Sharine sat up in his arms, her inhale sharp. “Your sister is Charo of the Tales?” Her mouth fell open at his nod. “How did you spring from the same stock that produced such a glorious wordsmith?”

“I’m a gift,” he shot back.

She parted her lips to reply, when her attention was caught by something else. Pointing down, she said, “Do you see that?”

“Yes.” Another group of reborn, these ones moving in a crablike crawl, their heads hanging forward and their bodies hunched. “This area is uninhabited for many miles in all directions, and these reborn appear heavily lethargic from lack of food. I predict we’ll find them in much the same place on our return.”

“Yes,” Sharine said, “you’re right—it’s more important that we unearth the strangeness I saw in that village.” No amusement or bite in her voice now, simply a deep vein of sadness. “Why do we do this? Destroy that which we love?”

The golden filaments in her feathers glinted in the starlight. “Charisemnon loved this landscape as much as you do—he visited Lumia twice during my time there, and we watched the sunset together. We spoke of the animals and the sky and the colors of this land, and I would’ve staked my life on the fact that he was honest in his love.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Titus’s sorrow was more complicated, bled through with hate and disgust. “I, too, once sat beside him—it was long ago, soon after I became an archangel. We shared a tankard of ale, and we spoke of how lucky we were to have this land as our territory.”

Then, Charisemnon had been content with his half of Africa, had welcomed Titus as his neighbor. “There are differences as you fly from the north to the south, but in the end, there’s a feeling to this continent that you can’t find in any other. It sings to my soul and it sang to his.”

Titus could barely remember that Charisemnon. “But the thing is, he grew to love power more—or perhaps that hunger always existed in him. He chose power and vanity over his love for this land and for his people. In pursuit of that power, he poisoned our land of life and wonder, and he turned our people into prey. For that, I will never forgive him. Had he a grave, I would spit on it.”

25

Sharine didn’t disagree with Titus’s judgment, harsh though it was.

The Archangel of Northern Africa that she’d gotten to know had been jaded and dissolute in a way that was difficult to explain. It was oft said that power corrupted, and archangels were the most powerful beings in the world—but archangels also had to deal with myriad problems to maintain a healthy territory, from keeping a firm hand on vampires, to—at the basest level—ensuring the population had work and didn’t starve. That didn’t even take lethal territorial politics into account.

An archangel couldn’t simply sit pretty and “exist.”

It was unlikely that Titus thought of himself as a crouching threat over the other members of the Cadre, but he was, as were they in turn. Power such as that of an archangel didn’t sleep. It watched and so by default, the members of the Cadre watched each other. Friendships, love, logic might stop them from making constant war, but the threat of it loomed always.

Ennui shouldn’t have ever been a realistic possibility for Charisemnon.

“Do you know what happened to him?” she asked. “I had little to do with him prior to my stint at Lumia.”

“From what I’ve heard of his youth, he was always possessed of arrogance and the belief that he was better than others. However, many a young man believes so.”

About to make a quip about Titus’s own brash confidence, Sharine found herself remembering how he’d sat with the headman in the village, how he’d spoken to the elderly mortal with patience for his wisdom. Titus might believe strongly in himself but he didn’t look down on others. It was a critical difference between the two archangels.

She had to stop trying to put him in the same box as Aegaeon or Charisemnon or their ilk just because she was discomforted by the fact he aroused urges in her she’d believed long dead and buried. Against her, his skin was like silk, his heat a delicious burn, and the vibration of his chest when he spoke an increasingly familiar pleasure.

“The tipping point,” Titus said even as her cheeks glowed, “was Lijuan.”

Another kind of heat blazed in her. “You can’t simply blame another.” It was lazy and absolved one party of responsibility in a circumstance that both’d had a chance to influence. “I say that as a woman who so long blamed Aegaeon for what I became. But I”—she slapped a hand over her chest—“made choices along the way.”

Not the initial fracture. She hadn’t been able to stop that. Her brain had gone into shock, her mind skittering. But she’d had moments of sanity at the start, moments where she wasn’t lost, and to this day, she didn’t know if she could’ve fought harder to come back. Had she surrendered? Had she chosen her prison?

“No.” Titus cradled her closer, the action making her suck in a quick breath as her heart kicked. “What I mean is that it was akin to an explosive reaction such as my scientists create when they mix two inert substances together.”

Sharine frowned. “You think they would’ve stayed rational instead of power-hungry monsters had they never met?”

“I can’t speak for Lijuan, for she was already an angel of seven and a half millennia by my ascension, but I feel I knew Charisemnon well enough to say that he was a man who liked luxury and worked the utter minimum necessary. He wouldn’t have thought to stir himself to such grandiose plans of war on his own.”

Titus’s neck and shoulder muscles moved strongly as he angled them into the wind so that they could ride it, his wings powerful above them. “One of my scholars once told me a tale of two mortal murderers and he used a term that seems to fit here: folie à deux.”

A madness of two.

“I’m not sure I agree with you,” Sharine said. “I’ve heard of Charisemnon’s appetites—one such as him would always want a bigger thrill, more sensory fulfilment. But”—she pressed her fingers to Titus’s lips when he would’ve interrupted her—“I do believe there’s a grain of truth in your supposition. Charisemnon and Lijuan egged each other on, as children do on a playing field.”

Titus didn’t respond, his eyes locked with hers. Her pulse jolted, her cheeks burned. Jerking her fingers from the unexpectedly soft curve of his lips, she went to make some quip to diffuse the tension that locked both their muscles . . . only to realize they were nearly halfway to their destination.

It had taken Titus bare hours to cover a massive distance. She hadn’t realized how fast he was flying, he’d done such a good job of protecting her from the wind. Sharine was in no mood to be protected from anything, but she couldn’t fault him for the care he’d taken with her.

A curl of warmth in her stomach, an ache that was pure temptation; it had been a long time, whispered a deeply hungry part of her. Why not break her fast with such a lover?

Shrugging off the thought, for she had no intention of becoming another one of Titus’s admiring legions, she said, “Do you need to rest?” Even an archangel couldn’t go on indefinitely.

“At the dawn,” he promised. “I have no desire to be covered in more reborn rot.”

Sharine grimaced. “Agreed.”

So it was that they flew on through the night hours. At some point, she fell asleep in his arms, and woke to find him sweeping down to a grassland. Skin hot, she sat up. “My apologies.”

“Do not worry,” he said as he landed. “You didn’t snore.”

Sharine would’ve snapped back a retort, but he was putting her on her feet and she groaned as she stretched out her body. Things creaked. Lovely. Titus, too, was stretching—and he was glorious under the soft gold of the dawn light. “Your tattoo,” she found herself saying. “It appears almost alive in the light.”

He scratched the ridged lines of his abdomen. “A trick of the light.” Eyes narrowed, he was looking past her. “Damn.”

Sharine followed his gaze, caught the darting movements. “Reborn.”

The slide of swords leaving sheaths was the only warning she received before Titus took off. Sharine followed, her wings aching from having been collapsed in his arms for so long. But Titus had the situation well in control, and the reborn were soon dead. He used a small pulse of power to erase their bodies, then landed again.

“If you could, Lady Sharine.” He pointed at the splatters of blood on his chest.

Sharine’s hand was already coated in power. Stepping close, she began to get the blood and gore off him. Her focus only slipped when she was nearly done; she became darkly conscious of the heat and size of him, her stomach taut and her mouth dry. It was all she could do not to jerk back when the task was done.

Titus glanced down, his expression shuttered. “We should fly again.”

“I know I’m slower, but it’d help my wings if I could spend at least an hour in the air on my own.” Not being pressed up against him would be a bonus.

Nodding, Titus waited for her to take off first.

When she did eventually end up in his arms again, she had enough distance from that spike of need that she could be rational. Not lying to herself about the depth of the attraction didn’t mean diving headfirst into a bad decision. She asked him of the political history between him and Charisemnon, listened intently.

Later, he asked her about her friendship with Caliane. Laughing, she told him stories of their long association, memories so strong they’d survived her lost years and more. And it struck her that she hadn’t spoken for so many consecutive hours with another person . . . for a long time.

He murmured for her to sleep again at one point. “Your body needs it after your earlier long flight.”

Discomfort at how good it felt being cradled in his arms made her want to argue, but she knew that was foolishness. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek against the steady drumbeat of his heart, and slept.