

“Alexander!” A thunder of sound, the vibration comforting. “What about satellites?”

Alexander frowned. “I’ll ask my grandson if the eyes in the sky can watch that closely. It’s not something about which I have too much knowledge, young pup.”

Listening to his answer, Sharine found herself thinking that it wasn’t good to stay ignorant of the new ways. Her son adored this world, was constantly telling her of its technologies and inventions. She would learn everything he wished to teach her, she decided, live in the here and now and not the past.

“We’ll speak again, Grandfather,” Titus said with a grin.

Making a rude gesture on the other side, Alexander said, “Careful, Titus, or I’ll send the twins to visit.”

“I’m not afraid of my sisters,” Titus said staunchly. “But please do keep them on your side of the border, I beg of you. Already, they send me three letters a week, full of much advice.” The affection in his tone belied his words.

After Alexander signed off with a laugh, Titus waited for the screen to close out before turning to her. “I thank you, Sharine. That was a very good suggestion and may save us from losing a squadron from the front lines,” he said before reaching up to rub at the lines on his forehead, his shoulders lower than usual.

It stunned her to see such vulnerability in the big and brash Archangel of Africa. Even more so because it was a thing of deep trust for him to allow her to see him this way.

“You need sleep,” she found herself saying, overcome by an unexpected wave of tenderness. “You flew an incredible distance in a short period of time, and didn’t eat the entire voyage, either. It’s not good to push yourself to the extreme and then collapse.”

He glared at her, hands on his hips. “I’m not a toddler, to be sent to bed.”

“Fall on your face, then,” she muttered, as she got to her feet. “I, for one, am going to bathe then rest.” Though she had every intention of expanding her physical limits as she grew in strength and endurance, it wouldn’t happen overnight. Rest was a necessity.

Pulling open the door, she stepped out—but she was still near enough to hear Titus mutter a single word under his breath: “Women.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she resisted the temptation to head back in there—tired as she was, he might well win a verbal battle. Red-haired Tanae came around the corner just as the door was closing behind her. “My lady.” The curt bow of a warrior. “Is the sire within?”

“Yes. And the meeting has concluded.”

Another short but respectful bow before Tanae walked past and through the door, her competence and confidence unmistakable.

Not sure she’d ever understand Titus, and annoyed she was even interested in trying, Sharine returned to her room to do exactly as she’d described to the stubborn archangel who refused to believe he had any vulnerabilities.