Chapter 69
“Zoe, did I just see you kissing Izar?”
“It’s your fault, you know. I came to spend time with Nixie, and boom, there he was. I’ve run into Nasien here and there, and met Misha at the Tower, but how come no one told me about the sexiest brother?”
—Elena and Zoe (In the year of Phoenix Zakriel’s Birth)
Phoenix flew in truth for the first time six months later.
Raphael and Elena both hovered below the lip of the gorge—because of course their son had asked permission to try to fly from there “Just one time!”
Since they were both well aware he’d no doubt try it on his own one of these days, they’d said yes.
“Baby angels always attempt it,” Caliane had told them when she visited two months earlier.
“It’s a rite of passage. I know my child decided to do it well before he was cleared to do so—thankfully, his father was wise to his plotting, and there to spot him when he dived.
” A loving affection in her voice that applied equally to father and son.
Now, Raphael yelled up at their son, “Remember all your lessons!” Not just the ones with Galen, but the ones with Raphael.
Elena had given him that gift. “I have him all to myself when you’re pulled way for Cadre business, or back to New York.” A gentle palm on his cheek, love unending in the silver fire of her eyes. “Flight lessons can be father-son time. I know you’ll both love it.”
They had, spending hours together day after day, Nix’s determination to take flight unending. At one point, a puffed Nix had fallen backward into a mass of dry leaves of all the hues of fall, and said, “Flying is hard, Papa.”
Raphael had lain down beside his son, this fragile piece of his heart. “Shall I tell you about how your mama learned to fly?”
A beaming grin as Nix turned his head. “Mama says you pushed her! Like a baby bird!”
Laughing, the two of them side by side on the leaves, Raphael had told him the full story of Elena’s journey to flight. “She worked just as hard as you’re working,” he’d said. “She never gave up.”
“Just like me!” Nix had sat up, leaves stuck to his hair and wings.
Looking at this child with his skin of dark gold and eyes that bore a silver ring that bled a fine white fire into the blue of his irises, Raphael had seen love made physical. For Phoenix Zakriel had been born of the love between a mortal and an immortal, a hunter and an archangel.
“Yes,” he’d said through the hugeness of emotion in his chest. “You’re just as determined as your mother.”
“It scares me, hbeebti,” he’d said to Elena that night, as they lay in bed facing each other, “how much I love him. How much I love you. How happy I am.” As if the universe would decide it was too much and snatch it away.
She’d stroked her fingers through his hair and confessed that she felt the same. “But then I remind myself of the insanity that was the start of our life together, and I figure we’ve got enough credits in the karma bank to cash out for the rest of existence.”
As always, his hunter had exactly the right perspective on things.
“Death Cascade,” he’d said.
“Creepy reborn,” she’d added.
“Uram.”
“Ugh, that thing Her Batshitness raised to fuck with me.”
“You got wrapped up in a cocoon.”
“Our house blew up. I really liked that house.”
“I lost my favorite sword in that explosion.”
What had begun as a crushing rock on his chest had turned into laughter and an exploration of all they’d lived through, all they’d survived, and all they’d conquered.
Together.
Always.
Now, they watched their son take a deep breath, spread his beautiful wings against a misty Refuge day…and soar into flight. His scream of delight filled the gorge, filled Raphael’s entire being.
He yelled up his own excitement, as did Elena, then they—hands interlinked—hovered proudly while their son flew. He couldn’t keep himself aloft for long and soon began to glide down, but Raphael was there to catch him before he went too far.
He nuzzled his son’s soft hair. “Well done, Phin!”
“I flew, Papa! Did you see me?”
“Yes,” Raphael said, his throat thick. “I saw you.”
“Mama! I flew!”
“You did, baby!” Elena beamed. “You were incredible.”
There, in the misty surrounds of the cavernous gorge that bisected the Refuge, Raphael had everything in the entire universe.
* * *
It was a year later, with both Phoenix and Aanisa able to hold themselves aloft well enough to fly around the Refuge—even if they did resemble drunk bumblebees—that the time came for the next step in both children’s journeys.
Raphael squeezed his son’s hand on one side, while Elena, on his other side, reached over to straighten Nix’s hair. Raphael wanted to reassure their son that this would be all right, that he’d enjoy his time at the Refuge school, except—I think we are the only ones nervous.
Elena’s laughter was a silver dance in her eyes. Oh, we are absolutely the only ones nervous. He already told me he’s planning to sit with Anise, and that they’re going to play a game at break with their “big kid” friends.
Given the scarcity of births in the decades prior to Aanisa’s and Phoenix’s births, those “big kids” were either newly adult angels or youths on the verge of their hundredth birthdays; the time they spent at the school would be out of affection for the little ones now in their midst—and out of respect for the teacher who’d asked them to stand in as playmates until the five younger children in the Refuge were of an age to join Nixie and Anise at school.
Phoenix tugged at their hands. “Faster, Mama! Papa!”
“You’re eager to learn,” Raphael said. “Perhaps we will have a scholar in the family.”
Halting, Nix looked up at him. “Will I have to study a lot?” A plaintive question, the first sign of worry that perhaps school wasn’t all his mortal friends back home—the children of the descendants—had talked it up to be.
“Not so very much,” Raphael reassured him. “You’re a small angel, so mostly you get to play. But do us proud and listen when your teacher speaks. She’s very clever and kind.”
Nix went to reply, but that was when he spotted Aanisa standing in front of the school with her own parents.
“Anise!” Despite his excitement, however, he didn’t let go of their hands, which told Raphael that no matter if he was looking forward to school, this was still a big and scary step for their boy.
Aanisa looked over with a huge smile, her own hands linked to Elijah’s and Hannah’s—who had chosen to wait the month until Phoenix was of age for school before starting their little girl.
It was the done thing in angelic circles among year-mates, as it meant no child started alone if at all possible. A month, even a year, so long as the child was happy, wouldn’t matter in an immortal life.
“Raphael, Elena.” Hannah’s face was wreathed in joy. “What a momentous day it is.”
Then Jessamy was there to lead her new students inside.
“Now, you four,” she said, her hands on the children’s shoulders, “need to go amuse yourselves for the next two hours.”
That was the entire length of the school “day” for the smallest in angelkind, but it seemed to stretch out like an eternity in front of Elena as she forced herself to wave bye at their son, who waved back without a care in the world.
The only thing that would’ve made the day better for him was if Bengal and Tigress had been permitted to attend. He had, however, perked up when Naasir told him that the two not-housecats were going visiting in the mountains for a couple of weeks.
“To see family,” Naasir had said. “Catch up on the news.”
“Adventures?” Nix had asked wistfully.
A wild Naasir grin. “Of course. You can share stories after they return—they’re very curious about school, too.”
The idea of them all having adventures had been the final happy bow on Nix’s enthusiasm for school.
He’d spend one term in the Refuge school the next in New York doing schoolwork that Jessamy set him.
He’d be supervised by a tutor then, but would also have sessions with Aanisa and Jessamy using an obsitru room, with flexibility for special events at either location.
Aanisa would be on the same schedule, spending half the year in South America.
The two sets of parents had already agreed that the children would visit each other often.
“Shall we all go sit nervously together and share a drink?” Elijah’s droll comment had the four of them cracking grins.
In the end, they did decide to go ahead and get that drink—however, it was a celebratory one for this new milestone in their children’s lives.
Hannah lifted her tankard. “A toast to a time of peace, of no one acting the idiot, so that we can all be here to walk our little ones to school on their first day.”
“I’ll toast to that.” Elena touched her tankard to Hannah’s where they sat in a small bar situated on the street of eateries that had emerged in the Refuge over the past half-millennium.
Prior to that, angelkind had flown to nearby villages, and they still did so for items produced by the villagers, but they’d come to enjoy having small restaurants and bars inside the Refuge.
It meant that they, and the powerful vampires who were trusted here, could all be themselves without worrying about mortal sensibilities.
To Elena’s enormous pride, it had been Sam who’d helped found the Refuge’s first such establishment: the Refuge Tavern. It had come out of his love of New York’s wide array of neighborhoods within neighborhoods, all with their own thriving restaurant and bar scene.
He’d roped in three year-mates who were based at the Refuge.
The tavern’s first customers had been friends and family, there to be supportive of what they saw as the “younglings’ strange venture,” but word had spread—especially among the younger cohort in the Refuge—until the place was overrun.
Today, Elena, Raphael, Hannah, and Elijah sat in a corner booth of the tavern. Their conversation had nothing to do with being archangels and consorts, and everything to do with being the parents of smart and energetic little children.
What a life I’m living, Elena thought. Maman, you’d be proud of me. And you’d love Nixie.
A whisper of gardenias in the air, the ghostly kiss of a mother long gone.
At peace with the loss now, able to think of all the good times she’d had with her family, Elena leaned into her archangel when he put his arm around her, and she laughed at the story Hannah was telling about Aanisa’s attempt at a chocolate pie heist right from under the nose of the stronghold’s chef.
What a life…a beautiful life.