Andromeda’s lips twitched despite herself at Isabel’s suspiciously bland tone; she was curious to see the maidens’ idea of warrior clothing. “Wait,” she said when Isabel would’ve left. “Avi told me Suyin was in anshara. Did Keir say when she might wake?”
The humor faded from the other woman’s expression. “It may be many weeks or even months—she is very fragile.” A pause. “It appears immortals can die of sadness and loneliness, of an existence without hope. I never knew that.”
Tears clogged Andromeda’s throat. “Suyin . . .” She just shook her head, unable to put into words the pain she’d seen in the other woman’s eyes.
Isabel’s face reflected the knowledge Andromeda couldn’t articulate. “Caliane says it is a kind of willing the self to end. It takes a long time, but Suyin has had millennia. She probably wouldn’t have woken from her next Sleep.” Leaving on those solemn words, Isabel pulled the door shut behind herself.
Her heart feeling as if it had a crushing weight on it, and the knot in her stomach a lump of stone, Andromeda didn’t allow her gaze to linger on the bed but headed straight for the large bathing chamber. The already-filled and steaming pool of water to her left made her moan in want, but afraid she’d fall asleep, she indulged for a bare minute, then rose and washed under the shower.
As the fat droplets crashed onto her skin, she would’ve done anything to be where she’d been the last time she’d taken a proper bath, in that icy pool in the valley. She could almost feel Naasir’s strong fingers in her hair as he washed it, the sneaky touch of his hand on her feathers, the way he’d raced with her. “Hurry,” she whispered, her hand reaching out as if she’d catch him through space and time itself. “I miss you.”
24
Naasir wasn’t surprised when Jason landed beside him soon after he hit the shores of Japan. The barge hadn’t brought him all the way—he’d transferred onto another friendly and much faster vessel soon after Andromeda took flight. When he’d dived from the barge to swim across to the sleek little freighter, both crews’ mouths had fallen open. Someone had screamed.
He didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t swim.
“Andi?” he said to Jason as the two of them spoke on a deserted part of an otherwise busy dock.
“Isabel tells me she’s safe inside Amanat.” Lines of tiredness marked Jason’s ordinarily impassive face. “I just returned from the border between Titus and Charisemnon.”
“War?”
The black-winged angel shook his head. “A small skirmish neither side appeared to want to fan into full flame.”
“That won’t last.” Titus and Charisemnon had disliked each other for centuries if not millennia, and with the world going to hell, that dislike would collide into all-out war sooner rather than later.
“No,” Jason agreed as one of his feathers drifted to the scarred and stained concrete of the dock. “But the region’s stable enough right now that Raphael doesn’t have to worry about any ripple effects.”
Naasir had always liked Jason, but as he grew, he’d started to see that the strong, black-winged angel was lonely. Perhaps even lonelier than Naasir. He’d tried to draw Jason out, instinct telling him it wasn’t good for the angel to exist so tightly within himself, but Jason had stayed contained and remote. No longer.
“Your mate must be missing you,” he said. “You should go home.”
Jason’s dark eyes flickered the tiniest fraction but in that flicker, Naasir saw his friend’s raw need to return to his princess. “You and Andromeda will require backup.”
“If we do, I’ll contact the Tower.” Naasir had thought the plan through during his and Andromeda’s escape, discussed it with her. “Locating Alexander isn’t a sure thing.” Andromeda had made it clear her expertise only went so far—no one could predict an archangel’s actions with pinpoint accuracy.