Chapter 14
Ah, my Tia. I need you.
—Archangel Marduk (After the Waking—As the Mantle Fell)
As it was, despite her increased caloric intake, Elena was still a few pounds lighter than she should be—and definitely didn’t look the least bit pregnant—when they entered Marduk’s territory for the ball five days later.
No one would ever guess the secret cradled in her womb. Only…
She came to a hovering halt in the sky above the arid beauty of the red landscape Marduk had claimed for his stronghold. Raphael moved past her, only to circle back when he realized she was no longer by his side. “Guild Hunter?”
“Um, do you think Marduk will do that blood-of-my-line thing with…” She indicated her stomach.
Raphael’s eyes widened before he rubbed his jaw. “He already knows you carry some of my cells in your body, and the babe isn’t large enough yet to be a presence to anyone but a healer.”
“Right, your archangelic cells should provide cover.” Because she wasn’t ready to talk about their child in a social setting. The subject wasn’t and would never be a light one for her—and it had nothing to do with the continued question of their child’s immortality or mortality.
Neither Nisia nor Keir had had any luck in explaining the situation.
Only one thing was clear—the mortal cells continued to multiply at a rapid pace.
But having accepted the possibility that their child might not be immortal, Elena and Raphael didn’t focus on it, instead enjoying seeing each new scan of their baby as it grew inside her.
The flip side to their joy was the violent shadow of her childhood.
The nightmares refused to let go.
She leveled out in flight, Raphael beside her as the two of them flew toward the low-lying stronghold that melded into the desert landscape with a grace that made it clear it had been built for this environment.
Surrounded by desert plants, with no city in sight, the entire area was also a haven for wildlife.
The design was Suyin’s, the Archangel of China having gifted it to Marduk after Marduk asked her if she would consider designing his stronghold. He’d offered her priceless jewels and art in recompense, but she’d told him he’d already given her a gift in reminding her of her heart’s joy.
“I have missed creating,” she’d told Elena when they talked. “My lands have healed, my people are strong—I think I will pick up my pencil again.”
Elena had been surprised by the restrained nature of the stronghold’s design—it seemed unusual for a man who tended to stick out in every other way.
She’d have figured it for Suyin’s aesthetic except that Suyin had been clear that Marduk was the one who’d requested a “home elegant and so of the landscape that it appears to grow from it.”
Only later had she understood that Marduk’s singular presence wasn’t a choice.
“In my time, Elena-hunter,” Marduk had said to her once in that voice so deep, it almost hurt the ear, “I was just one among many. This is not my time.”
Yet he’d stayed because the world needed him—though he’d been a lot happier about it since Tiamat-Neith’s tumultuous waking.
Coming to a hover above the rooftop that was their designated landing area, Raphael held out an arm. “Ready?”
She slid into place against his arm, collapsing her wings at the same time, the trust between them absolute. “Ready,” she said as he took over keeping them both aloft.
He took them down, his arm as solid as steel around her. “You are as beautiful in this golden light as you are against New York’s glittering skyline.”
Her stomach fluttered. “Stop it.” She loved it when he flirted with her, allowing the young angel he’d once been to rise to the surface. “Or don’t.”
His smile was wicked, the blue of his eyes incandescent, but there was no more time for play, because they were landing, and their hosts were striding across the large, flat surface to welcome them.
The harsh Australian sun glinted off the iridescent darkness of the scales that covered the right side of Marduk’s face before flowing down his neck and over his shoulder, down his arm.
His skin had been a burnished brown when he first woke, but it seemed as if it held sunshine within now, it was so rich and intense with health.
There was nothing about Marduk that would ever blend in.
His consort, meanwhile, a woman who wore as many blades as Elena, appeared to be a completely average angel at first glance, her skin a bronzed brown lighter than Marduk’s.
Oh, she was breathtaking. Of course she was.
Age and power clung to her, sharp in her cheekbones and a living flame in the opalescent green-black of her eyes.
Her hair was a fall of liquid black interspersed with threads of green that Elena had once thought a result of dye.
It wasn’t. Tiamat’s hair grew like that.
Which was the first clue that even though she had two arms, two legs, and skin as was normal in this time, Tiamat wasn’t from this time.
Her wings were the second clue: a rich greenish-black, they appeared feathered at a distance, but get closer, and it became apparent that her feathers were but a mere suggestion.
Almost like fur—she had a slightly thicker layer of those tiny feathers than Marduk, but that was it.
The only marked difference was that she didn’t have the twin claws that surged out of the inner top edge of Marduk’s wings.
“I was born some time after Marduk,” Tiamat had told Elena when she’d asked about the difference in their wings. The other woman had been grinning at Marduk at the time. “He was somewhat of a grumpy old man when we became one, but I only remind him of that once or twice a year.”
Tiamat was of an age that was a crushing pressure on the bones, so for her to say that about Marduk…Elena had to stop thinking about the depth of their combined history or she’d go down a rabbit hole from which she might never emerge.
“Ellie.” Tiamat’s embrace was a thing of power and warmth.
Elena returned it as fiercely. Once, she could’ve never imagined that she’d have anything in common with a being of such an age that she was almost another species.
Because Tiamat-Neith, Huntress of the Ages, was not an angel as the current world thought of angels.
Under the fine black ornamental armor she’d chosen today lay her true armor: a shimmer of green-black scales that started at the back of her neck and spread along her shoulders before arrowing down along her spine.
No one could ever separate Tiamat’s head from her neck, her natural armor was that tough.
Yet it felt as soft as well-worn leather.
Having realized Elena’s curiosity regarding it, Tiamat had offered Elena the chance to touch it.
Elena would’ve felt weird about it except that it hadn’t felt weird because they’d been close friends by then.
It had felt, oddly enough, like Demarco pumping up his biceps after a session at the gym, and telling her to feel. Just a friend showing off something of which they were proud.
Elena would’ve shown off that spinal armor, too. It was phenomenal.
It also looked breathtaking when Tiamat wore backless gowns to angelic functions, the scales shimmering in the light until it became clear that they carried hues from peridot to obsidian.
“It’s so good to see you, Tiamat.”
“And you.” Tiamat drew back, and with the two of them the exact same height, the eye contact was piercing.
There, another clear clue that Tiamat wasn’t an angel from this timeline. In the pupil of Tiamat’s eye moved something too quick to see, to pin down. A ripple or a spark…something. Not like the light in Zanaya’s eyes, or even Venom’s nictitating membranes.
No, this was other in a way that sent a primeval shiver up Elena’s arms.
But about that eerie truth, Tiamat was an enigmatic mystery. “Some secrets are to be kept, my young friend,” she’d said to Elena’s questions. “That is why we chose to Sleep, to leave the world to the young. To take our truths—and our mistakes—with us.”
Today, Tiamat’s gaze was assessing. “You look tired.”
Abdomen tight, Elena shrugged. “Bad dreams.” True enough.
Marduk, having turned to her, scowled. “I have been having some myself. But we will talk more of that afterward.” He inclined his head at her in a silent greeting, a glint in his eye, this ancestor of Raphael’s who had a streak of the wild in him. “Come, you are the first to arrive.”
Tiamat’s laughter was a deep, husky thing. “Because we invited you to arrive earlier. Marduk’s patience runs thin with certain others and he did not wish to be alone with them.”
Elena wasn’t exactly surprised; Marduk had often declared that he’d have started at least three wars by now if he weren’t so tired after his long life. “I am on edge and it is not good for anyone,” he’d said. “It is only having Tia with me that dulls my blade somewhat.”
The way he’d said those words, the way he’d looked at Tiamat, made it clear that he considered that a blessing, not a curse. As if without her, he’d go through life in a rage.
“Were you always annoyed by the world?” Elena found herself asking today. “I was told you were more of a peacemaker.”
“Peace can be made with a sword,” was the deep-voiced response as the other couple walked them inside. “But no, I was not so…drawn thin in my time.”
Tiamat slid her hand into his. “It is why we decided to rest,” she murmured. “Our time was done, and we felt…wrong for the time that had begun to dawn. It created a constant stress within us that made us less than safe for others.”
No doubt now, Archangel. They’re really getting ready to go back to Sleep.
Yes. Never have I seen them be so open about their exhaustion.
The knife of loss thrust itself deep into Elena’s heart.
She’d never bonded with Marduk, but Tiamat? Despite coming from the same timeline as Marduk, she’d become dear to Elena, a fellow warrior with a roguish sense of humor.
“No one ever warned me that immortality would be full of goodbyes,” she said after Marduk and Tiamat had shown them to their suite and left them to freshen up.
The ball was to take place the following night, with the rest of the guests to arrive later tonight, or early the next morning. Elena and Raphael’s luggage was already here, flown in prior to their arrival.
“Mortal or immortal, there is no predicting when we must say goodbye.” Raphael stroked his hand down her back as he dropped a gentle kiss to the curve of her neck, his body warm and strong behind her.
Knowing he was right, she leaned into him, letting him massage out the tension in her shoulders. “What will happen with only nine in the Cadre again?”
He wrapped his arms and wings around her, cocooning her in love. “Uncertain. We’ve been stable for many hundreds of years but for the odd skirmish, so it could go either way. Archangels snapping because there’s been too much peace, or sticking to it because they have enjoyed the past centuries.”
Elena tilted her head back. “Too much peace?”
He grinned, shrugged. “The Cadre is the Cadre, hbeebti. And some within it itch for war.” The grin faded, a heavy darkness sliding across his face.
Twisting so that she faced him, she said, “Raphael? What is it?”
“My mother.” His voice was rough. “I told you I was worried about her, even more so because she has been waving off all my attempts to visit her, but I didn’t tell you of a call I had from Amanat just before we left.”
Elena frowned but didn’t interrupt.
“You know what Avi and Jelena are like—as loyal as Dmitri is to me—but Jelena is worried enough that she made it clear that I needed to take the chance offered by this ball to assess her current state.”
Elena sucked in a breath. “That’s bad.” Jelena would’ve never suggested such a thing to even Caliane’s son himself unless the situation was at a critical point.
The last time Caliane had gone insane, it had led to the annihilation of the mortal populations of two warring cities, the scale of the deaths so vast that it was hard to comprehend.
The adults, Caliane had sung into the sea.
The babies, the children…the vast majority had died of grief and sorrow, and Raphael had been forced to watch, unable to protect the flickering candles of their lives. He had dug their graves, tiny burial vaults for souls far too young to leave the world.
In the aftermath, Caliane had broken her son, sent him plummeting to the earth with such force that parts of his body had sheared off, blood filling his mouth as he lay helpless in a field far from civilization.
“Yes, hbeebti, it is very bad.” He bent his head.
Weaving her fingers through his hair, she just listened as he spoke.
“The last time I saw her begin to decompensate in such a way,” he said, “was before her madness. I didn’t know what it meant then, just knew that my mother wasn’t quite right—I blamed it on her continued grief over having to execute my father, tried to be there for her, but at the end, it was as if she could no longer even see me.
As if I was more a vague memory than the son she’d raised with such care. ”
Elena’s stomach churned. “Did Jelena tell you anything else?”
“It took me some time to get it out of her, but she confirmed that Mother has not slept since our last conversation.”
“Shit.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps it is nothing but a bad spell and she will soon be herself again…but if not…”
He pressed his forehead to Elena’s. “The first time around, I stood no chance of making her listen. I am no longer that powerless youth. I will not permit her to unleash her might against the innocent—for if she does, she will lose herself in a way from which there will be no return.”
Raphael knew his mother; a single instant’s true awareness of a second atrocity and she would end Caliane, Archangel of Amanat, once and forever.
Elena cupped his face, her hands firm and strong, her gaze that of a warrior. “We won’t let that happen,” she said. “Even if I have to riddle her wings with crossbow bolts so you can pin her down and make her listen. We won’t let her fall back into the abyss.”
His temple pulsed again, the pain serrated. Ignoring it because it was nothing in the face of his mother’s impending madness, he admitted all of it. “I’ve been lying to you, hbeebti.”