Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(75)

A metal ladder was built into the frame of the bookshelves on both the left and the right of the room. They proved to move smoothly along the rails when she tested them.

She’d check each and every one of the books on the shelves if necessary, but first, she went to Charisemnon’s desk. In the top drawer was a leather-bound notebook. Something about it struck her as familiar and she looked over to the shelves—to realize that this room held the history of Charisemnon, the memory journals he’d kept year after year, decade after decade, century after century.

She was holding the most recent one.

Aware that she was standing in a treasure trove—angelic historians would clamor to be allowed access to this room—she took care with the journal as she sat down in Charisemnon’s ornate chair. Placing the book in front of her, she opened it.

The words made no sense.

She tried again, working her way through all the languages she knew. She was about to give up and ask Kiama if Titus had a linguist on staff, when Raan’s voice whispered into her mind.

My little bird, your talent for art strips mine. I can’t wait to see you fly.

Raan’s favored language had been so lyrical, so lovely, born on the banks of the Nile among an enclave of angels who’d made it their home for centuries. His friend in this land had spoken the same tongue. Charisemnon hadn’t been of an age to have lived in the enclave, but perhaps he’d learned it from a parent or grandparent.

Sharine knew nothing about his parentage, and she didn’t care at this instant.

Raan’s enclave had faded from existence long ago, the language rarely spoken, but Sharine had learned it from her lover and it remained inside her. That it took her a while to turn those rusty gears was inevitable.

Yes, little bird. You have the skill and the heart for this.

He’d been such a good man, her Raan, one who’d always been gentle and kind with her.

Yes—and paternal.

She winced at the unsheathed words from another part of her psyche. But it was true; their relationship had hardly been one of equals. But it had been a relationship that made her happy in that time and place, and it deserved to be honored for that. Raan deserved to be honored for that.

Consciously shaking away the errant thoughts to focus on the here and now, she looked down at the journal. She’d opened it to a point some months before the beginning of hostilities.

    They think I’m a fool, that I will tie my loyalty to the weak rather than ally with the strongest one of us all.

I’m not the fool here.

Lijuan will emerge the victor in the war to come. There’s no question on that point—she has evolved far beyond the rest of the Cadre, and she is right when she says we are immortals and capable of far more than is permitted by the current power structure.

Why should there be a Cadre of Ten? Why can there not be a Cadre of Two if those two archangels are the most powerful in the world? There’s no point in sharing power with the more feeble among us. The others, the ones who survive the war, will serve the Cadre of Two. That is as it always should’ve been.



The last line was underlined twice, a blunt insight into Charisemnon’s mind. It did confuse her a touch because she’d believed that he wasn’t an archangel much driven to stir himself. He enjoyed a life of ease and comfort, and yet now he spoke of absolute dominion.

What had changed?

Settling in, she went back to the beginning of the journal and began to read, for in the genesis of Charisemnon’s change of heart might be the information she needed about a disease that could end angels forever.





36


    Archangel Titus, I write to you on the faith of your long friendship with my father. Before he went into Sleep, he reminded me that yours was a bond that remained unbroken across millennia. Now, I bow my head and ask if that friendship might extend to the mentoring of my son?

Xander is not yet at his majority, but he shows signs of becoming a warrior like his grandfather. It would be a great honor if you would consider taking him under your wing.

—Letter from Rohan, son of Archangel Alexander, to Archangel Titus





37


    Rohan! I saw you running around naked while you were a babe, giggling manically all the while! I’ve broken bread with you. Why are you writing me such a formal letter?

Send your boy. I’ll care for Alexander’s grandchild as if he were my own flesh and blood.

—Letter from Archangel Titus to Rohan, son of Archangel Alexander





38


Titus wiped the sweat from his brow and looked down at the pile of beheaded bodies below. He and his people had followed a straggler who’d led them to a massive nest of reborn, but what worried him was that the nest had existed in the first place. “These reborn came from somewhere.” There was a settlement out there that no longer had any living citizens . . . children included.

It broke his heart to execute the smallest reborn, though he knew they weren’t alive in any true sense of the word. They were shambling abominations of life, without reason or thought. They’d never grow any older, would never understand speech or love or tenderness or anything but their voracious hunger for flesh.

To allow them to exist was equal to murdering the children who’d yet escaped the scourge. For even in the darkest hour, angels, vampires, and humans, they all hesitated when it came to harming a child, and in that hesitation could fall an entire town or city or territory.