Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
So he executed his brother with mercy, using a small pulse of archangelic power to still his heart and cut the connection to his brain. Before he did so, however, he went in with delicate grace and took all of Osiris’s memories to do with the chimera. That wild and angry boy, should he survive, should he be sane and capable of understanding, would deserve to know his history one day.
He made sure Osiris felt nothing, that he died believing he’d soon be feted as a pioneer of legend. He went in peace . . . but Alexander felt none. In taking his brother’s memories, he’d learned a thing even more terrible than what had gone before: Osiris did yet keep concubines, but they were nothing akin to clever and witty Livaliana, who’d once been so cherished of Osiris.
Rather, Osiris had specifically targeted women with simple minds and no curiosity, women who’d be happy with fripperies and a life of luxury and not demand anything more from him. He housed all four in a large stronghold far from other angels. Though he visited his lovers but rarely, the four concubines were all angels.
Osiris had attempted to sire an immortal child on whom to experiment.
Alexander crouched there with his dead brother’s hand in his, and he cried. For a loss that would haunt him forevermore. Each memory of Osiris tainted, their shared laughter a cruelty now. Everything hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said, speaking not to his brother but to all the dead children who lay in this place.
He could’ve sworn a cold whisper passed over his neck.
Looking down at his brother, he knew that Osiris was unwanted here. He was the intruder now. So after one last touch of his brother’s hand, Alexander turned Osiris to ash, then used his power to gather all that ash into one of the containers in the laboratory. “He won’t hurt you anymore,” he promised the small ghosts who stood staring up at him.
An icicle broke to crash onto the floor as he turned to leave and he knew he was unwanted, too. Blood of the man who had done this abomination.
Chest a spiderweb of cracks, he left his brother’s victims to their icy peace.
Stepping outside, he looked for Raphael and found him in the distance, the child in his arms and what appeared to be a sack at his feet. The angel had taken off his warm and heavily lined outer jerkin and put the child into it. That it had no sleeves mattered naught—the child was small enough that it enveloped his otherwise naked body. Not that the wild chimera seemed impressed with the item of clothing. He kept biting at the leather, but at least he wasn’t trying to escape Raphael’s arms.
Raphael had also wrapped the boy’s feet in something and was likely using his own angelic body heat to keep him warm. Still, from what Alexander had gleaned from his brother’s mind, the child wouldn’t last long in this cold. They had to get him out of here. But first—Raphael, I wish to transfer Osiris’s knowledge to you. I shouldn’t be the only one who knows the boy’s history. Even archangels could die—or go into Sleep.
I agree to the transfer, Raphael replied. I also took what appear to be your brother’s diaries from the bookshelf upstairs. The child may prefer to read them alongside, or rather than, being told of his history by you or me.
Alexander saw the awful sense in that . . . even as he felt a dark revulsion against so much as touching the diaries that he knew his brother had hunched over with fanatical passion. Those memories had been vivid imprints in Osiris’s mind. Osiris’s hand had flowed across the page, the ink threatening to smudge from the speed of his need to put down the thoughts of his breakthrough.
He had called the beginning of his descent into evil “a glorious moment of genius.”
Alexander didn’t challenge Raphael’s right to hold the diaries in trust for the boy. All he said was, I will complete the memory transfer now. So it was done, the terrible knowledge now a burden borne by two. I can’t destroy this stronghold, he said to Caliane’s son. It is a burial ground. But it can’t stay here to be discovered. What happened here can’t ever be known. With that, he rose into the air.
In the distance, Raphael did the same, the boy as well as the diaries in his arms.
Then, with Osiris’s ashes held in one hand, Alexander used his power to collapse the ground under the stronghold in such a way that it formed a uniform crater that cradled the house. And though no ravens could ever fly in this cold place, a raven’s feather fluttered to land atop the roof.
He made sure the stronghold remained undamaged as he dug the crater deeper and deeper. Until at last, the stronghold sat so deep that no one would ever accidentally find it. To further make sure of that, Alexander turned the rock shelf below which it had sheltered into dust.