Aodhan struggled against an immediate disagreement. He knew he couldn’t allow himself to become too attached to the child; Jinhai might speak to the part of him that knew what it was to be trapped and tortured, but the boy’s path had to diverge from his if he was to heal.
Though . . . “In the future, I would like to see him at times if he will receive me as a visitor. Would that be acceptable to you?”
Suyin’s smile was soft. “You will always be welcome in my territory—and Jinhai could do no better than to have you as a man from whom he can learn.” She turned to Illium. “I thank you, too, for watching over this broken child rather than executing him at first sight.”
“It wasn’t my right or my decision.” Illium flowed into a graceful bow, going down on one knee while flaring his wings out behind him. A powerful, dangerous butterfly in the snow.
Aodhan had seen him do the same thing in a mocking way, but today, it was very serious, a show of respect for this archangel who had in her as much empathy as power.
Suyin’s face softened further. I see again why he is so dear to you, Aodhan.
Aloud, she said, “You are a light in this dark world, Illium.” She held out her hand, and Illium took it as he rose. “I’m glad to know you, glad to learn from you.”
When Illium tilted his head in a wordless question, she said, “You are a power. I see it. We all do. Arza tells me that the Cadre has watched you since long before the Cascade, for you were a power even as a boy.
“And yet you hold on to your sense of self with a ferocity that defies even the Ancient who is your father. You do not buckle under the weight of eternity.” She released his hand, but held his gaze. “You show me a different path—and it is a path I will endeavor to follow.”
A flush of color on Illium’s cheeks. “You honor me, Archangel Suyin.”
“Just Suyin to you, Bluebell. You saved my life in battle and it is an act of courage I will never forget.” With that, she glanced over to where Jinhai slept in the sling. “I will go now, so I can return soon to my people. It won’t be an easy transition for the poor child, but nothing is easy in this land right now. But he will have light, and when he has healed, he will have the sky.”
Aodhan looked up as she rose into the air, a slim and lovely angel with more steel in her than the world saw. He wasn’t sure Suyin herself knew it, not fully. She, too, after all, had spent time as a prisoner and it had marked her.
“I like her.” Illium sounded reluctant. “Not because of the compliment.” He blushed again, kicking at the snow. “I’ve always liked her, I suppose. But seeing her here, in her archangel skin, the weight of all that’s happened on her shoulders . . . I see why you respect her so much.”
Aodhan’s lips curved as he took in his friend’s face. It continued to hold a touch of suspicion engendered by his possessive heart, but intermingled with that was admiration.
“There, Blue,” he murmured. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
A scowl was his only reply before Illium took off, dusting Aodhan in a tempest of snow.
Laughing so hard that it caused Li Wei to look over at him with a startled grin on her face, he shook his head to dislodge the white, opened out his wings, and took off into the sky after his Blue.
They reached the caravan before darkfall, their presence more than welcome.
“Shall we stop for the night?” Vetra asked, and it was clear she was more than ready to hand the responsibility of being in charge to Aodhan. “We have another hour of light, but it’ll be pushing it.”
“I agree,” Aodhan said. “Slow and steady is the pace we want to maintain.”
This entire group had a long journey to make. Not because of distance—that could be covered by a well-maintained vehicle within two days, allowing for rest breaks for the driver. No, the trouble lay in the obstacles in their path—the dead patches, the eruptions of black fog, unexpected slips across the roads caused by the heavy snowfall.
Sunrise, and the vehicles crawled on. The winged cohort paced the ground cohort, on constant alert. Illium was the one who spotted the fog eruption some distance up ahead, in the dead center of their projected path.
Aodhan made the call to halt the caravan while he and the rest of the team found a workaround—a detour along their main alternate route at this point would mean going backward by several painstaking hours. Illium did multiple high-speed flights to confirm their less-preferred alternate route was clear.
“Damn he’s fast.” Anaya, a senior angelic commander, whistled when Illium took off into the winter-blue sky for the second time. “Also, hot. Do you know if he’s single?”
Aodhan stiffened. “You’ll have to ask him.” He was irritated by the question, though why he didn’t know—it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Illium had always had plenty of admirers, mortal and immortal. Kai, for one, was still making eyes at him, though Illium had been too busy to respond.
“Maybe I will.” A dazzling smile from the smart, funny woman who was just Illium’s type. “Who knows? Could be he’s feeling lonely out here far from his people.”
He’s not far from his people, Aodhan thought mutinously as she walked away, I’m here. Though he tried to put the small byplay out of his mind, he kept returning to gnaw on it. He wanted to slap himself for it, but he couldn’t stop and he didn’t understand why.
No romantic relationship, not even Illium’s love for Kaia, had ever impacted his friendship with Aodhan, so it wasn’t as if Aodhan was afraid of that. Or maybe he was. After all, they’d been on rocky ground this past year—and a lot of it was Aodhan’s fault. He knew it, admitted it.
He had no right to be in any way irritated by any romantic entanglement in which Illium chose to indulge.
That thought was firmly at the forefront of his mind when Illium returned from his latest sortie. “All clear,” his friend told him, before bending over with his hands on his thighs, his chest heaving and sweat dripping down his temples.
“You flew at maximum capacity.” Elsewise, Illium could leave everyone in his dust without effort.
“Yeah.” It came out a puff of air. “Figured the faster you had the info, the less chance of other fog hellholes opening up before the caravan gets past.” All of that spoken in short, staccato bursts.
Aodhan found himself touching the back of his hand to Illium’s cheek. “Thank you.”
A quick grin that melted the tension in Aodhan’s spine. What was he worried about? Him and Blue? Fighting or annoying one another or eating angry stew together, the two of them were stuck like glue.
But there was one thing he had to say, one apology he had to make. “Keir told me something when I first began to speak to him about Sachieri and Bathar.” He’d already mentioned his talks with the healer to Illium.