Elena was reading a dossier of current events in a corner of the classroom while the kids created presents for Sam using arts and crafts when the sea crashed into her mind.
Something"s happened, she thought before Raphael could speak, scanning the classroom with frantic eyes to ensure everyone was present. Not another child?
Lijuan has sent you a gift.
Her soul iced over at the thought of what an angel who used death as her symbol would consider a suitable gift. Do you know what it is?
It’s keyed to your blood.
She couldn"t help her shiver. We’re going to visit Sam. I’ll be by after. She had a feeling the gift wouldn"t exactly put her in the right frame of mind to be seeing a hurt child.
Come to my office. I’ll send someone to guide you.
Anyone but Galen. She had nothing against his skills as a weapons master—bastard was good.
But his dislike of her was as solid as rock. And even on such short acquaintance, she understood that he wasn"t the kind of man who"d easily change his mind. Better to save them both the aggravation and avoid unnecessary contact.
The sea began to retreat. I must go.
She wanted to ask him what else was going on, but decided to keep her questions "til their meeting over the “gift.” For now, she was going to focus on the children, their excitement infectious as they readied themselves to visit their friend . . . not an archangel who found pleasure only in the dead.
Raphael flew to a distant corner of the Refuge, the echo of Elena"s mental touch still resonant in his mind. Elijah was waiting for him on a rocky outcropping far from prying eyes, his golden hair whipped by the mountain winds. Landing, Raphael joined him on the cliff edge. “What have you found?”
“They haven"t just closed their borders,” the other archangel replied. “Titus is readying himself to move against Charisemnon.”
Archangels didn"t meddle in each other"s affairs, even when those affairs led to mass bloodshed, but they needed to be prepared. “Titus refuses to accept that his evidence might be false?”
“He will not believe that a mere angel could"ve played them so very easily,” Elijah said,
“sparking a war that keeps them entangled in their own lands while this pretender desecrates the 131
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Refuge.”
Raphael stared out at the white-capped peaks beyond the gorge, thinking about their policy of noninterference. “Even in a border war, thousands will die. And yet we consider that an acceptable toll to maintain the balance of power within the Cadre.”
Elijah took a long time to reply. “That"s a very human statement, Raphael.”
“Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal.”
Lijuan had said that to him, after advising him to kill Elena.
The older archangel had been right—Elena had changed something in him. He bled faster, healed slower. But he"d also been given the most unexpected of gifts. “Perhaps it"ll keep me sane when I reach Lijuan"s age.”
“So one of us is brave enough to say it.” Elijah nodded. “She is not insane in the accepted sense.”
“Her mind isn"t broken,” Raphael agreed, “but the things she"s using that mind for—they"re not what she would"ve done had she been truly thinking.” Lijuan was no longer anything close to what was known, but she"d always played the political game with a clear head.
“Are you sure?” Elijah bent down to pick up a pebble that had somehow ended up on the otherwise barren ridge. “None of us witnessed her youth, but there are whispers that she was fascinated with death even then. Some say . . . no, I cannot lay that slander on her without proof.”
Raphael said what the other archangel wouldn"t. “That she took the dead to her bed.”
A sharp glance. “You"ve heard the rumor?”
“You forget, Elijah, both my parents were archangels.”
“Caliane and Nadiel knew Lijuan in her youth?”
“No. But they knew those who had.” And what they"d told his parents had been whispered behind the thickest veil of secrecy. Because by then, Lijuan had already become a being to be feared.
“Now she"s the only ancient,” Elijah said, his voice contemplative. “They call us immortals, but we, too, eventually end up dust on the sands of time.”
“After millennia,” Raphael pointed out. “As Elena would say—are you not curious about what awaits us on the other side?”
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“According to many humans, we are the messengers of their gods.”
Raphael glanced at Elijah. “After Lijuan, you"re the oldest among us. She"s a demigoddess in her territory. Did you ever consider setting yourself up as one?”