She was holding the most recent one.

Aware that she was standing in a treasure trove—angelic historians would clamor to be allowed access to this room—she took care with the journal as she sat down in Charisemnon’s ornate chair. Placing the book in front of her, she opened it.

The words made no sense.

She tried again, working her way through all the languages she knew. She was about to give up and ask Kiama if Titus had a linguist on staff, when Raan’s voice whispered into her mind.

My little bird, your talent for art strips mine. I can’t wait to see you fly.

Raan’s favored language had been so lyrical, so lovely, born on the banks of the Nile among an enclave of angels who’d made it their home for centuries. His friend in this land had spoken the same tongue. Charisemnon hadn’t been of an age to have lived in the enclave, but perhaps he’d learned it from a parent or grandparent.

Sharine knew nothing about his parentage, and she didn’t care at this instant.

Raan’s enclave had faded from existence long ago, the language rarely spoken, but Sharine had learned it from her lover and it remained inside her. That it took her a while to turn those rusty gears was inevitable.

Yes, little bird. You have the skill and the heart for this.

He’d been such a good man, her Raan, one who’d always been gentle and kind with her.

Yes—and paternal.

She winced at the unsheathed words from another part of her psyche. But it was true; their relationship had hardly been one of equals. But it had been a relationship that made her happy in that time and place, and it deserved to be honored for that. Raan deserved to be honored for that.

Consciously shaking away the errant thoughts to focus on the here and now, she looked down at the journal. She’d opened it to a point some months before the beginning of hostilities.

They think I’m a fool, that I will tie my loyalty to the weak rather than ally with the strongest one of us all.

I’m not the fool here.

Lijuan will emerge the victor in the war to come. There’s no question on that point—she has evolved far beyond the rest of the Cadre, and she is right when she says we are immortals and capable of far more than is permitted by the current power structure.

Why should there be a Cadre of Ten? Why can there not be a Cadre of Two if those two archangels are the most powerful in the world? There’s no point in sharing power with the more feeble among us. The others, the ones who survive the war, will serve the Cadre of Two. That is as it always should’ve been.

The last line was underlined twice, a blunt insight into Charisemnon’s mind. It did confuse her a touch because she’d believed that he wasn’t an archangel much driven to stir himself. He enjoyed a life of ease and comfort, and yet now he spoke of absolute dominion.

What had changed?

Settling in, she went back to the beginning of the journal and began to read, for in the genesis of Charisemnon’s change of heart might be the information she needed about a disease that could end angels forever.

36

Archangel Titus, I write to you on the faith of your long friendship with my father. Before he went into Sleep, he reminded me that yours was a bond that remained unbroken across millennia. Now, I bow my head and ask if that friendship might extend to the mentoring of my son?

Xander is not yet at his majority, but he shows signs of becoming a warrior like his grandfather. It would be a great honor if you would consider taking him under your wing.

—Letter from Rohan, son of Archangel Alexander, to Archangel Titus

37

Rohan! I saw you running around naked while you were a babe, giggling manically all the while! I’ve broken bread with you. Why are you writing me such a formal letter?

Send your boy. I’ll care for Alexander’s grandchild as if he were my own flesh and blood.

—Letter from Archangel Titus to Rohan, son of Archangel Alexander

38

Titus wiped the sweat from his brow and looked down at the pile of beheaded bodies below. He and his people had followed a straggler who’d led them to a massive nest of reborn, but what worried him was that the nest had existed in the first place. “These reborn came from somewhere.” There was a settlement out there that no longer had any living citizens . . . children included.

It broke his heart to execute the smallest reborn, though he knew they weren’t alive in any true sense of the word. They were shambling abominations of life, without reason or thought. They’d never grow any older, would never understand speech or love or tenderness or anything but their voracious hunger for flesh.

To allow them to exist was equal to murdering the children who’d yet escaped the scourge. For even in the darkest hour, angels, vampires, and humans, they all hesitated when it came to harming a child, and in that hesitation could fall an entire town or city or territory.

“I’ve dispatched scouts.” His second’s voice was grim, the pale green of his eyes on the carnage. “Did you notice how fresh these ones were?” When Tzadiq, his shoulders broad and his body as big as Titus’s, landed beside the pile, Titus followed suit. “Look at their bodies, the lack of rot.”

Tzadiq was right; beneath the greenish tinge that began at the moment of transition, these reborn boasted pink and brown and black hues of flesh ordinary among living people. Some of their wounds bled as much red as green-black.

He and his squadrons could keep killing wave after wave of reborn but if the creatures were multiplying this rapidly, he’d lose half the people in his territory before they were done. Yet what other way was there?

“How are we on overall troop numbers?”

“We haven’t taken any losses today, but our people are exhausted.” Tzadiq’s tone was brutally honest. “We’re going to start making more and more mistakes in the coming days.”

Titus had known that, but it was still hard to hear it laid out so clearly. As he considered all possible options on how to rest his troops, his eye fell on the crossbow bolt embedded in the eye of a reborn creature, the reborn’s head long separated from its body. On the shaft of the bolt was a symbol—a small gold G in a circle.

“How bad is the Guild’s situation?” The African complement of the Hunters Guild, those mortals born—or trained—to hunt rogue vampires, had sided with Titus and fought with his army. As a result, they’d also taken heavy losses.

“Not as bad as we first expected.” Dirt streaked Tzadiq’s pale skin and clean-shaven head, but it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been—at least he’d mostly escaped being covered with reborn fluids. “They’re at seventy percent capacity, and of those, twenty percent are badly wounded and still recovering.”

That meant that—aside from a small number running things at the top—fifty percent of the Guild was currently fighting the reborn on the ground while Titus’s angels fought from the air. It struck him that the hunters, all of whom were trained in tracking techniques and used to working alone, were a resource he could use far more wisely.

“Clean up here,” he told his second, for the majority of reborn had scuttled into their holes under the bright light of day. “I need to speak to Njal.”

“He’s at Guild HQ today,” Tzadiq said.

“One day, you’ll have to tell me how you know everything that happens in Narja.”

“Tentacles, sire.” Dry words, his expression without apparent humor. “I have tentacles in every nook and cranny and blood den.”

Titus slapped his second on the shoulder—Tzadiq was one of the few people who could not only take his full strength, but who could give it back in equal measure. There was a reason they’d been sparring partners for centuries. “Your archangel thanks you for your diligence.”

That was when Tzadiq’s face cracked a smile and so did Titus’s. Because before sire and second, they were friends and had been for over a millennium and a half. Titus had known Tzadiq before his second met Tanae, before the two had a son. Titus didn’t understand the relationship Tzadiq and Tanae had with each other, and with their warrior offspring, but as his second and his troop trainer, they were faultless in their dedication.

Leaving Tzadiq to his task, Titus made his way to Guild HQ, which was near the edge of Narja, and thus closer to him at this moment than his own citadel. Situated in an old stone fortress, it had a flat roof that allowed for an easy landing. The head of the Guild, the tight black curls of his hair buzzed close to his skull and his beard equally neat and precise, was there waiting to meet him, some scout having no doubt sighted his approach and guessed his destination.

“Archangel Titus.” He bowed, a tall and slender man dressed in worn brown fighting leathers with a sword strapped to one thigh and a heavy knife on the other—but despite the bow, there was no sense of obsequiousness to him.

The bow Njal used was one Titus might receive from one of his generals.

Some might say the mortal was being presumptuous in acting as if he had so high a status, but hunters chose strong people for their leaders, and Titus appreciated them for it. He could speak to Njal as a warrior and know his bluntness would be reciprocated.

“Is there a problem?” the other man asked after rising from his bow, the golden brown of his eyes piercing against the blue-black hue of his skin.

“No.” Titus laid out what he wished for the hunters to do. “Your hunters are an asset I wouldn’t lose. Tell me if this is a risk too great.”

“You don’t want them to attack the reborn, just to track and pinpoint nests so that angels can strike from the air to eliminate entire nests in one blow?”

Titus nodded. “Should they come across lone reborn, they can feel free to eliminate the reborn—as long as such contact doesn’t present a danger to their own lives. At present, I’m less in need of ground fighters, and more in need of information.” Not many archangels would speak to a Guild Hunter with such openness, but Njal had fought beside Titus on the battlefield, resolute and tireless.

Titus knew that despite his attempts to stay distant from mortal friendships, Njal was a man he’d miss when the hunter passed from this world. “I need to use my resources more strategically.” Else, the reborn would keep feeding on the people of his land, decimating it.