“Good hunting.” Elena inclined her head in a way Jessamy had taught her indicated deep respect; she knew that unlike Raphael, she couldn’t simply tell this deadly woman not to bow to her—with an immortal this old, it could be counted as an insult. Better she respond in a way that meant something to Celesta.
Stupid angelic etiquette.
Celesta’s responding smile seemed genuine. “I am presumptuous, but it pleases me that the wild little boy I taught to string his first bow has a fellow hunter for a consort,” she said before continuing on to the chopper.
“Why haven’t I met her before?” The earthy darkness of Celesta’s scent clung to the air.
“My mother’s favorite assassin and fixer—I believe that is the mortal’s term—has been in Charisemnon’s court until a half year past.”
Elena’s respect for the other woman took a nosedive. “Oh.”
“Celesta knew her lady would need spies in the most terrible places when she woke.” Raphael tugged on a strand of Elena’s hair. “Why do you think she waited so long to return home?”
The respect blazed again—at twice its original strength. “It’s official. I have a girl crush.” Her eyes turned to the chopper as it lifted off. “She’s got balls of steel if she embedded herself in that den and stayed.” Charisemnon had caused the Falling, killing five of New York’s angels. Not content with that, he’d created a virus that infected and killed vampires.
Raphael’s wings stirred in a susurration of sound. “If you are good, I will tell you bedtime stories of Celesta the Knife.”
As Elena laughed, a voice older than Celesta’s entered his mind. Come home, my son. The hope in it was a painful thing, for he would never again think of Amanat as home. The last link that tied him to his mother’s beloved city had broken as he lay bleeding on a forgotten field far from civilization while his mother walked away, her feet light on the grass speckled with his blood.
We are on our way, he said in response, because as his hunter had pointed out more than once, Caliane was trying. She’d come back sane. And she’d been staunch in her support of Raphael since then.
He knew his consort’s response to Caliane was colored by her own deep grief. Her mother could never come back, could never try to make it up to her. And so his tough consort was far softer on Caliane than Raphael would ever be—he remembered the pain too well, remembered Caliane’s madness as hundreds upon hundreds of tiny graves.
He’d helped dig those graves.
Days spent on a task no angel ever wanted to do, for children were a gift.
Instead of rising into the sky with Elena, he took her hand, and they walked through the waving grasses that separated the landing area from Amanat.
Elena ran the fingers of her free hand across the tips of the grasses. “There’s such beauty here,” she murmured. “Sometimes, I think Caliane has the right of it—just put a bubble around our city and dare anyone to try and get through.”
But she was shaking her head even as she spoke. “Except what about the rest of our people, those scattered across the territory and the world? How could she have left so many behind? Was it because of her madness?”
This, too, was true—that while Elena was soft on Caliane, she saw his mother’s flaws. “I worry, Guild Hunter,” he murmured. “About the madness that took my mother and my father. It is in my blood.” Indelibly a part of him. “There are indications it may be brought to life by the surge in power during a Cascade.”
“Don’t worry, Archangel. I’ll shoot you between the eyes if you show signs of impending psychotic delusions.” The near-white canvas of Elena’s hair was licked with orange-red as the setting sun caressed her, her eyes liquid silver that burned. “Then I’ll drag you to Keir. If he can’t help, you’ll be putting us both into Sleep. I’ll figure out a way to make you.”
“I am most assured.” Lifting their linked hands, he kissed her knuckles, while behind him his wings trailed over the grass, leaving a dance of fire that didn’t scorch.
“I’m serious.” She ran her fingers through his hair, locked her gaze to his. “I’ll never let you fall. We do this together.”
She was a young immortal, with no power when compared to him . . . but he knew she would keep her word, hold him to account, not let the cold of immortal power win. “Always,” he said.
A fierce kiss before she turned her attention to the shield less than fifty meters away. “Shall I?”
“My mother will be most disappointed if you do not.”
A wicked grin. “Also, I want to show off.” Light burst out of her back and in the colors of sunset sparked wings as extraordinary as his consort.
“Elena, they are no longer pure white-gold and lightning.” Color had begun to bleed out into the fire. Black at her back that faded into indigo, deep blue, and the whispered shade of dawn. The same colors as the wings he’d been forced to amputate to save her from further pain—but lightning danced through them now, violent and beautiful.
Instead of looking back to see the change, she touched the fingers of her free hand to his jaw. “No brooding. We survived. And I got retractable wings out of it. I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I.” If he hadn’t done what he had, made the choices he had, she might not have returned as his Elena, with her own memories and thoughts and emotions. “But I will never forget slicing off your wings.” It would haunt him forever, that image.
“I know it was a fucking nightmare.” Both hands on his face now. “But those wings were dead already. Because of what you did, I was able to turn into a butterfly.” She frowned. “Okay, I suck at metaphors, but you get what I mean.”
“You are a butterfly with warrior’s wings.” He kissed her hard, holding that image in his mind, of her emerging from a chrysalis into a being of beauty and strength.
Light lived under Elena’s skin when they parted.
At last she looked at her wings. “Guess these are my colors and I’m determined to have them.” A satisfied look in her eye, she ran her fingers through the energy.
It was thus, both of them afire, that they walked through the shield and came face-to-face with the woman who was the template from which he’d been cast.
27
Caliane was no longer the oldest Ancient awake in the world—the Cascade had been stirring up many things, including Sleepers who had lain dormant in secret places for eons upon eons—but she was unquestionably one of the two most powerful.
She wore a gown of cerulean blue with bejeweled clips on the shoulders and sleeves that flowed down into cuffs embroidered with delicate care. Her skirts floated to brush the earth, her midnight hair soft waves down her back.