A firm, reassuring touch on Aodhan’s shoulder. “Tell Illium not to worry and to enjoy his day. He’s earned it. I’ll speak to the head trainer and make sure he’s also present at our private ceremony—he’s a good man, and he loves Lady Sharine as well as you or I.”
Eyes hot, Aodhan wanted to wrap his arms around Raphael, but he was nearly a halfling now, and such impositions into an archangel’s personal space wouldn’t be forgiven as they would in a child. But then Raphael enclosed him in his arms and in his wings, and murmured, “You are a good friend, Aodhan.”
Power isn’t everything—the bonds that tie us to one another, forged by emotion and battle and friendship, that’s what makes us strong.
—Illium
25
Today
Dawn had come.
Suyin’s people had woken and broken bread.
It was almost time for Aodhan to say good-bye to his archangel as she led the survivors toward the open, windswept piece of the coast where she would build her new stronghold—a place of grace and beauty that was true to her. The defenses would be external, the home within a balm to her wounded soul.
Even now, she chafed against the need for what she termed a “defensive display.” “It doesn’t suit who I am, Aodhan.”
About to remind her that necessity had to trump her dedication to architectural form, he stopped and thought about it. “Raphael’s Tower is in the center of a thriving city, and has no battlements,” he said. “But everyone knows that sentries monitor all approaches to it. It’s also no secret that the top of the Tower can be turned into a battle command station.”
Aodhan had never thought about the subtleties of Raphael’s show of power until that moment. “The display doesn’t have to be overt,” he verbalized to Suyin. “It just has to be known.”
Suyin gave him a long look. “You’ve taught me much, Aodhan.” A fleeting touch of his hand, a gentle softness to her expression. “Would that we could be more as desired by so many, but we are too akin, you and I.”
It was the first time she’d made any reference to what others in angelkind had whispered of for the past year. Aodhan knew of those whispers because his sister had passed them on—they’d become closer after the birth of his nephew, Imalia having pronounced him the best of uncles, and now she spoke and wrote to him on a regular basis. She also loved to gossip.
“Most of the Refuge is convinced you’d make the perfect couple,” she’d said early on in his sojourn in China. “Both of you beautiful and artistic and quiet. They’re saying your home would be a place of perfect grace and harmony.”
Aodhan didn’t know his sibling that well, not when they’d so recently reconnected, but he knew her enough to pick up a particular tone in her voice. “You don’t agree.”
“It’s not my place.”
“Imalia.”
A long, dramatic sigh, eyes of clear green rolling upward in an elfin face. “No, I don’t agree. Your home with Suyin would be quiet and peaceful and it would bore you out of your gourd.”
A tilt of the head as she pressed her lips together and shot him what he’d decided was a patented older sister look. “There’s a reason you’ve been best friends for hundreds of years with an angel made of quicksilver and mischief and wit.”
So unexpected that she saw so clearly, his sister who’d been all but a stranger to him these many years.
“Yes,” he said to Suyin under the pale gold of the morning sky. “We would amplify each other’s sadnesses.” As it was the first time she’d broached the rumors, it was the first time he’d put their past scars out into the open. “I feel it every moment we’re together.”
Suyin inclined her head, the silk of her hair sliding against her skin. “You speak a painful truth, Aodhan. But we shall be friends, yes?”
“Yes.” He genuinely liked Suyin, and when together, the two of them could talk forever about art and architecture. But there were also places he could never go with her. “We must talk about your second.”
Dark eyes searching his. “Ah, I see the answer before you speak it. You won’t reconsider?”
“This isn’t the right place or time for me to be second.” He knew that in his gut, tried not to look too deep, see the image of the archangel for whom he was waiting.
Suyin’s sigh was heartfelt. “I shall miss you by my side, but a large part of me was expecting your final response. I’ll use the journey to our new home to consider my options.”
Aodhan knew exactly who he’d place in the position of her second, but he couldn’t influence Suyin, not in this. Being second wasn’t only about power and skill but about the ability to bond to your archangel. “I will remain as long as you need.”
“I know.” A smile that spoke of her faith in his honor, this extraordinary new archangel who’d helped him find his wings by accepting him at her side. “Take care as you investigate the oddities here. I would not have harm come to you or Illium.”
“I’ll keep you updated.” He’d attempted to teach her how to use a phone and—to her credit—though she’d failed to retain the knowledge, she’d tried her best despite her age and distance from the current world. That was the difference between her and a pompous ass like Aegaeon, who refused to “lower himself” to modern technology.
How Illium could’ve come from such “a stinking blot of donkey excrement” Aodhan would never know. He’d also be forever grateful to Titus for that description of Aegaeon, which Aodhan hadn’t been meant to overhear—but he had, and it gave him great pleasure to use it even if only inside his mind.
* * *
* * *
An hour after his meeting with Suyin, Aodhan stood with Illium on the same stone pillar from which they’d watched dawn caress the landscape, a lover too long gone.
Now, they watched Suyin lead her people home. She flew at the front, on alert for any danger, a combat squadron behind her.
Far below the sea of wings moved a line of vehicles. Mortals in the core, ringed by civilian vampires, with trained vampire warriors on the outside. Because even a vampire untrained in combat could survive a lot more than a mortal, up to and including being disemboweled.
“Still can’t believe there are no combat-capable mortals,” Illium said as he waved to a mortal boy who’d leaned out a window to look back and up at the two of them. With the sky a cloudless chrome blue, Aodhan glittered with light—there was no way for even those far below to miss the two of them.