He spread out his wings, folded them back in. “And it would be a merciless thing to offer you no hope of survival. So I will say . . . one year for each month. Twenty-three years is not so long in the scheme of an immortal life.”
Gratitude in two pairs of watery eyes.
Raphael leaned forward. “After those years, if you are yet sane,” he said softly, “I’ll put you both in the same box—wooden this time—so that you’ll have company as I take you to an island far from all else, and set you aflame.”
It took a long time for an angel to burn to death, especially if the fire was set to be a slow, slow torment of embers. “I will only scorch you for the first week, sear you for the second, then burn you down to ash over the next seven days. A mere three weeks, then death. Is that not merciful?”
Bathar screamed, while tears rolled out of Sachieri’s staring eyes.
In truth, Raphael didn’t expect either one of their minds to survive even the year. They were worthless worms, with no bravery in them. But they would now spend what little time they had thinking of the other horror to come. And it would come. Because Raphael would watch their minds—and he would dig them up the instant before the final insanity.
Each would go into death knowing for what crime they burned.
You must understand—for Aodhan, the Seven and Raphael are family, the bonds between them far beyond blood and bone. It is a thing elemental.
—Lady Sharine
39
Today
It was only ten minutes after Illium went into the tunnel with the food that Aodhan saw a stirring in the trees. Movement, he warned.
The snow had fallen steadily in the interim, and had long erased any evidence of Illium’s passage. So it was on pristine white ground that the newcomer stepped, their head swiveling this way and that on a thin and small body as they ran toward the cavern.
Their hair was a river down their back that shone as white as the snow.
And their wings . . . they dragged on the cold earth, weak and twisted.
Then Aodhan saw that the angel below had no primary feathers.
Rage a hum in his cells, he said, Get ready, Illium. He began to drop down at the same instant, careful to do so in silence.
The runner had entered the tunnel by the time he landed. A scream sounded even as his boots touched the snow, followed by the sound of movement . . . then a relatively light body slammed against his chest.
Aodhan had the runner’s hands manacled behind their back before they could claw at him. “We mean you no harm,” he said in the tongue Lijuan had used most often. It was an older dialect, but all of Raphael’s people were fluent in it, for to know your enemy was the greatest advantage in battle.
The person in his hold continued to twist, the long strands of their fine white hair obscuring their features. It was only when Illium emerged and took charge of restraining their captive that Aodhan was able to see enough to—
He sucked in a breath.
This person wore Lijuan’s face . . . on a male body. Slightly harder angles, but the same pearl-gray eyes, the same white skin, the same proportion to the features. “Was Archangel Lijuan your mother?” he asked the boy—because it was a boy. Young. Maybe fourteen in human years, which would put him at about seventy or so in angelic terms.
The boy spat at him.
Avoiding the spittle with a small movement because he’d been expecting an assault of some kind—the boy was a creature trapped and scared—Aodhan spoke to Illium. “Let’s take him to the stronghold, get him out of the cold.” Everything else could wait.
Illium shook his head. “We can’t fly him if he doesn’t cooperate. He’ll cause a crash.”
A sudden quivering motionlessness to the boy. Aodhan realized Illium had continued to speak in Lijuan’s favored tongue—and the child had understood. His eyes went to those stunted wings, the rage within him a cold, coiled thing born of a dark, wet coffin of iron.
“We’ll take you into the sky,” he said in a voice firm and unbending. “But we can’t if you keep struggling.”
The boy remained motionless. Almost as if he was holding his breath.
Aodhan half expected Illium to question whether they could trust the child’s abrupt good behavior, but he said, “I’ll carry him.” White lines around his mouth, but his hands gentle on the boy’s wrists.
That was what the world had never understood: Aodhan might be the artist, but it was warrior-born Illium who had the softer, more vulnerable heart. He’d come down on the side of the victim—always.
It’s all right, Aodhan murmured into his friend’s mind. If I can’t stand the touch of a broken, wounded child, then I shouldn’t be in the position I’m in.
Illium’s lashes flicked up, his gaze searching and protective—but then he stepped back, releasing the child. I’ll fly below you in case he panics at being in the sky and you have to drop him.
Aodhan had no intention of dropping his passenger, but he knew Illium was right. If the boy began to claw at him . . . Aodhan still wouldn’t drop him. Illium had to know that. But Illium was also a rescuer. He couldn’t help it, his huge heart his greatest weakness and biggest strength both. But . . . he’d stepped back.
Frowning inwardly, Aodhan returned his attention to the boy. “I’m going to take you in my arms so I can carry you.”
No response, but though no one was holding him now, the boy didn’t move.
“You start twisting while in the air, we land and walk the rest of the way.”
Nothing, the boy a sculpture with hair of moonlight. Deciding there was only one way to find out what would happen, Aodhan bent and scooped the child into his arms, one arm under his knees, the other behind his back. He’s not as light as he looks. Nothing of a weight to trouble Aodhan, but worth noting. He’s eaten enough not to starve.
Illium shook his head in a firm negative, refuting Aodhan’s implication about the child’s presence in the hamlet. Aodhan wished he could be as certain. But he knew how madness slid into your brain in the cold dark. He wasn’t sure he’d be sane today if he’d spent even a day longer in that iron coffin.
This boy had grown up inside just such a coffin, for all that his had been a room.
Flaring out his wings, Aodhan looked down at the boy. Those strikingly familiar eyes flicked to him before jerking away. Unable to feel anything but a protective sympathy, Aodhan left his questions aside and took flight into the falling snow.
The boy went rigid in his arms.
Aodhan made sure his grip was secure, then flew on at a far slower pace than that of which he was capable; if this child born with wings had never touched the sky, then this was a wonder for him, and Aodhan would not cut it short.