Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
He was a man of whom any mother would be proud, but would Michaela, always demanding and often vicious, strike out at the world when she realized how much time had passed, how much she’d missed? Would she be like Aegaeon and expect filial ties from Gavriel when she’d been gone from his life for the formative years of his existence?
Elena both hurt for her and worried for the man she’d watched grow from the time he was an infant.
“I’ll talk to Keir,” Raphael said. “He must be the one to tell Gavriel.” He exhaled slowly. “Let us hope that this waking does not augur another age of war and strife.”
22
Michaela, Archangel of Budapest, Queen of Constantinople, and Muse Most Beautiful.
—Entry on the List of the Fallen Who Sleep (War of the Death Cascade)
Michaela rose in a cataract of haunting music across the entire world, while the sky rained flower petals and the orchids brushed by musk and acid filled even the darkest alleys.
The only sighting of her actual rising came from a shipping trawler in the Pacific Ocean at the far southern end of the world. The images captured by the awed crew showed an archangel with wings of an exquisite bronze that dripped seawater as she rose from the waves, and skin the hue of coffee swirled with cream, her body a caress of dreams and desire.
Her hair was a tumble of glorious brown threaded with gold down her back, and her power a warm bronze glow in the air. She wore what she’d been wearing when she’d fallen in battle—but it had been mended, bore no wounds from the war.
A gift from Cassandra, Raphael thought when he saw the images.
As to why neither Michaela’s hair nor her clothing appeared wet despite the fact she’d emerged from the ocean, that was a display of simple archangelic power.
The bronze glow of that power yet lingered around her when she appeared in the meeting chamber of the Cadre. It had been Andreas—bold and strong—who’d first welcomed her to this time, and Andreas who’d shown her how to connect with the other archangels.
No member of the Cadre had been close enough.
The angel who’d been Marduk’s second for the entirety of his rule had flown out toward Michaela the instant the shipping trawler sent in its report and—per the conversation he’d had with Raphael afterward—met a Michaela whole and strong who’d recognized him at once.
“Andreas?” she’d said, coming to a halt in the air, for she’d already oriented herself toward the largest land mass in the vicinity and had been heading that way. Archangels did not get lost in the sky. “Unless my senses are deceiving me, you are far from home.”
So it was Andreas who’d told her how much time had passed.
“I was prepared for her to strike out,” he’d shared with Raphael. “She was never the most temperate of the Cadre. But she just went motionless, then asked me toward whose territory she flew.
“After I informed her that the territorial boundaries were set to be redrawn just prior to her waking and had been delayed by it, she asked me to make arrangements for her to talk to the Cadre.”
Now here they stood, a Cadre of nine when they’d been on the brink of having to rule with eight.
“It is good to see you, Michaela,” Elijah said.
Raphael’s emotions toward Michaela were too complicated for such a simple welcome. She had been mercurial, cruel, and capricious—but she had also stood on the side of right when it came down to the wire. And she was a good ruler. Still, he’d have preferred to see calm, tempered Astaad in her place, but then, that was his partiality for the former Archangel of the Pacific Isles speaking.
Michaela didn’t immediately respond to Elijah’s greeting; she was staring too hard at Suyin. Raphael belatedly realized how it must look to her—Michaela had fallen in a violent battle of the archangels against She Who Was Death, but here stood an archangel with hair of the same snow white and a distinctive familial cast to her features.
Michaela hadn’t been conscious for Suyin’s ascension. She hadn’t been conscious for Illium’s, either, but she seemed unsurprised by the fact the blue-winged angel stood in the Cadre.
“I am Suyin,” Suyin said, holding the vivid acid-touched green of Michaela’s gaze without flinching. “Archangel of China and Builder of Worlds.” The latter was a title that had been hers by right long before her ascension—for she was an architect, a true builder of worlds.
“Ah.” Michaela’s nod was elegant. “I apologize for my rudeness. I just didn’t expect to see another of that line—but I know you are not her. You designed a palace for me once. In Constantinople.”
Suyin’s smile was startled. “Yes. An edifice of golden rock later awash in flowers. If I built it, then you made it a glory of art and beauty.”