Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“You should talk to Elijah, too, after things settle down,” Aodhan suggested. “He was Lady Caliane’s general once, and now they stand on the Cadre together.”
Nodding, Illium pulled out his phone. While the communications device had undergone multiple iterations after the invention of this flat rectangle as thin as paper that could be folded up and put away in a pocket, this was the one that had eventually stuck. Sometimes, he’d realized over time, technology hit the perfect balance between form and function, and entered a long stasis period.
“No signal.” Not a surprise at this remote location in the middle of nothing but ocean and more ocean. Angelkind had blocked the expansion of connectivity even when it became possible. Some swathes of the world, they’d declared, deserved to remain free of any interference, even by so amorphous a thing as a signal. “I’ll call Raphael the minute I can—because if Vivek is coming with us, then I want him in on the ground floor, so he can set up the right systems from the get-go.”
Aodhan rose, stretched out his wings. “Agreed.” Arms up, he flexed, and for a moment, Illium was stunned by him, as if he hadn’t been waking next to him for hundreds of years. But what struck him most was how fucking lucky he was to have a best friend and lover whose loyalty was absolute and unquestionable.
“I couldn’t do this without you,” he said as he got up, the words husky. “You know that, don’t you?” His lover had a way of not seeing his own importance not just to Illium, but to the world. His art had changed futures, opened closed hearts, brought beauty in the most terrible times. “You make me braver because I know I always have you at my back.”
A bemused smile as Aodhan closed his wings back in. “What brought this on?” He nuzzled Illium’s temple, running his fingers through Illium’s hair. “The way you look at me…of course I know what I am to you.” A kiss to his cheekbone. “I also know I’m not good with compliments, but don’t ever think I don’t hear yours, hold them close.”
“Do you ever resent it?” Illium asked, his chest tight. “Not being able to devote all your time to your art?” Because the demands on Aodhan were only going to get worse going forward.
Shifting so he could look Illium in the eye, the other man shook his head. “No, never. If I did, I wouldn’t have picked up a sword to train with you in the first place.” He pressed his forehead to Illium’s. “Stop worrying, my darling Blue. I’ve made my own decisions all my life, and each time the urge to create art hits, I find a way.”
A kiss hard and firm. “Right now, I can think of no greater art than the creation of your rule. A blank canvas, beloved mine. What shall we paint on it?”
“A damn legend,” Illium said with a smile that was a touch shaky with all the emotion roaring through him. No one had warned him that becoming an archangel would dredge up every emotion he’d ever had, swirl it around in his gut, then punch him right in the softest places in his spirit.
Aodhan’s chuckles cut through the morass, anchoring him to the astonishing now. “Well, Illium, Archangel of Legend, I have another suggestion for you.” His eyes went to the extraordinary sword on Illium’s back.
Illium cocked his head; he’d been considering the same person, but—“She’s a weapons-maker not a weapons-master.”
“Only because that’s what she prefers—but she’s fully trained in how to handle all the weapons she makes. The knowledge in her head is probably in line with Galen’s when he took on the role of Raphael’s weapons-master,” Aodhan argued before digging out a handful of dried meat from his pack and handing it to Illium.
“A weapons-master has to fight, yes,” he continued, “but they have to be strategists and long-term thinkers most of all. First generals lead troops into battle, but it’s the weapons-masters who make sure the first general has the troops and the weapons to make that possible. Weapons-masters are the forge of a battle force.”
Illium chewed on the jerky as Aodhan dug out more for himself. “You think she’ll go for it?” The vampire who’d forged the sword Raphael had gifted Illium was someone Illium called a friend true, but despite her visceral connection to the Tower, she’d never given any indication that she wished for a more active martial role.
“No way to know unless you ask. Zoe might decide she likes the challenge.”
Zoe Elena Haziz-Grange was now heading toward completing her seventh century as one of the Made, but Illium remembered her as the chubby-cheeked mortal child of Elena’s best friend in all the world. He’d played with little Zoe back then, had shared a drink with her as she grew, and had helped her navigate the tough years after her transition to vampirism.