The same colors as those in Xi’s wings.
As Lijuan had used these colors since her ascension, it made Andromeda wonder if the archangel had paid a young Xi particular attention because of his patriotic coloring. Had Xi’s future been written the instant his wings settled into their final coloration?
If she survived this meeting, perhaps she’d ask Xi.
In front of her, the guards didn’t so much as appear to breathe. One was a square-jawed and blue-eyed blond, the other dark-eyed and black-haired, his features angular, but they’d clearly been tempered in the same merciless crucible, their eyes without pity.
Walking past the two and leaving her guide outside, Andromeda found herself in a cavernous space that contained only a single piece of furniture. It was a throne carved of jade, the shades within spanning the spectrum from creamy white to a green so dark it was near black. Set atop a dais reached by five wide steps, it was spotlighted by the gentle golden light of the standing lamps set behind it. The soft lighting brought up the warmth in the jade, made the carvings glow.
Drawn to what was surely a treasure beyond price, she glanced around but saw no one else. She couldn’t resist. Going up the steps, she didn’t touch but bent to closely examine the carvings. Eerie, haunting, and disturbing in equal measures, they made her fingers itch once again for a pencil and a paper so she could record what she was seeing.
“Astonishing, is it not?”
The spectral voice was filled with a thousand echoes, with endless screams. As if behind that voice stood countless trapped souls. Spine threatening to lock as her skin iced over, Andromeda shifted on her heel to look around, but the metal disk on the opposite wall reflected only her own image back at her.
That meant nothing. Not when it came to the Archangel of China.
Abdominal muscles clenched tight, she walked down the steps and, making the decision to face the throne, clasped her hands in front of her. “Yes, my Lady,” she said. “I apologize if I overstepped.”
“It is to a scholar’s credit to be curious.” A frigid rush of air and then Zhou Lijuan appeared on the throne in a whisper of light and shadow that Andromeda’s mind struggled to comprehend.
Lijuan’s wings had always been a glorious dove gray, beautiful and elegant. The color had suited her age and her power. Those wings spread out behind her, as elegant and as flawless as always, and for an instant, Andromeda thought Lijuan was back to who she’d been before the battle with Raphael.
Then she saw eyes swimming in blood . . . and she saw absence.
There was no evidence of legs under the gown of red silk that flowed from Lijuan’s painfully thin shoulders. No indication of bones pushing against the skirt, nothing but emptiness. Her left sleeve hung equally hollow at her side.
Andromeda’s stomach twisted.
If Lijuan’s legs and arm—and possibly other parts of her that Andromeda couldn’t see—hadn’t yet grown back, then Raphael had done a kind of damage no one could’ve predicted when it came to a confrontation between an archangel who hadn’t yet reached his second millennium, and a near-Ancient. It also meant Lijuan was far more dangerous than even Andromeda had anticipated.
A woman who believed herself a goddess would not appreciate the daily, and excruciatingly painful, reminder of weakness.
At least, but for her eyes and her thinness, the archangel’s face seemed as it had always been. The same blade-sharp cheekbones, the same pearlescent eyes, the same ice-white hair. Her skin appeared fragile but that—
Andromeda choked back a scream.
Lijuan’s face had turned into a skull, her eye sockets black hollows crawling with maggots that screamed. It lasted a split second before her face was normal again, but Andromeda would never forget the horror. Raphael’s right temple now bore a vibrant and ancient mark in a wild blue lit with white fire, while the newest reports from Titus’s territory said he was developing a stunning tattoo-like marking in deep gold across the mahogany of his broad chest, but none of the archangels had developed anything so macabre.
Of course, no one had seen Charisemnon in months. And Michaela . . . she’d been missing from public view as long, highly unusual for a woman known for her love of the camera. Andromeda could’ve asked Dahariel, who was reputed to be Michaela’s lover, but Andromeda and Dahariel’s relationship was a small, tightly defined thing. He taught her to fight and if she asked, he spoke to her about angelic politics and how to understand the complexity of it.
That was all. And it was all it would ever be.
Lijuan’s face changed again, and this time Andromeda couldn’t hold back her gasp. If the first change had been horrific, this was so far beyond beauty as to bring tears to the eye and make the heart hurt. The Archangel of China glowed from within, the light of her power a blinding white that made her luminous with a fierce, primal sense of life that reminded Andromeda of Naasir. Lijuan’s features seemed softer, her eyes sparkling, her eyelashes deeper and thicker.
It was as if Andromeda was seeing a glimpse of the angel Lijuan had once been.
So perhaps . . . perhaps the other was who she would eventually become.
* * *
Naasir fed rather than rested. He didn’t kill, didn’t harm. He just made his way to the outskirts of a small, isolated village and smiled at a maiden out in her fields; she smiled back at him, her lips parting. When he walked up to her, she didn’t run and he could hear her pulse thudding, her scent changing as her body readied itself for him.
“I am hungry.”
Shivering at his words, she angled her neck and he drank, one of his hands cradling her head as her breath came in harsh gasps and her eager body pumped more and more of her rich, hot blood into his mouth.
He was gentle, didn’t gorge or take more than she could afford to give, and when he was done, he made sure she’d bear no marks. He always treated his food well, aware that without food, he’d die. “Thank you.”
She gripped at his wrist, stars in her eyes. “Will you return?”
“No.” Lying to his food wasn’t good treatment, so he didn’t do it. “Don’t wait for me.”
Two fat tears rolled down her face. Leaving her watching wet-eyed after him, he disappeared back into the woods, rejuvenated from her gift of blood. He’d had countless similar conversations in his lifetime. When he was a child, he’d fed from Dmitri or Raphael or Keir. At the time, he hadn’t understood the depth of the honor he was being given. He’d known only that three men who were very definitely not food, were allowing him to feed from them—as a result, he’d been on his best behavior.
All three were also so powerful that he’d only needed a sip once every two days at most. It would’ve lasted even longer had he been able to feed more deeply, but he’d been small, only able to handle a tiny taste of such potent blood. Dmitri was the one he’d gone to most often. The older vampire had disciplined him more than anyone else, but Naasir liked that, liked knowing Dmitri cared enough to teach him things. When he’d needed to feed, he’d found Dmitri and Dmitri had held out his wrist.