Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Caliane had shattered his bones and splintered his heart.
Yet, today, he accepted her as his mother and had even begun to trust that her sanity would not once more slip away.
Love was no mathematical equation with absolute answers.
It could be volatile and hard and it could make you bleed.
“And you, Archangel?” asked the woman whose love was fierce and loyal and the most precious element of Raphael’s life. “You must be exhausted.”
“Yes, I’m going to shower and change.” He thrust a hand through his hair, the strands sweat-damp. “Aegaeon won’t be far behind me.” While Raphael had retained a percentage of his Cascade-given speed, he’d also landed during the flight to talk to Elena, and he’d hit winds that Aegaeon might’ve avoided on his flight path. “Rest will need to wait until our task is complete.”
“If Qin is gone, there’s going to be no resting for you or any other archangel.”
He dropped his forehead against the glass, arm braced over his head. “Let me have my delusions, hbeebti.”
Soft laughter. “Knhebek, Archangel. Take care of yourself or you’ll answer to me.”
Holding his consort’s words of love and care to his heart, he stripped, then used the shower rather than the readied bath. No doubt he’d been spotted by sentries. He’d made no effort to hide his approach, for this wasn’t about war.
“Small mercies,” he muttered to himself as he dried off his body after shaking any lingering droplets off his wings. Designed to sleek off wet, his feathers didn’t require much more when it came to water.
The provided clothing—dark brown pants and a sleeveless cream tunic in the same material as Atu’s clothing—were new and fit well enough. Guest items, he guessed, having the vague awareness that his Tower, too, kept a store of clothing for visiting angels who, for whatever reason, might arrive without spare items of their own.
It tended to be utilized by couriers for the most part, since they flew so light. Though regular couriers must have lockers in the Tower for long-term storage, he thought with a frown; he’d had the like during his own youthful stint as a courier. Wooden trunks, the top of each burned with the name of the court to which the courier belonged.
After dressing, he ran a hand through his now-clean hair. The light that poured in from the outside—a thick and rich yellow—caught on the amber of his ring as he lowered his hand. He raised it to his mouth, pressed his lips to it. A kiss for his consort, held in trust inside the symbol of his commitment to her until he could see her again.
He walked out of the room without delay, intending to talk to the general . . . and heard the sound of Aegaeon’s loud voice. Following it brought him to the main chamber of the residence.
10
Unlike most angelic homes, this one had no central core for upward or downward flight—because Astaad had built his residence to the local conditions. The glass-paneled central roof could be opened up in the mornings, then closed before the afternoon rains, to be opened up again later to the night stars and the balmy evening air.
Memory flickered.
“If it rains in the night?” Laughter in Astaad’s dark eyes, his goatee pristine and perfect as he raised a glass. “Well, then it is fate and it is as well this entire section is a haven for Mele’s plants.”
The plants, abundant in their richness of green, were gone now, along with the woman who’d tended them.
Raphael had been close to Astaad. Not as he was close to Elijah, but they had been, if not friends, at least friendly allies—and that relationship had grown when Elena formed a friendship with Mele, Astaad’s most favored and loved concubine—and a woman intelligent and kind.
As a result, Raphael had been invited to this home a handful of times over the years, as he had welcomed the Archangel of the Pacific Isles to his own home in the Enclave.
He’d seen Mele with her plants once during a visit, up on a stepladder with a long-necked watering can as she took care of a vine that waterfalled from a hanging pot. She’d been wearing a cotton wrap in a complicated sarong that appeared a strapless dress, the print yellow frangipani blooms against a black background.
What he remembered most of that moment, however, was Astaad standing at the bottom of the ladder, scolding her for climbing so high in bare feet, with such a heavy can of water. She’d been laughing, her usually composed expression open and mischievous.
Raphael had melted away, loath to interrupt that moment. He would never understand how Astaad could love Mele so but keep a harem, or how Mele could be so generous with her own heart, but the relationship had worked for them.
Now Astaad Slept in the hope of recovering from a wound grievous, and Mele and her sisters of the harem had left. All that remained was cold tile and seating areas grouped in corners no rain would reach even should the roof be open during a downpour.