His small heart had first broken when his father left them. Though Sharine’s mind had fractured at the moment of Aegaeon’s calculated cruelty—not because he’d left, but because of how—she still retained fragments of memory from that time. One of the strongest was of squeezing her little boy close and murmuring to him that it would be all right.
But it hadn’t been all right. She hadn’t been strong enough. That her boy loved her still was the greatest gift of her life. Often, children strove to be like their parents, but Sharine would strive to be like her son: an honorable, kind angel who saw mortals and did not ever think them lesser.
“I will speak to Titus,” she promised the villagers. “He isn’t an archangel who would have his people starve. In the interim, I’ll ask my people to bring you food.” Lumia and the township had their own growing fields and internal storage areas, and those had escaped all harm.
She’d ask Farah to lead the mercy drops, to distribute as much as was safe without putting the township at risk. Immortals could survive a long time without food, but mortals had far less leeway. “Do not despair. Our land has undergone a devastating war, but it’ll rise stronger and grow into a beautiful jewel once more.”
Eyes bright, the people bowed low and deep, saying, “Thank you, Lady.”
It disturbed her, the shining hope in those eyes. They didn’t know to whom they bowed. They had no knowledge of the fractures inside her. And they didn’t hear the fear that whispered constantly in her ear: You are broken. You are mad. You will fail. And you will fall.
8
Avelina, your son does you proud. Barely half-grown, yet he has no fear of an archangel. Did you know he challenged me to a duel?
I stake my claim now—he will come to my court after he is of age. I’ll ensure your Titus is taught by the best of the best as he grows into his warrior spirit, as I did for the twins. And if I do my task right, he’ll wish to stay with me in the years to come. I would be lucky indeed to have both you and your children by my side in battle.
—Letter from Archangel Alexander to First General Avelina
9
Titus had just come in from the field, the dawn sun rising in a glory of orange-red, when one of his sentries sent back the message that Lady Sharine had—at long last—been sighted at the city border.
Groaning, he looked down at his blood-and-grime-splattered clothing, thought of his swords that needed to be cleaned, and just threw up his hands. There really was no point in trying to tidy himself up—it’d be more of an insult if he didn’t turn up to welcome her when he was at the citadel and not out fighting reborn.
Striding out the huge doors that flowed from his personal living area—doors he mostly kept open—he stepped onto his balcony, then took off. In the massive courtyard below, his people toiled, exhausted but devoted. Some were coming in, some going out, while another section dealt with the animals.
Still another group was sorting the weapons that had been brought in damaged or broken by the teams out in the field. Beside them worked the mechanics whose task it was to keep the vampiric troops’ heavy-duty vehicles maintained and ready to take hit after hit from the reborn.
The rotting creatures had yesterday succeeded in acting together to tip over one of the vehicles, but the vampire fighters within had survived because the vehicle was built like a tank. It also helped that they’d had flamethrowers on hand to fry any reborn who tried to crawl through the cracked glass of the windscreen.
The other glass, all of it toughened, had held.
The dull murmur of voices, the clang of weapons and the noise of the engines, the snuffing of the horses, it was familiar music that meant home. But he couldn’t rest this morn, couldn’t share a mug of ale with his people or just sit in the courtyard and clean weapons to wind down from a night of battle against the reborn. Groaning again at what awaited, he angled his wings and headed out beyond the bustle of his city and toward the northern border.
The sky blazed around him, red and pink and dazzling shades of orange. He loved this landscape and he loved the colors of the sky. He’d been Archangel of Southern Africa some thousand six hundred years and he would swear that each and every sunrise and sunset was different, was unique.
Yet despite the show of glory, he still saw the glint of a far different color in the distance, the indigo of the Hummingbird’s distinctive wings caressed by light—as if the sun itself was in love with her ethereal beauty.
Wings beating hard because there was no breeze today, no thermal to ride, he quickly closed the distance between them. The sooner he got to her, the sooner he could do away with the formalities, and have the bath he craved. But his forced smile of welcome turned into a black scowl as he brought himself to a polite hover a short distance away.
She wasn’t wearing her customary gown, and her hair was not only covered with dust, but in a braid that dropped over one shoulder. She was, in fact, in black pants and a light brown tunic not so different from his own garb—though he’d long done away with the tunic.
And while the straps that crisscrossed his chest were part of his sword harness, one hilt visible over his left shoulder, the other over his right, it looked like her straps attached to some type of pack.
The Hummingbird was wearing pants and carrying a pack.
He blinked.
Had he not known better, he’d have thought her a young angel out for the day. Perhaps even a warrior, though she was a little too slender to pull that off, no real muscle to her. Like most of the pretty beings in what the people within it chose to call the “gentle court,” and he saw as the tender heart of his warrior stronghold.
“Lady Hummingbird!” he boomed, then winced, because he’d told himself not to use his proper voice. The last thing he needed was for her to get the vapors and fall out of the sky. That would be wonderful. Then Raphael would be angry with him because he’d managed to insult and pain the mother of one of Raphael’s cherished Seven, and no doubt the rest of angelkind would think him an ogre.
But the Hummingbird didn’t drop from the sky like a small, startled bird. Instead, she came to hover across from him, a soft smile curving her lips. It struck him at that instant that she was beautiful, stunningly so. Shrugging off that errant thought because this was the Hummingbird and not a woman, he bowed slightly.
Yes, he was an archangel, but the Hummingbird existed outside the hierarchy of angelkind as far as he was concerned. He’d seen her work, been absorbed by it to the extent that he’d hunted down a piece for his own rooms. The person who created such transcendence, the person who had within them such grace, was to be treated with utmost respect.
“Archangel Titus,” she said with a bow of her own. “I see I have come at a bad time.”