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)
Their blood will ever coat my hands.
Words she’d spoken to him as they stood on soil that had once held a thriving city, then later, only the graves of the soul-shattered children of those she’d sung into the sea. Today, it was an open field, the graves long since lost to time—but it remained a place sad and haunted, land on which no one wished to live.
“Marduk,” she said now in that flawless voice that could be a weapon terrible. “You are older than any other archangel in this room. Do you know the answer to the question of why the Mantle is failing when it has held for all eternity?”
“Raphael has told me of events that have occurred within his lifetime.” Marduk’s grating voice filled the room. “The madness of two archangels, the loss of one, and the near loss of the other.”
Caliane didn’t flinch, but Raphael knew that within, his mother mourned. She always would. She had fallen in love only once in her immortal lifetime, would never fall again.
Some loves could not be redone, could not be found again.
Should Elena die, Raphael would do his duty—and then he would walk beyond the veil in the hope of finding her once more.
“He also,” Marduk continued, “told me of a relentless series of minor wars during the first few hundred years of his reign, and of a larger war that brought a disease that touches angelkind.”
“Charisemnon, that pus-boil on the earth.” Titus fisted his hand on his thigh.
Marduk nodded in firm agreement. “I have also learned of the Archangel of Death, one who turned her own people into shuffling half-dead shells.”
That wasn’t quite the correct description of the reborn, but no one argued.
“I have heard of Antonicus. And of Astaad, Favashi, and Michaela. Four archangels perhaps forever lost,” Marduk continued. “It is also not the first time in the recent past that such a huge loss has occurred.”
“I did not even know of Narcisse and Bhumi until of late,” Suyin murmured. “So short a time they had as archangels and friends before they turned on each other.”
A hundred years. That was how long Narcisse, Archangel of the Sun, had ruled. Bhumi even less. Her reign as Archangel of Persia had spanned a mere seventy-five years. Their deaths had been a foolish waste.
“We lost Jariel, too.” Titus’s face burned hot with rage, as it had the day he’d told them of Jariel’s abomination of a murder. “He was to ascend—and he would’ve been a good, strong, and calm-of-mind archangel. But he was killed in cold blood, his brain and body turned to ash but his head left untouched.”
Marduk’s face held as much anger as Titus’s, though he hadn’t known Jariel. “Never have I heard of this kind of atrocity. Only a rare few ascensions can be predicted, but those angels are protected by the Cadre. We understand what it means, comprehend that there is no promise of another ascension should one fail.”
“Don’t forget Uram,” Elijah said, his voice resonant. “The first archangel gone bloodborn in living memory.”
“Yes, he is the worst harbinger of all, worse even than your Archangel of Death. I would say he stands equal to the Archangel of Disease.”
Intrigued, Raphael leaned forward. “Why? Lijuan did the most damage.”
Marduk’s piercing eyes held his, the pupils round at present. “Because Uram and Charisemnon fractured the foundations of our society. Megalomaniacal archangels are to be expected in a race of immortals. But only once before have we become diseased. And never in all existence has an archangel gone bloodborn. Angels, yes, but never an archangel.”
Several people sucked in air.
Elijah frowned. “No, that cannot be so. Lijuan said she’d heard of others in the distant past.”
“I have also heard of such,” Caliane murmured, to a round of nods from the other Ancients. “She did not lie on that.”
Marduk’s smile was grim. “You carry eons of history among you. Which one of you actually knows of a case? Not from gossip, or from tales told around a fire, but true knowledge.”
I killed the last one, did you know?
Lijuan had boasted of that to Raphael, but the one she’d referenced had been an angel, not an archangel. Much as Raphael dug through his memories and knowledge of their history, he couldn’t find a single concrete example of another member of the Cadre who’d gone bloodborn.
“You’re saying they’re just stories?” Zanaya’s scowl did nothing to mar her intense beauty. “How can that be when we’ve all heard the same?”
“Being bloodborn is a primal terror we carry in the blood.” Marduk’s voice itself was a thing primal, guttural. “It is angelkind’s greatest fear. And so we tell stories of it as all peoples tell stories of that which terrifies them most.”
Raphael’s skin chilled, his mind awash in memories of bodies eviscerated and displayed like trophies. “Uram was the only one.”