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)
No anger or disappointment on their faces, just the love that had always been a part of his life.
“Whatever makes you happy, Alexander.” His father squeezed his arm before turning to look at Alexander’s mother with a tenderness that made Alexander blush. “Gzrel and I’ve always known that you’d walk your own path. Haven’t we, my heart?”
His mother’s laughter filled the room with sunshine. “I remember telling you that you couldn’t stay on with Osiris when you were little, and the arguments you gave me about it!” Dancing eyes. “Another child might’ve thrown a tantrum, but you used every one of the words in your vocabulary to try to convince me that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. If memory serves me, I believe you used exactly those words in that tone.”
Alexander couldn’t help but grin, and when his mother put her slender arms around him to hug him tight, he hugged her in turn. And it struck him how small and fragile she was; he was already taller and stronger than her. People could so easily hurt her.
Hit by a wave of raw emotion that clogged up his throat, he hugged her even tighter.
Afterward, his parents asked him if he intended to discard scholarship altogether, and Alexander shook his head. “My brother has often advised me that the warriors who rise the highest are the ones who are smart as well as skilled on the field of battle.”
“Those who stand in the courts of the archangels,” Osiris had said, “are more than brawn. They’re highly intelligent thinkers and informed strategists. Look, learn.”
Alexander had done exactly that, using the skills he’d learned at his parents’ knee to research the angels and vampires who stood as the seconds and senior courtiers of archangels. Not a single one could be labeled as brawn alone, though a number of them were lethal on the battlefield. Then had come the surprises. One second was an administrator with no battle experience whatsoever; still another wore the robes of a healer.
Alexander intended to get to the heart of those choices—as his parents had taught him, he wanted to understand. He didn’t want to just know. One was the surface of the lake, the other the deep waters beneath.
“I must admit I’m happy to hear that,” his mother said in response to his answer about his continuing scholarship, her fingers worrying the amber pendant she never took off. “Though it’ll be a path that will demand much from you. You’ll be careful of your health, won’t you, my son?”
When he complained to Callie about his mother’s overprotective worrying, she said, “That’s her job as a mother. At least that’s what my father tells me.” No twist of emotion on her face, an absence of memory.
Callie didn’t have a mama. Her mother had died giving birth to her. As a child, Alexander hadn’t understood how that could be so—immortals lived forever aside from in some very specific circumstances, most of which involved severe insult to the body, including beheading.
Older now and realizing he still didn’t truly comprehend any of it, he went home and asked his mother to explain it to him.
Gzrel was busy, but she put down her work, tucked her arm through his, and they walked all the way to the crack in the earth of the Refuge that had been there as long as Alexander could remember.
6
“It appeared some hundred years ago,” his mother said, having followed his gaze, “and it’s looking to develop into a gorge. I wonder what it will be in a thousand years, where it will stop its expansion.”
Alexander was used to such non sequiturs from his mother, especially when it came to the study of rocks and the earth, Gzrel’s specialty. “What do you think?”
“It’s too early to be certain,” she said with a frown, “but I disagree with those who are convinced the crack will swallow the Refuge. I believe it’ll stop expanding once it’s reached an equilibrium—though exactly when that will be remains a mystery.”
Alexander tried to think about what it must be like to be as old as his mother or father—thousands of years old!—but it felt like a rock on his chest, the idea of it. He wondered sometimes who he’d be if he ever reached such an age, but it was too far for him to imagine. Today was his reality, and today, he was listening to his mother talk about Callie’s mother. “Ma?”
“Yes?” She’d looked up at him, blinked. “Oh yes. Sorry, my son.” Patting at his arm with the hand she didn’t have tucked through it, she said, “Death in childbirth is unfortunately common among the mortals. Many things can go wrong while birthing a child, but as immortals, our advanced healing abilities ameliorate any such wounds to the extent that we never feel them.”