“No, young Aodhan.” She folded back her wings, in her warrior avatar today—faded leathers of gray-blue, her hair braided, and a sword riding her hip. “I was flying for the joy of it, and caught a glimpse of your light.” The searing blue of her eyes held his. “Would you mind the company on this walk?”
Aodhan was solitary by nature, had been that way even before his abduction, and he and Lady Caliane weren’t in any way friends. She was an Ancient, while he was a whisper off half a millennium in age. But he was comfortable with her—for she was both the mother of his sire and the best friend of Lady Sharine.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “But I’m afraid I may not be the best company.”
“Things weigh on you,” Caliane said as they began to walk in the cool quiet of the forest. “I have seen you walking in silence often, in Amanat and outside.”
Aodhan went to give her a generic, polite reply but the memory of his earlier thoughts made him stop, think. Best friend to Lady Sharine. Two very different women, but there had to be a core of similarity hidden beneath that had made their friendship endure.
After all, look only at the surface and Aodhan and Illium were polar opposites. No visible sign of the value they both placed on things like honor and fidelity. No indication of the drive inside each of them, their ambitions for the future running on parallel tracks. And no sign at all of the love that meant one would die for the other without hesitation.
Perhaps, with Eh-ma so far from him, he could ask Lady Caliane for guidance. “May I ask you a personal thing?”
“Yes, child.” A smile that turned her from beautiful to astonishingly lovely. “You remind me of my son when he was young. Oh, your coloring is different and so are your personalities, but my Raphael can be as solemn, as thoughtful. Tell me what troubles you.”
“You know I left Illium in China. The final image I have of him—on the beach watching me go—I dream of it, think on it night and day, and I don’t understand my obsession.” It was hard for him to talk of such private things to anyone, far less an Ancient who was mostly a stranger to him, but he forced himself to keep going.
“Our duties mean we’ve often been apart. Why then, does that one image haunt me?” He wasn’t sure he’d ever said so many words to Caliane and was half-convinced she’d tell him she had no time for such foolish concerns of the young.
“Ah.” Caliane’s exhalation of air was somehow portentous. “Sharine’s son is a beautiful being, and I say this not about his outer shell, but his heart. I have seen this, though I wasn’t there when Illium was born, nor when Aegaeon deserted them in the most cruel way possible.” Her voice was a sharp knife, bloodying Aegaeon.
“I was also not there when Sharine’s mind fractured, or when Illium was separated from his mortal love. And, child, I was not there when you were stolen away, or when you retreated from the world.”
Aodhan didn’t ask how Caliane knew of his history. Archangels had their ways. He didn’t care, either, because her words had made him freeze under the snow-draped trees, his mind awash in the images she’d put together piece by relentless piece.
Aegaeon’s desertion.
Kaia’s forgetting of their love.
Lady Sharine’s broken mind.
The long winter of Aodhan’s withdrawal.
But for Raphael, all of the most important people in Illium’s life had left him in one way or the other.
Aegaeon by choice. Lady Sharine without, but the effect had been the same.
Kaia hadn’t made a choice, either—but Aodhan couldn’t be merciful toward her because she had made the choice to speak the secrets that led to the erasure of her memories and the breaking of Illium’s heart.
Illium was surely not the first angel to have whispered angelic secrets to a mortal lover. Love made people do many things transgressive and not at all sensible. Angelkind didn’t care if one mortal knew their secrets—so long as that mortal kept their own counsel. No one would’ve known Illium had told if Kaia had held his whispers close. But she hadn’t loved Illium enough to keep her silence.
As for Aodhan, he’d been abducted against his will, but the withdrawal, that had been a choice. Not at the start, when he’d been so horrifically emotionally wounded, but later. Later, he’d chosen to stay separate, keep everyone at a distance.
Even his beloved Illium.
Father. Mother. Lover. Best friend.
Illium had spent a lifetime watching people leave him.
Then Aodhan had done it again a year ago. Joining Suyin’s court had just been an escalation of the leaving that had already been taking place, beginning that night in the Enclave.
Breath jagged, he bent over, hands on his thighs. “I didn’t—” He couldn’t speak, his chest was compressed with such vicious force. He’d thought often of how Illium watched over people, how he’d been forced into the role of a caretaker, but never had he seen the other side of the coin.
Abandonment.
No wonder his Blue held on too tight at times.
No wonder he had difficulty letting go.
And no wonder he was afraid Aodhan would forget him.
All those messages he’d sent Aodhan, all the care packages, all the things Aodhan had seen as overprotective hovering, they’d been Illium’s way of reminding Aodhan of his existence. As if Aodhan would ever forget him.
Caliane didn’t attempt to touch him as she said, “We often don’t see the hurt we put on those we love most. And he is so bright, Sharine’s son, so full of life and laughter. He hides his bruises well, I think, your Bluebell, using that joyous self as an impenetrable shield.”
Heat burned Aodhan’s eyes, seared his throat. “How could I not see?”
“Oh, child. You’re young.” Husky laughter. “You think you’ve had so much time to heal from your wounds, but in immortal terms, you’ve had but a heartbeat. I Slept more than a thousand years to get over my madness, and I yet bear wounds that are open and raw.”
“I’m meant to be his best friend and I was so stuck in my own head that I didn’t see.” Aodhan wasn’t going to give himself a pass over this. “He’s the most important person in my universe.” A simple, profound truth.
Caliane’s wings were pure white in his peripheral vision as she spread them slightly, then pulled them back in. “You both have healing to do, growing to do. But you have one advantage over me and Sharine.”
Aodhan rose to his full height, feeling oddly old and heavy. Beaten. With the knowledge of all that Illium had borne and kept on smiling. It had taken Aodhan’s most recent abandonment for him to flinch and try to retreat. And even then, he’d forgiven with a wild grace that humbled Aodhan. “Advantage?”