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)
Illium’s mind flashed to the portrait that hung in his apartment of two small angels in jubilant if wonky flight over a field of bluebells, their faces wreathed in grins and their wings too big for their bodies.
It was one of his all-time favorites.
He and Aodhan had never had to worry about portraits; they had a collection of them through time, created by the most gifted artist among angelkind. An artist who loved them both. She’d painted an adolescent Aodhan at work on his easel, a frown line between his eyebrows, and she’d painted a “teenage” Illium practicing his sword drills, and those were just two examples of their solo portraits. She’d also sketched and painted countless images of their entwined lives.
But for a rare few exceptions, all of those pieces were either with her subjects or in her private collection. The exceptions were Raphael and Naasir for the most part, both of whom had received countless sketches over the years of Illium and Aodhan’s childhood, as part of the letters Illium’s mother had written to them while they were away from the Refuge.
“My favorite of Eh-ma’s portraits,” Aodhan said at that moment, “is that one of you in full battle mode, right after you were accepted into your first adult wing.”
Illium’s heart stopped, tight and hurting in a rush of emotion. “She was still lost in her mind then, but she found a way to see me.” The painting was both a testament to love…and a reminder of grief. “I love it, too, but I could never hang it in my home.”
Aodhan closed his hand over Illium’s nape. “I know. That’s why I never hung it up in your presence after she gave it to me.”
Illium blinked, stared. “When did she give it to you?”
“When I was lost, too,” Aodhan said, his voice husky. “Anytime you left the Refuge as part of your duties, she filled my home with portraits of you. Safety lines for when I began to fall into the abyss—I think that’s what she saw them to be…and she was right. How could I surrender to the yawning maw when I knew you’d dive in after me, you stubborn, beautiful fool?”
The last word was so tender, it hurt.
18
Always, Illium said into Aodhan’s mind even as a part of his heart cracked open at not only the gift of memory that was his mother’s love for him and Aodhan both, but at Aodhan’s continued refusal to shy away from the most devastating period in their history.
No more silent ghosts. No more words unspoken.
He and Adi, they were on this journey for the long haul.
His heart pulsing back into rhythm, his wings spreading in an exhale that was centuries withheld. “Hang it up,” he said roughly as he slid his wing over Aodhan’s closed ones.
A frown.
“It’s different now,” Illium said. “You just changed the context of how I’ll look at it.”
Aodhan squeezed his nape. “We’ll see.” Releasing him on that “don’t argue with me” tone, he took the ring from Illium. “Why did Marco keep this and the other jewels? There’s an infinitesimal chance they came from anyone but his stalker—so why did he keep them?”
Shelving their discussion for the moment because when Aodhan got stubborn, importuning him got you nothing but a sore head, Illium glanced again at Marco’s paltry belongings, recalled what Giulia had said of her son’s habits. “He wasn’t acquisitive, so it can’t have been about wealth.”
Aodhan’s jaw worked, storm clouds in those astonishing eyes.
“People are complicated, Adi.” Illium ran a hand down the steel rod of Aodhan’s spine. “It changes nothing about his choice to say no. A gift given and accepted doesn’t mean a contract made.”
A shudder rocking his spine, Aodhan wove his fingers through Illium’s. “Sachieri and Bathar never gave me gifts, but there were others who did when I was young and naïve. I thought people were being kind when they brought me rare pigments or special brushes, that they’d just thought of me when they ran across those items. Like you and Eh-ma, even Imalia and our parents.”
Aodhan’s parents hadn’t quite known what to do with him, befuddled by the quiet-eyed child with a shining spirit who’d been born long after his sister Imalia was a full-grown angelic adult, but Illium knew his best friend had never doubted their love. They’d often brought Aodhan the wrong brushes or unsuitable pigments, but that they’d thought of what might make Aodhan happy while just living their lives had been enough—as had seeing their excited faces at having so successfully found what they believed to be the perfect thing for him.
Illium could still remember the day Menerva had presented her son with a handcrafted set of sculpting tools far too delicate for Aodhan’s preferred medium when he sculpted. The handles of each had been inset with a stylized A. “I put your name down for a set two years ago when I first saw one,” she’d murmured in her quiet way, her eyes smiling. “It didn’t seem right that you not have the best tools for your art when that art brings us all such happiness.”