32

There’s no need for worry. Raphael’s wing arched over her, shadowing her face. She does not sing any harm to these people.

Shuddering, her chest no longer so tight, Elena put her hand on Raphael’s thigh and just listened, giving in to the clarity and splendor of a voice unlike any she could’ve imagined. Around them, the entire marketplace had gone silent. Some people sank to their knees after a while, tears streaming down their faces, while others began to walk toward the tree where Caliane sat.

And in all those faces, Elena saw no fear or worry, only sweet serenity. She’s doing something, though, isn’t she?

I believe my mother is singing away the knot of hard, cold fear that lives in all these people. She is giving them a moment of perfect peace and untainted joy. It will hold only so long as she sings.

It was manipulation . . . but Elena couldn’t argue with it. Not here. Not when reality would return as soon as the song stopped. Every person she’d seen in this town looked as if they could break at any moment, the strain on their shoulders a painful burden. If Caliane could offer them a small respite without asking for anything in return, if she could put a balm on their pain for a short period, then how could Elena say that was a bad thing?

Yet she knew it was. She’s stealing their choice.

The Luminata have already done that, Raphael argued. She’s simply balancing the scales.

Torn as she was herself, Caliane’s voice a gift not many mortals would ever be lucky enough to hear, Elena didn’t pursue the argument. It’s not affecting us.

I’m shielding you.

She lay her head against his shoulder, let Caliane’s song sweep over and into her. Her eyes stung, her soul wanting to soar but held to this earth by what she’d learned today. All of it, it fit.

The vampire who’d sired a daughter with a mortal.

The woman with hair of moonlight who’d disappeared with a baby.

The birthmark on both Majda and Marguerite.

The baby who’d been orphaned as a toddler.

The way Gian and the older Luminata looked at Elena when they thought she couldn’t see.

And the “ghost” seen running from Lumia one quiet night.

*   *   *

Raphael heard the faraway echoes of thunder in the air twenty minutes after his mother began to sing, felt the air turn unseasonably cool at the same time. Something prickled across his skin. An instant later, Elena sat up, frowned. “The air’s sparking.”

“Stay here, Guild Hunter. Keep watch. I’m going to check the sky.” Rising, he moved to the center of the pedestrian road, where the people stood or sat in thrall to Caliane’s song, and spreading his wings, rose skyward.

It could be expected that the sky would be darkening as night started to fall in earnest, but the darkness he saw on the horizon was a roiling blackness that reminded him of the unnatural clouds that had crawled across the New York sky before hundreds of birds landed around him and Elena as they stood on a barge on the Hudson.

This storm, however, wasn’t created of birds, wasn’t a message from beings who had spent eons in the silent deep. The black clouds had a malevolent purple tinge; he knew the lightning arcing inside it could crash even an archangel to the earth. He’d witnessed its like when Alexander awoke, seen powerful angels go down with shredded wings when they attempted to get above the clouds.

Because this wasn’t ordinary lightning. It was Cascade-born. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

Elena, this storm is unnatural. Order the boy to tell people to go inside. I will ask Mother to stop her song. He knew no one would leave while she sang.

Caliane stopped the instant he told her of the Cascade storm building to killing fury. I will sing them to return to their homes, she replied a heartbeat later.

Not arguing against the manipulation that could save lives, Raphael landed back in the marketplace. People were bustling this way and that in the wake of Caliane’s song of warning. He knew that song would reach every corner of the town, Caliane having amped up the voltage without raising her voice.

The boy was gone, as were his great-grandparents—along with Elena.

Guild Hunter.

I wanted to make sure Riad and his great-grandparents got under shelter. She appeared from around a corner even as her voice filled his mind, her wings held tight to her back. Their house is literally just behind the market street.

Reaching him, she said, “Is there anything else we can do?” Her hands were on her hips and her eyes sharp as she took in the activity around them.

“No, but I think the people here should be safe until the storm passes.” Raphael watched a young man pick up a little girl and run into a shop that was putting up storm shutters. “These buildings are low to the ground to begin with, and most are likely to have a lower level underground, where it’s cool.”

Elena nodded. “Riad said he’d take his great-grandparents down to the cool room. That must be what he meant.” She looked around. “Let’s do a flyby, make sure no one’s been caught outside for any reason.”

Raphael took her into the sky, then splitting up, the two of them did a quarter-by-quarter flyover. They found no one in distress, children and elders and the infirm being assisted by the able-bodied, as should be in a healthy town. Clearly, this place had no problems of its own. The fear and horror came as a direct result of the Luminata situated on their doorstep.

Elena, start your flight back to Lumia. You need a head start. His consort was dangerously vulnerable in this situation. I’ll do another sweep, follow with Mother and Tasha. Both of whom were still in the town as Caliane continued to sing people to safety.

His hunter flew down to check on a child who was being pulled inside a house, swept back up to face him. “I think everyone’s inside or will be soon. Maybe we can just stay here until it passes?”

Raphael shook his head. “Caliane and I may attract the power of the storm.” The Cascade acted in strange ways and its effects were concentrated mainly on those of the Cadre. “We can’t take the risk of driving lightning down on this town.”

“You promise you’ll be following?” Elena asked as rain began to come down in hard stabs that had her wiping a hand across her face.

“I promise.” Raphael had no intention of abandoning her alone in the dark. “I’ll catch up to you before you’ve covered a quarter of the distance.”

After reaching out to touch her fingertips to his, Elena turned and flew in the direction of Lumia, wings of midnight and dawn disappearing into the murk created by the rain and the rapidly falling night.

Mother, you need to get in the air. The people are safe. He understood her weakness, understood that she was trying to make up for the horror of what she’d once done, singing the adult populations of two thriving cities into the sea. She hadn’t touched the children, but they’d died nonetheless. Of sorrow, of heartbreak.

Are you certain? Guilt in her tone, thousands of ghosts in her voice.

Yes. The streets are all but empty and the stragglers will make it to safety in the next two minutes at most. We must fly if we are to make Lumia before the storm hits—or we may draw the lightning to this place.

Caliane’s body appeared in the distance, her wings spread, Tasha behind her.

Waiting for them to pass, Raphael swept along behind them. As he’d predicted, they overtook Elena within minutes, his hunter’s young immortal body unable to reach anything like the punishing speed Tasha was maintaining. Caliane had slowed to match her escort, now said, Raphael—

I will bring her home, Mother. She is mine to protect. Even as he spoke, he dropped down to below Elena. Guild Hunter, collapse your wings.

That she didn’t even hesitate at what could be a deadly order undid him.

Moving with the wind when it pushed her falling body to the left, he caught her in his arms and swept up in the same motion in an effort to get above the cloud layer, while Elena wrapped her arms around his neck as the rising wind whipped strands of hair that had come loose from the twist in which she wore it, across her face.

“I hate being a damsel in distress!” she yelled in a distinctly disgruntled tone.

He grinned because that description would never fit his warrior. “I can feel your crossbow digging into my arm. Be ready to shoot if anything comes at us.”

Laughing with a fierce wildness that spoke to the same in him, she tucked her face against his neck, pulling her body in even further to lower the wind resistance. He took a moment to glance behind them, saw the storm was licking at their heels. When he looked forward, he saw only a single pair of wings in flight. Mother, where is Tasha?

Flying low. She’s searching for a natural lee where we can shelter should we have need.

Raphael looked down, couldn’t spot Tasha through the darkness. Tasha, it’s too exposed for this lightning. Head to Lumia. They’d pass the barracks on their way, but those barracks weren’t as well constructed as Lumia. The angelic guards should be fine—but they wouldn’t be if Raphael and Caliane joined them and the lightning followed.

The rain became a torrential downpour an instant later, punching a heavy weight on his wings. Having reached Caliane, he saw Tasha come up on her other side, her wings almost crumpling under the combined pressure of the rain and the wind. “Sire!” she yelled to his mother. “Go! I will be behind you!”

Caliane didn’t answer, but neither did she put on archangelic speed. Like Raphael, his mother would never leave one of her people behind. Tasha didn’t waste her breath asking again, just flew on, though it was clear she was having trouble maintaining her place in the sky. Elena, meanwhile, shifted up carefully so she could look over his shoulder, leaving him free to keep his attention forward.

“How bad?” he asked, the two of them close enough that they could hear each other over the noise of the storm without having to shout.

“The lightning goes on as far as I can see, but it looks like the town’s only being hit by scattered strikes. The heaviest mass is chasing us—or it’s being dragged toward Lumia.” She continued to look. “You think since there’re more archangels there to draw the storm, that you and Caliane could land and have the lightning pass over you?”

“We can’t risk it.” Neither Elena nor Tasha would survive even a single strike.

Using one hand to wipe the wet strands of hair off her face, then his in turn, she said, “Then we need a plan B. Because we’re not going to outrun it.” Her tone was practical, not panicked. “Not at this speed.”

Mother, you need to fly Tasha. Caliane appeared slender, but she was an archangel, had power humming through her every cell.

She will never agree.

Raphael spoke directly to Tasha, told her what he’d suggested. This needs archangelic speed, Tasha. Don’t be proud and get us all lightning-struck. If Elena can do it, so can you.

I can’t believe you are comparing me to a once-mortal, was Tasha’s bitter response, but Caliane dropped below her seconds later and Tasha collapsed her wings so Caliane could capture her. Not in her arms, but in a net of sparkling white power.

Then he and Caliane flew.

A lightning strike singed the very tip of his left wing just as he landed at Lumia, Caliane having landed right before him. Ignoring the burn until they were under the shelter of the nearest external hallway, he placed Elena on her feet while his mother released Tasha from the net of power. Tasha’s hair was an electric halo around her head, cracking with echoes of that power; her body shook a little, the tremors apparently uncontrollable.

“My lady,” she said, sounding as if she was having to form her words with utmost care, “I think I am drunk.”

“It will pass,” Caliane promised, pushing back her wet hair from her face.

Elena, meanwhile, had turned her attention directly to Raphael’s wing, kneeling down so she could look closely at the injury. “Damage is deep.”

He glanced down, saw what she meant. The lightning strike had sheared off the very tip of his wing. He needed those feathers to maneuver, couldn’t risk being without them—they’d heal, of course, but not at high speed. Wings never did.

The idea of being grounded in Lumia, even for a day or two, was intolerable but his Cascade-born healing strength, at least the amount he could access at will, hadn’t yet regenerated after he’d used it to ease Elena’s wings.

She looked up right then, her eyes shining silver. Take it from me. The words were an order. The wildfire is all about life, right? Test it, see if it’ll fix your wing.

It was a good point—he was used to seeing it as a weapon against Lijuan, but it did taste violently of the energy of life . . . and of his hunter’s mortal heart. Let me attempt to direct the wildfire that lives in me.

That attempt failed.

He could call it to his hand, could’ve attacked Lijuan with it or driven out her poison, but it dissipated into his blood when he tried to direct it to his injured wing. It doesn’t work.

You don’t know my wildfire will act the same, Elena insisted. It exists because of my love for you. Its only purpose is to protect you.

When he hesitated, loath to weaken her in any fashion, her eyes narrowed. I accepted being a damn damsel in distress for you. You can be the hunky archangel in distress for once.

Lips twitching despite the danger of the moment, he used the contact of her hand against his wing to pull at the wildfire that lived in her, as if a rope connected them and he was wrenching on his end. Her teeth clenched, her free hand fisted, but otherwise, she gave no outward indication of what he’d done.

His mother and Tasha, behind her, had no reason to suspect anything.

A heartbeat later, pain burned through him as if he was lightning struck on the inside, even as a white-hot glow pulsed off the injured section of his wing. Her wildfire had arrowed directly to the wounded part of his body, his once-mortal consort loving him with a fierceness that was a storm wilder than the one that raged outside.

Releasing a shuddering breath, Elena rose to hug him tight. He noticed her legs were a little shaky, tightened his own grip so no Luminata watching might guess that she’d literally just given him a piece of herself. And his heart, it pounded like a thousand horses across a wild plain because only now did he allow himself to think how close they’d come to disaster.

A single strike and Elena could’ve been erased from the world.

He hadn’t known fear before loving Elena. He hadn’t known life, either. Hbeebti?

I’m good, she replied, running one hand down his back. You?

My wing is healing. As for the other—love meant learning to live with fear.

As he released her, his mother turned from where she’d been watching Tasha to ensure her escort steadied with no ill-effects. Her eyes reflected the lightning just beyond the covered hallway. “It appears,” she said, “that we may not be leaving Lumia at dawn after all.”

Elena hissed out a breath.