Archangel's Enigma

31

Xi was amassing his troops on the outskirts of Rohan’s palace with the intention of taking it before Favashi was ever aware of the attack, when one of his commanders walked up to him with an urgent look on his face.

“What is it?”

“We’re hearing rumors of a swarm of insects above an oasis in the east, about five hours on the wing from here.”

Xi waited because the solid, stable man in front of him wouldn’t come to his general with such a thing unless it had a bearing on their proposed plans.

“Our closest operative in the area caught the report from an angel who was passing by. He admits he only glimpsed it from a distance in the moonlight, but he says there was something unnatural about the swarm—according to him, they were too perfectly in formation.”

It could, Xi thought, be a sign of Alexander’s awakening. It could also be a clever distraction or a moon dream on the part of the angel. This location still made the most logical sense, regardless of Raphael’s attempts to muddy the equation by putting the scholar on a jet to Michaela’s territory.

According to Xi’s people, the jet had been sitting on the tarmac since it landed, all doors closed. No way to know if the scholar and Raphael’s silver-eyed enigma were still inside. “Take half a squadron and check it out,” he said, on the small chance that his instincts had led him wrong.

After his commander gave a crisp nod and went to gather his soldiers, Xi turned his attention back to the matter at hand: how to get into Rohan’s home. Alexander’s son had grown into himself in the past four hundred years and he’d absorbed the lessons of his father.

Rohan was now one of Favashi’s most feared generals, having decided to give his loyalty to her when she became the Archangel of Persia. Prior to that, he’d technically been allied to no archangel and no one had challenged it, both because Rohan commanded the respect and affection of tens of thousands as a result of his bloodline, and because he was a powerful fighter and leader.

No archangel wanted to destroy an asset when he or she could win it to their side.

“Where is Favashi?” he asked the scout who’d just landed, because if Favashi was close, his plans would have to change accordingly.

“In Astaad’s territory.” The scout’s chest heaved. “She accepted an invitation to attend a festival there.”

Astaad’s territory was on the other side of the world. Even if she left at the first sign of trouble, it would take her considerable time to return. “Prepare your squadrons to storm the palace,” he ordered his commanders. “We’ll take Rohan by surprise.”

Decision made, he sent a message through to Lijuan. As he did so, he thought of the scholar with her translucent brown gold eyes and wings delicately patterned like a bird’s, and of her question about how he could follow Lijuan after all she’d done. He hadn’t punished Andromeda for the impudence of the question both because she was a scholar and as such, curiosity was expected, and because he’d found her intriguing as a woman.

Xi had always preferred intelligence over commonplace beauty. Had Andromeda not escaped, he’d intended to ask Lijuan leave to court her. He wouldn’t have taken the scholar without the scholar’s full consent—that was not the way of a true warrior . . . and it was a rule Lijuan had taught him when he first came into her service.

He’d been a scrawny boy who’d disappointed his warrior parents, Lijuan’s the only court that would accept him. He’d expected to be placed in a minor position and forgotten, but Lijuan had taken an interest in him from the start because of the patriotic red and gray color of his wings, treating him almost as a son. She’d put him into training with the best trainers, into studies with gifted tutors, into etiquette lessons with high-ranking courtiers.

It had taken a hundred years, but by the end of it, he was a man and one respected by others. His loyalty to his lady was also etched in stone. She had changed over the past decade from the wise—if righteously arrogant—archangel he’d first known, into something other, but she continued to treat him with respect and she continued to share her new power.

Sometimes, when he was far from her, he questioned her newly warlike ways in the privacy of his own mind, but he had faith in her. Lijuan had plans for the world and she was a goddess. He couldn’t hope to understand her vision. He could only follow, a loyal foot soldier.

Today, he spoke to his lady and said, “We prepare to take the palace.” Lijuan was the only one who could actually eliminate the threat posed by Alexander, for only one archangel could kill another. “I can’t yet confirm whether he lies within.” Lijuan eschewed modern conveniences like jets, and was currently too weak to constantly travel long distances on her own, so Xi had suggested she wait until he’d confirmed Alexander’s presence.

She’d accepted his advice when it came to Kilimanjaro, but today, her voice was steel. “I will come. You are right, Alexander would not leave his beloved homeland—I shouldn’t have doubted your instincts and sent you to Titus’s territory.”

Her voice faded into eerie screams for an instant, returned pulsing with power. “If Alexander is not below the palace, he will be nearby.” No screams now, only a voice so pure, it almost hurt. “Find him, Xi. I will do the rest.”