Jinhai nodded.
Two chairs, Illium said, his cheekbones blades against his skin. A very large bed.
“Does he need help?” Aodhan searched the landscape, but knew the boy could be hiding behind a tree, in the shadow of one of Zhangjiajie’s pillars. “I’ll go out and bring him—”
A sudden darting movement, Jinhai’s hand locking around Aodhan’s forearm. “He hurts you.” The melodic clarity of his voice suddenly a rasp of sound. “He wears your skin.”
Fuck.
Aodhan echoed Illium’s mental reaction, though he managed to keep it from escaping his mouth. “Quon did that to the people in the hamlet?” When the boy only stared at him, he said, “Took off their skins?”
A spasmodic nod. “Take the skin. Wear the skin. Be the person.” It was a singsong sound. Almost as if Jinhai was repeating something he’d heard.
“Who said that?” Aodhan murmured, while Illium remained in the background, his eyes on the snow outside. “Quon?”
“Mother said. Wear many skins. Many faces.”
Ice crawled through Aodhan’s veins. “Your mother? His mother?”
“Our mother.”
Do you think she realized they didn’t understand she was speaking metaphorically? Revulsion in Illium’s voice, directed at the Archangel of Death. Surely even Lijuan wouldn’t turn her own children into monsters?
Blue, she buried them underground. They were always going to be monsters. Aodhan met his friend’s eyes for a moment, wished he could grab hold of him in a hug, protect him from his own soft heart.
Even as the thought passed through his head, Illium said, “You stay with Jinhai.” He shook his head when Aodhan would’ve argued. He’s bonded to you, will panic if you try to leave.
Aodhan looked down at the way the child clung to him. Illium might as well not have been present for all the attention Jinhai gave him—though he still wore Illium’s watch. As if he’d forgotten Illium now he had no use for him. That, too, was disturbing. But one horror at a time.
“Be careful.”
A speaking look from the man Aodhan had banned from looking after him, but Illium didn’t point out the hypocrisy of his statement. Instead, a small flash of a smile flicked over his lips as his voice entered Aodhan’s head: If a crazy child can bring me down and skin me, he deserves to wear my stupid dead pelt.
Scowling at the other man was a waste of time—Illium was already heading to the door. He reappeared outside the window soon afterward, a dazzling brilliance of blue in the white.
Aodhan’s heart stopped.
Sometimes, he forgot the sheer depth of Illium’s masculine beauty, and then it’d strike him hard without warning, especially when light sparkled in Illium’s eyes and a playful smile flirted with his lips. But it faded too soon into solemn vigilance as he said, Ask Jinhai how he knows his brother is out here.
When Aodhan did, Jinhai said, “I know. He knows. Two skins. One son.”
After repeating that to Illium, Aodhan said, I don’t know what Lijuan thought she was doing, but it appears she achieved some type of bond between them.
Or—Illium frowned as the snow settled on his hair, his shoulders, his wings—they might be twins.
Twins were rare in angelkind, but when it did happen, those births came with a high chance of some kind of a mental connection. Parents of angelic twins knew to watch for that during early childhood. Without intervention, the bonded ones could often begin to act like one being, the stronger personality overwhelming the weaker.
“Has Quon always been in your life?” Aodhan asked the slender boy who stared out the window. “And you in his?”
Jinhai touched his own face with fluttering fingertips. “Two skins. One face. One son.”
Twins, he confirmed to Illium. “Can you point toward your brother’s exact location?”
Jinhai did so without argument and Aodhan passed on the direction to Illium. His friend took off in a flurry of swirling snow in front of a rapt Jinhai, soon disappearing into the leaden sky. Aodhan’s heart thundered, every part of him straining to follow Illium into the fall of white.
He hated that Illium was out there alone in this cold and unfriendly place filled with hidden dangers, wished he could protect Illium as Illium had so long protected him. Would Illium even allow such protectiveness? No, was Aodhan’s instinctive reaction, but then he paused. Had anyone ever asked Illium? After all, Aodhan’s Blue had simply shouldered responsibility after responsibility.
The only person on whom Illium openly relied was Raphael, and that was a relationship that had been born during his childhood. While he took emotional comfort from Elena, he didn’t expect her to protect him—he saw it as his duty to watch over her. As he’d watched over Eh-ma. As he’d watched over Aodhan. As he’d watched over Kaia until the day she was placed on her funeral pyre.
* * *
* * *
Illium blinked the driving snow from his eyes, then winced at the shards of ice the sky decided to throw down like deadly confetti. It wouldn’t do him any damage, but fuck it was cold. I hate the cold, he muttered to Aodhan, the mental contact a thing of ease, the groove long worn in their minds.
No you don’t. You just hate it when it’s work not play.
Illium’s responding grin faded as fast as it had come. So without effort they fell back into their old ways, into paths trodden over hundreds of years. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Old ways. Old patterns.
Flying as low as he could without risking a crash into the trees, he scanned the ground without surcease, but saw no signs of life. The snow had erased all footprints, all evidence of life of any kind. But he didn’t stop looking. Illium knew one set of bonded angelic twins. The two always knew each other’s location, even when divided by an entire state. If Jinhai said his twin was out here, he was out here.
Thinking he’d seen a flash of movement, he landed in warrior silence, and allowed the snow to obscure his wings. Then he listened. Only to hear the soft, hushed silence that snow alone could nurture.
Shaking off the white, he rose once more into the sky to continue his search—though he had to pause every so often to slide more snow off his wings. Such pauses weren’t a usual part of his snow flying, but he was moving at slow speed today and the snow was coming down like water.
Aodhan, I can’t see any sign of a second child. He wiped a hand over his eyes, felt ice on the tips of his lashes. If Quon is out here, he’s better at hide-and-seek than Naasir. And no one was better at hide-and-seek than the fellow member of the Seven who’d once played with their childhood selves.
Cubs, he’d called them. But of all those who’d known them as children, it was Naasir who’d most quickly adapted to dealing with them as adult warriors.