Archangel's Heart (Guild Hunter 9)

“Jessamy told me.” No one knew of any other child born to parents who were both archangels. Elena had even asked the Legion, received—for the Legion—an unusually straightforward answer: He is the only one. His birth resonated through the world until we heard of it in our long sleep.

“Ah, the Historian.” Affection and respect in the Luminata’s tone. “She does her vocation justice.”

Together, the two of them walked to take in a small painting that was all white golds and intricate curves.

“I am Donael,” he murmured. “My apologies for the tardy introduction. It is not often we meet new people in Lumia.”

“I can imagine,” Elena said, even as impatience screamed in her.

“In the outside world,” Donael said, his eyes once more on the painting, “I knew the artist who created this. He was old even then, may have gone into Sleep now.” A long pause before he spoke again. “Lijuan was like me, like all our other friends. Nothing in her indicated she would one day become an archangel. She wasn’t precocious in any particular way—ah, I had forgotten that.” He smiled. “I taught her to fly better. She was as wobbly as a baby bird.”

“That,” Elena said dryly, “I can’t imagine no matter how hard I try.”

A soft laugh. “But think of this, Consort—in ten thousand years, you will be tempered and strong and there will be young angels who cannot imagine you as a fledgling angel, and mortals who cannot comprehend that you were once one of them.”

Elena just stared at him. “Damn, that’s a scary thought.” Ten thousand years. Hell. Who would she become in ten thousand years?

“I do not think you need to fear the future,” was Donael’s response. “You will never walk the path alone.”

“No, you’re right.” Her archangel would always be by her side; he’d pull her back if she faltered and she’d do the same for him. “Who walks with the Luminata?”

“We are brothers but each path is unique.” Donael’s smile was beatific, no hint that he found his choice lonely. “Will you contemplate this part of the Gallery today?”

Unclenching her gut with conscious effort, Elena could no longer fight her urgency. “No, I’m afraid I have to run—I promised to spend time with Xander and Hannah and I’ve been down here all this time. Will I see you again?”

The Luminata seemed pleased to be asked. “I will make myself known. I hope you do not think me presumptuous, Consort, but it gives me pleasure to speak to someone so very young. You are not scarred with life.”

Elena felt her face set itself into harsh lines, the response one she couldn’t control. “A false impression,” she said, her mind filled with the drip, drip sound of blood falling to the floor from Belle’s mutilated body. “We are all scarred by life. And mortals die where angels recover.”

A moment of heavy silence before Donael released a long breath. “I am foolish. A mortal lives an immortal lifetime in a mere century or less. That their scars are quicker to form makes those scars no less painful.”

No, Elena thought. It didn’t. Angry at this man for stirring up the nightmare that lived always inside her, she nonetheless knew his opinion was hardly an isolated one. Most older immortals simply didn’t “see” mortals.

She dug up a more pleasant expression because at least Donael was willing to accept that he might be wrong. “I look forward to speaking with you again.” Joining Aodhan on those words, she said, “I’m going up to see if Xander’s arrived. Do you want to come?”

His nod was immediate. “I think I have drunk up too much of this room. I must clear my senses to fully appreciate it once more.”

As he spread his wings, Elena thought about doing a vertical takeoff, realized she’d be weakening herself for no reason. “We could take the stairs for a few flights,” she suggested. “It’ll let us look a little at the galleries we winged past on our way down.”

Aodhan closed his wings in silent agreement, then the two of them walked to the stairs, while Donael appeared lost in artistic reflection. But when she looked down two flights of stairs later, she saw him looking up, as if attempting to track her passage.

Chills rippled over her skin, goose bumps appearing on her arms.

22

“Do you know anything about Donael?” she asked Aodhan after another flight. “He said he’s the same age as Lijuan.”

“Yes,” Aodhan murmured. “I know only because . . . I was told once.” He added nothing to that for almost a minute and she didn’t have to guess hard to realize it was Remus who must’ve whispered the knowledge to him while trying to break him.

“I was told of an angel many millennia old who held enough power to be the Luminata,” he said at last. “And not only that, an angel who was far enough along on the path to luminescence that he was held in awe by the others.”

Elena wasn’t so sure about the latter. Donael had seemed confident and serene in his choice to be Luminata, but she’d felt nothing otherworldly around him. “So how come Gian’s the head guy?”

“Because Gian is better at playing politics.” Aodhan’s tone held an unfamiliar bite of cynicism. “Even in this place meant for finding the deepest truths of existence, such manipulation can turn men’s minds.”

“Yep, I can see that.” She peered over the edge of the hanging staircase, no railing to stop her, but Donael was too far away to glimpse now. “A man who’s lived that long,” she said after drawing back, “is probably very good at controlling his expressions.”