Налини Сингх - Archangel's Sun

An easing of the tension across his shoulders. “Do not land after dark unless it’s in a city or a town with plans of protection. That’s when the creatures are most active—though please don’t let that make you complacent in the sunlight. When they’re hungry enough, they do not care about being caught in the light.”

“I thank you for the information.” She took in his city again. “You are few in number.” A sense of emptiness permeated the landscape.

“We lost many in the war.” Flat, tired words. “Others fell to the reborn.”

Sharine knew without asking that this warrior would never disparage his former archangel, but she heard the anger in his tone. “Do you wish me to take any news to Titus?”

When he hesitated, she said, “He is your archangel now. Past enmities do not matter, for such enmities are for the Cadre alone.”

He searched her face. “Even for the soldiers and people of an enemy archangel who sought to annihilate his land?”

“When titans fight, they pay no attention to the minnows.” A simple, brutal fact of life.

“Yes.” A bow of his head before he gave her a report that she promised to pass on.

Then, after assuring him she had no need of an escort, she flew past the scorched edge of the city and beyond. If the cities had caused her concern, the isolated rural settlements devastated.

Entire houses were piles of blackened rubble and farm fields lay barren.

Vultures scavenged on the remains of dead domestic animals, while leopards prowled deadly close to a populace become weak and incapable of defending itself. The hunting cat would wait for the night hours to strike, but that it was so far outside its normal wild territory told her the reborn—with their urge to tear apart all living creatures—had done significant damage to the ecosystem.

In one village, the mortals and those few vampires who hadn’t been called up to battle looked up with tired eyes that widened when she changed her path and came in to land. Bedraggled, lines of exhaustion carved into their thin faces, the people bowed deeply to her. “Lady,” they said. “We are honored.”

She didn’t know if they said that because they felt it, or simply because it was expected. It didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t here to be praised or feted. “Does Titus know of your state?” she asked, spotting the bones pushing against the dark gold skin of a child who was hiding behind his mother.

The villager who’d spoken first, an old woman who seemed to be the elder, swallowed hard. “We wouldn’t concern the archangel with our small problems. Not when the eaters of the living roam the landscape.”

Sharine could understand her reticence, but as with the angelic warrior, she had the feeling there was more to this. These people had belonged to another archangel their entire lives, and likely also believed that Titus would begrudge them their earlier loyalty.

Such a thing was not possible—and it had nothing to do with Titus himself.

In truth, humans rarely featured in the thoughts of archangels. One of the Cadre would no more blame humans for their archangel’s behavior than they would blame a pet cat. A harsh thought but that was the way of so many of the most powerful of her kind.

Raphael was different, but only because he had a consort who’d once been human—a consort who refused to forget her humanity even as she walked in the world of immortals. Without Elena, Sharine didn’t believe even Raphael would see mortals and young vampires as anything other than expendable pieces on a chessboard.

Sharine had been the same . . . and always different. Same in that she didn’t pay much mind to mortals, her life lived on the immortal plane and among their places. But different in that when she had come across mortals, she’d treated them as simply a short-lived species, no more or less worthy than angelkind.

Her beliefs had changed in the time since she’d taken oversight of Lumia. Now she knew humans as individuals. Now she looked forward to the shy, lopsided smile of Kareem, the stall owner who always offered her fresh mint tea. Now she had a favorite among the innocent, mischievous children who followed her in the streets. Now she began to understand why her son had mourned so when he lost his human lover.

Those memories were tangled in her mind, but she remembered his sadness. Sadness so deep and true that it had penetrated her madness with the efficacy of a sharpened blade. Her boy was not naturally a being of sorrow, his laughter the soundtrack of his childhood for her. So she had noticed when he stopped laughing, when he stopped getting that glint in his eye that meant mischief and play. It had returned eventually, but altered in a subtle way.

His loss had left a scar that would live forever in his heart.

She thought she had held him then, rocked him in her arms as she’d done when he was a babe. She hoped that was a true memory and not a figment of her broken mind. She liked to think that she’d been there for him not only then, but at the other dark events in his life.

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.