by Nalini Singh
Sharine understood warrior pride well enough not to offer to help when Kiama went to the heavy metal doors of the stronghold. Even here, in this battle stronghold, the door wasn’t just practical—it was carved with scenes of battle, with Charisemnon in full glory. Dust fell off those carvings in a musty shower, the metal groaning as Kiama began to flip the levers to gain them access.
A curious cat, black as night, wandered over to watch as Kiama lifted the final lever. The door seemed to shake and sigh, more dust falling to coat Kiama’s hair.
Proof enough that no one had been here since Titus’s people shuttered it. It hadn’t been a long period of time in immortal terms, but this environment was unforgiving. And nature was no gentle mistress.
Kiama pushed open the left door, the painful screech of the heavy metal making the tiny hairs on Sharine’s arms quiver in warning.
The cat hissed and stalked off.
“Well,” she said, “should the reborn wish to make a dramatic entrance, now would be the time.”
Kiama, sword already in hand, spoke stiffly. “If you do not mind my impertinence, my lady, it’s too soon for such humor.”
Abashed, Sharine apologized at once, then admitted the truth. “I’m speaking out of turn because I feel a visceral fear though there is no need of it.”
Expression tight, Kiama nodded. “I helped clear this stronghold of any and all threats and I feel the same. Evil has seeped into the walls of this place. Darkness lives here.”
Such a simple, powerful statement that rang with emotion. “You saw some of it?” she asked gently.
“I was part of Charisemnon’s court two hundred years ago.” Turning her head, she spat on the external cobblestones. “It was a loyalty of my family, to serve the same archangel. My mother and my father both stayed loyal to Charisemnon even as they saw him changing and becoming something far different from the archangel to whom they’d first pledged their swords.”
“I wish you’d speak freely,” Sharine said when Kiama abruptly flattened her lips and stopped talking. “I’ve been lost from the world for many years and my knowledge of such things is limited. I will never use what you say to slander you to your family or to others.”
A careful look, the warrior weighing her up. Sharine liked Titus even more so for having another such self-assured woman in his forces. She also felt a sense of deep pride when Kiama nodded, accepting Sharine’s word . . . accepting that she had honor.
“Charisemnon was always a man who liked power, liked beauty,” the young commander said, “but things began to twist inside him at some point. He started to cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed—especially by an archangel who has power over the lives of all who look to him.”
The two of them stepped inside, Kiama’s eyes alert even as she continued her story. “I couldn’t stand it and refused to follow orders if those orders were to take young women from their homes, or to enforce punishment for the lack of a tithe from the poor. I fought with my mother and father over it—and in the end I left. It was that or end up executed.”
Moving to the left, Kiama touched her fingers to a switch that filled the entrance hall with a soft light that added to the daylight coming through the windows. From beyond the open doors came a whisper of wings at the same moment, the warrior from Kiama’s squadron arriving to stand guard.
“My parents died in defense of him, that creature of filth and degradation,” Kiama said in a voice cold and hard. “I will hate him to the end of my days for stealing what time I had left with those I loved most.”
As a woman who’d been betrayed and who held her own anger close, Sharine understood. But as a mother, she was torn. That same maternal instinct compelled her to speak. “I know that should something like that ever happen to me, I wouldn’t want my son to live his life nurturing hate in his heart. Hate poisons, as much as a lust for power or envy.”
Commander Kiama looked at her, eyes flashing. “With every respect, my lady, my emotions are my own.”
Sharine smiled. “Yes, child. But I’m a mother—I’m afraid we can’t help trying to make things better.”
Kiama looked at her for a long moment before surrendering to a slight upward tug of her lips. “Even when we were on opposing sides of the line, my mother would send me messages ordering me to make sure that I was looking after any injuries, and that I was eating well.”
Sharine laughed, but left it at that. The other woman’s hate and anger were new yet, the wound fresh. It’d take her time to come to terms with the loss, and to make a decision about how she wanted to live her life. She did, however, have one other thing to say. “I hope you’ll allow me one more moment.”
When Kiama gave a small nod, she said, “Hate can be a poison, but turn it into an anger that fires you from within, and it becomes a strength.” She exhaled. “My anger has become my resolve.” It wasn’t about being revenged on Aegaeon any longer; she looked back and saw him as unworthy of such attention, of any further space in her head. This anger drove her to be the best she could be—for herself and for her son.
She took a step forward on that thought, into the court of an archangel who had chosen power above all else. He’d been willing to sacrifice not only those of his own kind, but mortals and vampires, too. No one had been safe from his ambition. And for what? To rule at the side of the Archangel of Death? Had he not understood that sooner or later, Lijuan would have no more use for him?
This first section of the stronghold proved relatively clean—a bit of dust, some cobwebs, but the tiles that lined the entranceway as well as the hangings on the walls weren’t marred by dirt or blood.
She ran her fingers over the intricate knotwork of one hanging and wondered at the lives of those who’d spent so long creating what was unquestionably a masterpiece. She recognized this work as coming from the region near Lumia; it was done only by mortals, the tradition so ingrained no immortal tried to change it.
That mortals made such hangings was part of why they were so prized. It was a thing of time and of devotion. This large a piece would’ve been the work of a lifetime for multiple artisans. For those artisans in turn, it would’ve been a thing of great generational pride that their work hung in the hall of an archangel’s court.
She walked on, under the wide curving roof, plenty of room for multiple angels to pass, and found herself at the lip of a sunken area that seemed to be a place designed for feasts and other large gatherings. Similar to the first level of Titus’s home, it was a massive space, with a soaring emptiness all the way up to the ceiling. But where Titus’s gathering area was square and all on one level, this was round with three steps leading down into it.
Ledges had been built into the walls, wide enough for several angels to use as a seat. Here, in this celebratory area that seemed far too baroque and richly decorated for a border stronghold, was where she found the first signs of chaos. Chairs overturned, carpets missing, smears on the walls.
“We washed those walls.” Kiama pointed at the stains. “But there’s no way to get rid of the stains without getting to work with steel brushes, and we had more looming problems. We just hauled out anything that was encrusted, threw out any carpets or hangings that were filthy with bodily fluids or ale or who knows what else. The sire incinerated all that with his power, and we left the rest for later.”
“The chances that it was blood or other fluids of life that stained the walls?” If so, that blood couldn’t all have been left by mortal hands. Some stains were too high up. Vampires were capable of climbing smooth walls, but she saw no telltale marks on these walls.
That left angels.
34
Kiama’s forehead furrowed as she looked up at the stains. “I can’t say. Whatever it was on the walls was very dry by the time we came here—it could’ve been anything, even food that had been thrown at the wall and left to rot.” She made a face. “Archangel Charisemnon was f
astidious about cleanliness when I left his court, but I don’t know if he held to such things by the time of battle.”
Sharine continued on through the space, taking in the artwork—paintings, rugs, sculptures, and more—much of which had survived the violence that appeared to have taken place here. Most of it was local to the territory and it made her wonder if this was the public hall.
Not many archangels allowed their populace open access to them, considering it a waste of time and resources, but Farah had mentioned that Charisemnon opened his doors on a regular basis. “Did Charisemnon continue his tradition of open houses while here at the border?”
“Until the very eve of battle.” Kiama curled her lip. “According to Ozias, the sire’s spymaster, it was more an exercise in vanity than a matter of allowing his people magnanimous access.”
As Charisemnon wouldn’t have done anything private in such a communal space, Sharine didn’t linger.
After exiting the public hall through doors at the back, she found herself with multiple options. Across from her was an archway that led to another courtyard open to the sky, beyond which lay another ornate building. To the left and right flowed staircases. “What would you recommend?” she asked her escort.
“Across the courtyard, then inside,” Kiama said at once. “Ozias’s spies confirmed that to be the archangel’s private area. From what we’ve been able to gather from those of his court that survived, he became increasingly paranoid about allowing anyone but his most trusted people inside in the months leading up to war. It’s also where we found the bodies.”
Abdomen tight, Sharine stepped out into the courtyard littered with dry leaves. When she looked up out of habit, she felt her heart catch at the searing beauty above. The sky was clear but for gossamer clouds of decoration. It filled her heart with hope; this beauty would exist no matter what they did or didn’t do on this earth.
“Why was he not content with this?” Kiama gestured at the sky, and at the stronghold silent and abandoned around them. “Why did he always want more? They call Titus the warrior archangel but in all my time in his court, he never picked the fight—always the aggression came from this side.”
With those words, Kiama stepped forward to cross the courtyard. “I’ll go first, Lady Sharine.”
Sharine didn’t argue. The other woman was the expert here—and Sharine had the power to back her up should danger come out of the darkness. But all that emerged from within the next building was a musty odor that had an undertone of rot.
Kiama coughed into the curve of her elbow to clear her throat. “Unfortunately,” she said afterward, “the only way to maintain security with our limited numbers was to shut things up after the basic clean.”
“I don’t like what I smell below the decay.” Sharine forced herself to take a deep breath in an effort to work out what it was that made her neck prickle and long-forgotten memories struggle to rise to the surface.
She’d scented something like this before.
Pinprick flashes of memory. The clash of swords. Wings crumpled and falling. Fangs in a pale face. Mortal bodies frozen in fear. “A mortal, caught in the crossfire of an archangelic battle—his leg was amputated. He became sick with gangrene.” Vivid memories now, of the crawl of green on his leg, the putrid odor. “Sickness, it is the taint of sickness that colors the air.”
“Why were you with the mortal?” Kiama asked without altering her intense focus on their surroundings.
“I—” Sharine frowned, followed back the thread. “I was a war artist . . . and I thought it was important to make note not just of immortal losses, but also of the other costs of war.” She shook her head. “I was naïve, I think, to believe most immortals would care for a dying mortal.”
Yet Sharine was glad to have done it, her fingers curling in as she remembered holding the feverish man’s hand so he wouldn’t be alone as he slipped away into the finality of death. Going where Raan and her parents had already gone. A place from which there were no return travelers.
“Here, this is where we found the dead.” Kiama stopped at an archway framed in a glittering array of semiprecious gemstones that shimmered and flashed in the sunlight coming from the high windows at either end of the entrance hall.
Beyond it stood a set of heavy double doors.
“There are no functioning windows inside,” the warrior informed her, “but this switch will bring light.” She flicked it with her elbow before using her body to shove open one of the doors.
Sharine could swear she heard a soft pop of sound, a seal breaking.
Chest tight, she walked inside to discover another large gathering area, but the chaos here was magnitudes worse. No rugs softened their footsteps and the walls were almost equally as bare. Scorch marks covered the floor.
When she looked up at where windows should be, she found only boarded-up squares of darkness.
“Boards were in place when we came in,” Kiama said before she could ask the question. “Those bloody marks on there, too.”
Sharine felt a chill in her blood. “An attempt at freedom?”
“Bound to fail. Windows have pretty but strong ironwork on the outside.” The warrior’s lovely eyes held cold reason when they met Sharine’s. “Thanks to Ozias, we know the ironwork was an addition, done some months before battle.”
Charisemnon, Sharine realized, had been building a prison in preparation for his plans to experiment on his own people; this had never been a quick decision. Turning on that chilling realization, her intent to examine the wall behind her, she found herself facing a sprawling painting of a small region in a land now called Mali. It was a place she’d visited an eon ago, Raan by her side.
Shock, a sudden jolt of memory.
She’d been so young and full of hope, happy and in love, and the painting was a riot of joyful yellows, oranges, even hints of pink. It depicted the sun rising over a field in which farmers worked and animals grazed, while two angels stood talking with an elderly human woman.
A simple scene really . . . but one of those angels was Raan, and so this was a piece of her history. The other one was the angel who’d hosted them. A fellow artist, she’d taken them to the nearby mortal settlement to show Raan the origin of a specific cloth dye.
Too full of excitement and happiness to stay still, Sharine had left them to their talking and climbed a nearby hill. It was when she’d looked back down that she’d seen this snapshot of golden-hued life. “I remember being struck by the perfection and harmony of this scene.”
Her fingers wanted to trace the lines of Raan’s face, even though he was recognizable only by the colors of his wings. Thank you, she wanted to say. Thank you for teaching me that love can be gentle and kind. Had he lived, the young woman she’d been might’ve one day flown from his arms, but she would’ve done so with love in her heart.
“It’s an extraordinary work, Lady Sharine.” A touch of unexpected awe in Kiama’s voice. “The sire was so angry when he saw it here; he said Charisemnon had no right to display a work of such beauty and heart in a place he’d turned into a death chamber. The only mercy is that it escaped unscathed from the carnage.”
Sharine looked, could see no signs of staining, or of physical deterioration.
“The sire—we all—wanted to fly it right back to the citadel,” Kiama added, “but we couldn’t take anything out of this room. The risk was too great.”
“It was the only possible decision,” Sharine said, warmth in her heart for the arrogant and blunt archangel who had kissed her with such passionate hunger, and who she already knew would leave a memory she’d never forget. “Charisemnon must’ve had the painting a long time.”
She smiled; nothing could dull her joy in the memories associated with this work. “Raan, the first man I ever loved, asked if he could gift the piece to the friend who hosted us for the visit that inspired it.
“Tho
ugh I loved this painting, I loved him more.” And so she’d given it to him, to gift to his friend. “She wasn’t a very powerful angel and she now Sleeps, so I can’t ask her to confirm, but I would assume Charisemnon saw it at some point and liked it enough that she gifted it to her sire.”
“Does it cause you pain to see your work in such a place?”
“No. Perhaps there was one here who needed hope and beauty in the darkest time. If so, I’m glad that they could look up and see the sunrise.”
“I should’ve guessed that would be your answer—no one who doesn’t possess a heart could paint with such glory.” She hesitated before blurting out, “One day, I hope to be able to purchase one of your pieces.” It was a thing of sweetness how this honed warrior admitted her dream, with a stifled excitement that had her lifting a little on her toes.
Sharine had lived a long and creative lifetime, but she tended to gravitate toward large canvases such as this one. Some were even bigger, covering entire walls. Her current project—a secret hidden in a light-filled warehouse Tanicia had organized for her on the edges of Lumia—was an image of Raphael, Elena, and their Seven with the gleaming skyscrapers of their city.
She intended to make it a gift to the archangel with eyes of devastating blue, this son of hers that she hadn’t borne. But the scale of it meant it’d take her years to complete. That tended to hold true for the majority of her work. The intricate piece that currently hung in Lumia had taken her a full half century.
Such was why, though she’d had a steady output for much of her lifetime, her pieces were beyond the reach of ordinary angels. It didn’t help that the passage of time and natural disasters had damaged any number. By the time she completed one piece, two more may have been lost or destroyed or just become brittle and fragile due to age.
