Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(80)

“If the story the Legion told Raphael is true, then the archangel who created the toxin infected us all.” An act so terrible that it existed in their cells to this day. “So what could Charisemnon do that the other hadn’t already done?”

Sharine didn’t interrupt, letting him pace as he worked the options through in his mind. There was only one answer. “He’s talking about being able to infect and save people at will.” Blood hot, he met Sharine’s gaze. “The ass is talking about an antidote.”

“Yes, I had the same thought.” Putting the journal on the desk, she picked up another one bound in identical leather. “This is the previous journal. I decided to read it after completing the most recent one—I had a feeling he’d been planning this for far longer than we realized, perhaps far longer than even Lijuan was aware.”

“I’ve long thought that he must’ve had a backup plan that included a place to hole up and recover should the battle be going against him.” But Titus hadn’t given him that opportunity. “You think he’s hidden the antidote in his secret place?”

“Nothing I’ve read says he had the antidote, only that it was in progress.” She flipped to a section in the journal. “But here, look.”

She walked to him again, and in her excitement, didn’t stop fast enough. Their wings overlapped once more, her arm brushing his chest as she held out the journal. An odd feeling bloomed inside him at the realization that she was comfortable enough with him to stand so close to him.

A kiss in passion was one thing, an act done while they were both fully rational quite another. Because when it came down to it, he was an archangel and there was nothing she could do should he decide to harm her.

“There, do you see?”

Jerking his gaze to what she was indicating on the page, he went to remind her he couldn’t fluently read Charisemnon’s native tongue. But it wasn’t words this time. It was a diagram. A location. But the map had been sketched without markers or compass headings, done by someone who knew the location and thus had no need of such instructions.

Taking the journal from her, he ran a finger over the slope that had been sketched across two pages. Stars dotted the sky, but those stars didn’t appear to be in any kind of real-world order. A river or a stream ran in the distance before disappearing without warning—either it went underground at that point, or Charisemnon hadn’t bothered to fully sketch it because it was of no interest to him.

What was most curious, however, was that within the hill was a residence. Charisemnon had drawn it like a dollhouse, with the front removed.

Either this was just an abandoned plan, or he’d built an entire stronghold under a mountain.

Right under Titus’s nose.

He rubbed his jaw. “I must speak to my spymaster. Let me see if she’s within reach.”

Sire, came the immediate response, I’m at the garrison. I came to speak to Tarik before I begin my sleep period.

Join us in the inner courtyard, Titus said. You can return to your foster brother soon. The two orphaned warriors had grown up together in Titus’s court and their bond was as tight today as the day they’d been born.

Turning to look down at Sharine’s uptilted face, he wanted to rub his thumb over her lips, steal another moment that had nothing to do with reborn or death. Curling his fingers into his palm instead, he told her what was happening. Sharine kept the relevant journal in hand as the two of them walked down to the inner courtyard.

“This place should be protected,” she said. “I know what you think of Charisemnon, but this repository of knowledge will be worth a great deal to our people.”

“Who knows what poison he dripped on those pages,” Titus muttered, “but I bow to your greater knowledge of such things.” He wasn’t so vengeful toward Charisemnon that he’d deprive angelkind of its rightful history. “I’ll tell our historians and librarians of its existence after things aren’t so dangerous. Else they might attempt to fly here now and I don’t need noncombatants taking up time or resources.”

A glance up, a raised eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes again, delighted at the effect it had on her. “In case you had failed to notice, you can fire energy bolts. You’re not a noncombatant.”

Sharine was quiet—unusually so—until he couldn’t stand it. “What are you plotting now?” he asked in open suspicion.

Her eyelashes flickered. “I was just thinking that you have many more facets than I first realized.” An almost prim statement, one he wasn’t sure quite how to take.

But they’d reached the courtyard, and his spymaster was landing in front of them. An angel of six feet one with striking bones, Ozias didn’t look like she could fly anywhere unseen or unwatched. However, this woman with skin of darkest brown and wildly curly black hair, her eyes only a slightly paler hue, had the ability to blend in anywhere. Especially since she often wore colors in the brown-black range and used makeup to soften her dramatic bone structure.

People didn’t notice her. Didn’t see her.

Her wings were like a falcon’s, all streaks of brown and black, with snaps of white. It was as if she’d been born to blend in, but that was a clever illusion. In battle, all the soldiers under Ozias’s command looked to her and found her every single time.