Page 8 of Archangel’s Lineage
No, the Refuge could not be permitted to fall.
***
By the time the Cadre had worked out the next steps, Elena was exhausted, but she didn’t even think of sleep. Having, after the first emergency response, taken a couple of minutes to change into clothing more suitable for the work to be done, she got stuck back in.
Raphael did the same, the two of them touching base when they could. In general there were no more major discoveries, just the backbreaking labor of clearing debris and—for those skilled at it—undertaking emergency repairs or putting up barriers against the water that continued to boil at lethal temperatures.
As Elena was no builder, she helped with cleanup, and by hauling material for anyone who needed it. Her injured wing meant she was grounded, but she hadn’t bothered to see a healer. She’d torn that same tendon multiple times when she was first learning to fly and knew the only remedy was time—and the healers were dealing with injuries of infinitely worse magnitudes.
She was grabbing food for those healers when she saw Suyin rise up out of the gorge, a creature beautiful and inhuman with her flowing white hair, her face without flaw but for the single beauty mark below the far edge of her left eye that was no flaw at all, her wings as white as snow but for the bronze primaries.
Across her arms lay the limp body of an angel whose back was broken, her wings sheared off and her pretty yellow gown smeared with blood and dirt. But her head was still attached to her neck.
Then Suyin met Elena’s eyes, silent tears streaking her cheeks.
The angel hadn’t made it. Either her spinal cord had been severed at the neck despite the appearance of connection... or she’d been crushed until even her angelic cells couldn’t keep up.
Elena swallowed the thickness in her throat, and made herself continue with her task, even as Suyin continued with hers.
Time rolled on.
An hour. Two.
Still no sign of Qin.
***
The clock ticked over to eleven a.m.
***
Raphael had always had sympathy for Qin. He understood what it was to love until the idea of being without the woman who was his heart tore him to pieces. That Qin loved an angel who couldn’t stay in the world because her terrible gift drove her to madness was a hell he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
But the other man was still an archangel. That level of power came with a burden of responsibility. And while Raphael disliked Aegaeon for many reasons, the other man was right: not turning up to this prearranged meeting of the Cadre was a declaration of war.
That, however, wasn’t the worst of it.
“After our earlier discussion,” Titus said, his expression murderous, “I made contact with my spymaster. Ozias has been in Qin’s territory this past week.”
No one blinked at that. They all spied on each other.
“She was in the midst of preparing a missive for me. Qin hasn’t been sighted for a week, his absence pointed enough that she is certain of the intelligence.”
Curses turned the air blue.
Even Suyin, quiet by nature, muttered under her breath, a tic in the fine line of her jaw.
Zanaya’s next words were far louder, her rounded cheekbones smudged by a layer of grime; the Queen of the Nile had helped Suyin rescue multiple people from collapsed homes on the inner surface of the gorge.
Beneath the grime, however, her skin was aglow with anger. “He has gone into Sleep, leaving us with only eight archangels in a world that has only just recovered from a calamitous war followed by a vampiric uprising?”
Aegaeon threw back his head in a roar that shook what little glass remained in the windows of the houses closest to the square.
Elijah was calmer, but his shoulders bunched hard with muscle as he shoved a hand through the dust-coated golden strands of his hair. “Have you spoken to his second?” A question directed at Titus.
“No. I only managed to speak with Ozias shortly before this meeting. But I think Zanaya has it right—the bastard has gone into Sleep.”
“Agreed.” Caliane’s cold, clear voice. “So, now we are eight.”