Sharine emitted a mental sigh. People keep telling me you are charming. CHARM.

Glaring at her sounded like a wonderful idea except that he’d been told his visage could appear fearsome when he was in a bad mood, and such would probably cause the terrified villagers to expire on the spot. He decided to break out a smile. “I should warn you that I killed that festering boil, that dog’s excrement, that insult to the Cadre who was your previous archangel.”

THAT’S your idea of charm?

Ignoring the incredulous comment, he continued on, “I don’t know what he told you of me; hear the truth from my own lips—I despised him and all he represented. The only people who have to fear reprisal from me are his toadies and enforcers.”

Those ones, Titus would not forgive, no matter what. Unlike these villagers, the others’ had been powerful enough to have a choice—even if that choice was to die with honor, or defect to another archangel’s territory. He’d been right there at the border and he’d protected previous defectors. No, he’d never trusted those defectors, but he hadn’t harmed them.

“All others,” he added, ensuring his voice carried, “especially mortals he treated as prey, are safe from my wrath.”

Wrath? You had to use the word wrath?

It took effort to keep his smile pinned on his face. We need to have a conversation about your respect for archangels.

I had a son with one, was the quelling response. That waste of immortal cells puts on his pants the same way as any other man.

Thankfully, the headman gave Titus a shaky smile at that instant and Titus had an excuse to turn his mind to other matters. “You are willing to speak?” he asked, to be certain the man wouldn’t quiver throughout—he didn’t have the time to coax words, needed information quickly.

“Yes.” A firm—and loud—agreement. “If you don’t mind me to say, my lord Archangel, I’m glad you have a strong voice. I can barely hear everyone else—they just whisper and murmur and what good comes of that?”

“Exactly!” Titus went to clap him on the back, only at the last minute realizing he’d probably break him; he still did it, just held back most of his power.

Meanwhile, two villagers had set up a table a way down from the children, now placed a pair of seats there. Neither was suitable for an angel’s wings, so Titus simply flipped one the wrong way around and straddled it.

The headman settled across from him and waited until one of the youths had poured their ale before saying, “My son.”

“You are justifiably proud,” Titus said, though he knew nothing of the youth. See, he said to his own personal haunt. I can be polite and charming.

Her mental snort was even louder this time.

Deciding to ignore her—let her see what she was missing—he turned his attention fully on the headman. “Tell me what I need to know.” Then, for some reason he didn’t understand, he opened a mental link with Sharine so she could listen in on the conversation.

Being able to so invite others to hear what he did wasn’t a skill possessed by many, and he’d only gained the capacity in the second half of his reign, but it was useful when utilized. Stopped having to repeat information.

Sharine didn’t protest the link.

“I need to come up to speed with my new territory.” Titus had no actual desire to rule Northern Africa; unlike some, he didn’t hunger for huge swaths of territory. He’d been quite content with his half of the continent—it was enough space to accommodate his power as an archangel and it allowed him to take care of his people as he wished.

But if he had to have the entire continent under his wing for the time being, then he’d do a good job of it. “You seem like the kind of person who would know all there is to know about this village and the surrounding ones.”

“I keep my eyes open—even if I can’t hear so well.” The old man’s chuckle seemed to take the last of the tension out of the villagers. The group finally began to dissipate—sending awed looks at their archangel as they did so.

Titus allowed his wings to spread, allowed the mortals to admire his feathers.

Not obvious at all.

He asked himself why he’d opened the channel—but didn’t close it. I see tiny mortal hands on your wings, he grumbled back. Angels don’t permit just anyone to touch their wings.

They aren’t just anyone—they’re babies, was the sharp reply.

For some bizarre reason, he was tempted to smile; perhaps he’d unknowingly eaten mushrooms that were playing havoc with his mind. “Tell me what you have seen,” he said to the headman.

“Dark things.” Sadness washed through the seams of his weathered face. “We were not a wealthy village before it all began, but we were more than able to take care of ourselves and to send our smart young ones to the city for studies. So I suppose we were wealthy in a way. Plenty of food, enough to tithe to the archangel and still—”

“Tithe?” Titus knew such things happened, but most archangels had more than enough wealth and power not to bother—or even if they did, perhaps because they preferred to support their people in other ways, it was a minor amount. With so many people in each territory, a tiny bushelful of anything added up to thousands of pounds.

Titus was no farmer and so his court just bought supplies from those who were; it kept his people thriving for their harvests bought good value to their home regions, and it meant his court could focus on other matters. Even now, reborn threat or not, he was paying for supplies—with his people under strict instructions to buy only the excess, never what the farmer needed for his own family, or the settlement needed for itself.

The rest, Yash was having shipped in from territories that weren’t dealing with a scourge of reborn. He wondered if Sharine knew that Yash had recently bought out the excess olives produced by Lumia’s town. But that wasn’t a matter for today.

“Half our harvest.” The elder swallowed and seemed to build himself up. “We are sorry, my lord Archangel. Most of our harvest was destroyed by the reborn. We can give you what—”

Titus waved off the coming question. “I do not ask for a tithe—though I do ask that all those with fertile land continue to plant when they can. We can’t always rely on offshore sources.” It wasn’t a thing of pride but practicality. “The supply chain isn’t always guaranteed.”

“Yes, yes. Of course that is the way.” The headman smiled at Titus, once more in good humor. “So we were all eating well enough and living our lives. Then the evil came. The rotting ones.”

“The reborn?”

“Yes, that’s what the younger ones call them. But to me, they are the darkness.” He coughed, the sound rough and hard, a rattle in his chest. “We had a little warning of their arrival for we’d placed scouts in the trees and they screamed out that the darkness was coming.”

A wet sheen in his eyes. “But we’d miscalculated the creatures’ speed. They came so very fast.” His shoulders fell. “We lost the scouts. Our fastest young men ran home with bloodied throats and began to change in front of our eyes . . .”

A long moment where he swallowed repeatedly. “You know the rest, my lord Archangel. After the burning began, we cried for our lost ones as the flames licked the night sky. One was my firstborn grandson. I lost my eldest daughter-in-law in the next attack.”

Titus couldn’t imagine the depth of this man’s pain. Those who saw mortals as weak and without courage had never spoken to one who’d experienced loss such as this, a loss rare among angelkind.

“Then the goats began to get sick, their flesh turning green-black,” the elder said after a sip of ale, though his voice remained rough. “We lost half of them. All of us too scared to eat the meat, so it went to waste.” He hacked a cough. “The rest appear healthy but we’re keeping them penned up under constant watch.”

“When was this?” Titus asked. “The animals turning?”

“About three days ago?” The headman scratched his head, then turned to yell out the question to his son.

“Three days ago,” the male replied.

“Yes, that sounds right.” The headman turned back to Titus. “It feels an endless time, but it has been only days.”

“How does it begin?” He had to be sure it wasn’t in the air.

“A bite,” was the response. “We suspect one of the goats panicked and ran into the rotting ones and that was when it was infected. It then savaged a few others before we realized what was happening.”

Titus held back an exhale. Containable, he said to Sharine. If we eliminate the reborn, we eliminate the risk to animals at the same time.

Ask him if he noticed if the birds were affected. They have domestic fowl here, so he wouldn’t have had to look skyward.

The import of her question was an arrow deep in his heart. Angels were unlike any other living creatures on this planet—but birds came the closest. Not in their genetics, but in the simple fact that they lived so long in the sky.

“Were any of your animals untouched by the disease?” he asked instead of specifically speaking about birds. We can’t allow humans to see us as weak or vulnerable, he reminded Sharine, who wasn’t an archangel and couldn’t be expected to immediately consider such things.

Every member of the Cadre knew that should humans begin to see angels as vulnerable, they might get it into their heads to rebel against immortal rule, and that could have only one end: annihilation of mortals.

Angels needed mortals, but they didn’t need a lot of mortals.

Certain groups of angels had even been known to mutter that mortalkind needed to either be culled or have their population strictly controlled: They are insects, pests but for their one use. Pen them up in a corner of the globe, and ship out cargo loads as necessary. Mortals do not need to infest the whole planet.

18

Thankfully most of angelkind didn’t live on the fringe with the genocidal. But the reason behind the forbearance wasn’t always a thing of kindness. One old angel had put it bluntly to Titus: “Humans are born and die at such a rapid pace, regular outbreaks of disease devastating large swaths of their population, or bloodlust-driven vampires killing entire villages, that their growth isn’t really an issue.”