After his commander gave a crisp nod and went to gather his soldiers, Xi turned his attention back to the matter at hand: how to get into Rohan's home. Alexander's son had grown into himself in the past four hundred years and he'd absorbed the lessons of his father.
Rohan was now one of Favashi's most feared generals, having decided to give his loyalty to her when she became the Archangel of Persia. Prior to that, he'd technically been allied to no archangel and no one had challenged it, both because Rohan commanded the respect and affection of tens of thousands as a result of his bloodline, and because he was a powerful fighter and leader.
No archangel wanted to destroy an asset when he or she could win it to their side.
"Where is Favashi?" he asked the scout who'd just landed, because if Favashi was close, his plans would have to change accordingly.
"In Astaad's territory." The scout's chest heaved. "She accepted an invitation to attend a festival there."
Astaad's territory was on the other side of the world. Even if she left at the first sign of trouble, it would take her considerable time to return. "Prepare your squadrons to storm the palace," he ordered his commanders. "We'll take Rohan by surprise."
Decision made, he sent a message through to Lijuan. As he did so, he thought of the scholar with her translucent brown gold eyes and wings delicately patterned like a bird's, and of her question about how he could follow Lijuan after all she'd done. He hadn't punished Andromeda for the impudence of the question both because she was a scholar and as such, curiosity was expected, and because he'd found her intriguing as a woman.
Xi had always preferred intelligence over commonplace beauty. Had Andromeda not escaped, he'd intended to ask Lijuan leave to court her. He wouldn't have taken the scholar without the scholar's full consent--that was not the way of a true warrior . . . and it was a rule Lijuan had taught him when he first came into her service.
He'd been a scrawny boy who'd disappointed his warrior parents, Lijuan's the only court that would accept him. He'd expected to be placed in a minor position and forgotten, but Lijuan had taken an interest in him from the start because of the patriotic red and gray color of his wings, treating him almost as a son. She'd put him into training with the best trainers, into studies with gifted tutors, into etiquette lessons with high-ranking courtiers.
It had taken a hundred years, but by the end of it, he was a man and one respected by others. His loyalty to his lady was also etched in stone. She had changed over the past decade from the wise--if righteously arrogant--archangel he'd first known, into something other, but she continued to treat him with respect and she continued to share her new power.
Sometimes, when he was far from her, he questioned her newly warlike ways in the privacy of his own mind, but he had faith in her. Lijuan had plans for the world and she was a goddess. He couldn't hope to understand her vision. He could only follow, a loyal foot soldier.
Today, he spoke to his lady and said, "We prepare to take the palace." Lijuan was the only one who could actually eliminate the threat posed by Alexander, for only one archangel could kill another. "I can't yet confirm whether he lies within." Lijuan eschewed modern conveniences like jets, and was currently too weak to constantly travel long distances on her own, so Xi had suggested she wait until he'd confirmed Alexander's presence.
She'd accepted his advice when it came to Kilimanjaro, but today, her voice was steel. "I will come. You are right, Alexander would not leave his beloved homeland--I shouldn't have doubted your instincts and sent you to Titus's territory."
Her voice faded into eerie screams for an instant, returned pulsing with power. "If Alexander is not below the palace, he will be nearby." No screams now, only a voice so pure, it almost hurt. "Find him, Xi. I will do the rest."
32
Naasir climbed a tree tall enough that it allowed him to spy on the village that lay between them and the caves, but there was nothing to see. It was long past the midnight hour, the lights within the homes extinguished and the waters of the lake a whispering mirror under the moonlight. If the villagers had seen the swarm, they probably knew well enough to keep their shutters closed and stay within.
Climbing down rather than jumping, so as not to cause any unnecessary noise or vibrations, he took Andromeda's hand in his.
"If Alexander is Sleeping here," she whispered as they began to make their way past the village by skirting the far edge of it, "this can't be the first odd incident the villagers have witnessed."
Naasir had his senses focused on possible threats, but he saw where she was going. "You think they are loyal to Alexander and keep his secrets?"
"Like Caliane and the people of Amanat. She took them into Sleep with her, but Alexander could've simply brought this tribe with him, trusted them to watch over his Sleeping place."
"That would explain the number of strong vampires I sensed in amongst the mortals." Vampires that old and powerful normally chose to work for the archangels, either managing small territories, or working directly in their strongholds.
It was where they found the most challenge.
One or two might decide on a simpler way of life, but Naasir had spotted far more than that when he and Andromeda first came upon the village. He'd figured this was a home village for a group of Favashi's soldiers who were on leave, but Andromeda's suggestion made more sense. "Mortals alone wouldn't have the physical strength to hold back Alexander's immortal enemies."
A dog barked at them from the backyard of a small, neat house that blended into its surroundings. When Naasir growled at it, the animal whimpered and went silent.
He felt bad. He usually tried not to scare smaller predators. He'd bring the dog some meat after it was all over; it was only doing what it was trained to do, looking out for intruders.
Turning to Andromeda, he lifted a finger to his lips.
They made it past the village in silence and without problems.
"Even if they are Alexander's guards," Naasir said once there was no chance their voices would give them away, "they aren't locked in time." He'd seen electronics and caught sight of clothing woven in modern ways.
"They must leave the village and interact with the wider world to keep an eye on things that might affect Alexander's Sleep." Andromeda thought of Caliane again. "If I had to guess, I'd say the fruit and other trees we've seen, exist to provide a front, stop awkward questions about how the tribe survives. Alexander will have left them funds enough to sustain the entire tribe for untold centuries." She bit her lower lip. "We didn't see any wings. Alexander had very loyal squadrons."
"Wings are highly visible," Naasir pointed out. "Vampires, on the other hand, can quietly relocate with no one paying attention, so long as the vampire in question doesn't hold a high-level position like Dmitri--or if his or her archangel is no longer in the world. Some do not want to serve any other."
"You're right." No takeoffs or landings to draw attention to this place; just a quiet village held by vampires who had withdrawn from life after their archangel chose to Sleep, and those who were likely descended from vampire-mortal matings, or who were family by blood.
Only the deeply trusted must live here, for that was the only way a secret this big could be kept. If a child was brought up as a warrior among warriors, and told he watched over an archangel, Andromeda didn't think that child would ever break the faith--for what greater honor was there in the world?
At that instant, Naasir once again lifted a finger to his lips. Andromeda went silent, ears straining, but she heard nothing beyond the normal noises of a moonlit night. A rustle of wind, the trees creaking slightly, the bark of another dog on the opposite side of the village. Naasir, however, remained on high alert as they continued on, his muscles bunched in readiness for an attack.
There was no attack. Not then. That came just before dawn, when the world was misty gray and they thought themselves safe. A crossbow bolt whipped by an inch from Andromeda's face--would've been embedded in that face if Naasir hadn't moved
at the last second to push her out of the way.
Acting on instinct, she slammed behind a tree while Naasir dropped to the ground and crawled over to join her. "There are many of them."
Andromeda pointed to the quivering crossbow bolt embedded in the trunk of another tree. It was black with distinctive silver etchings. Silver had always been Alexander's color. "We're friends!" Andromeda called out, going with her gut and judging these were Alexander's people. "The enemy is coming!"
A hail of crossbow bolts was her answer. Pressing her back against the tree, her wings tightly curved in, she glanced at Naasir. "It was worth a try."
His eyes gleamed as bright a silver as that on the bolts, but more liquid, more alive. Even as she admired the wild beauty of him, the part of Andromeda that made her a scholar was wondering at the color that marked Naasir. Silver was a distinctive shade in terms of angelic wings. Illium had fine silver filaments in his wings and so did some other angels, but Alexander alone had borne wings of pure silver.
There was a feather in the Archives that came from Alexander and it was a glittering shade she'd seen in such concentrated form on no other living creature but Naasir. Not even on Rohan. Alexander's son's wings were a paler silver at the top that flowed into a charcoal gray; he'd inherited his coloration from both parents.
Where had Naasir inherited his coloration? If someone had Made him, if there had even been an ordinary Making involved in his case, was it possible Alexander had something to do with it? But if that was true, why would Naasir have grown up in Raphael's stronghold?
And how could he have grown up if he'd been Made? Only adults were Made, for not only did the transformation all but freeze a person in time, children went insane or died. None had ever survived an attempt--all of those attempts made by angels who were themselves insane, or believed they could flout angelic law without repercussions.
That repercussion was always death. None ever escaped it and so it wasn't worth the risk. Alexander, however, was no ordinary angel. He could've done as he pleased and escaped execution, but had he Made a child, he would've still been uniformly shunned by their people. There was no record of any such shunning, and nothing Andromeda knew about Alexander indicated he'd break such a fundamental rule of behavior.
Alexander believed in laws, in rules, in a society with a foundation of discipline.
The thoughts tumbled though her head in the split seconds before Naasir reached up to grab hold of a branch and swung himself onto the tree. Realizing what he planned to do, she gave him enough time to get directly over Alexander's sentinels, then grabbed some of the crossbow bolts that had fallen nearby and started to throw them at their attackers. As a distraction, it was a success.
Another hail of bolts.
Going to her knees to give the shooters less of a target, she used her sword to deflect a few bolts that came too close, and she hoped that Naasir was safe.
*
Naasir had climbed along the treetops soundlessly, heading toward the scents he could barely smell. The windless dawn had kept the sentinels' secret, but the trajectory of their crossbow strikes had given him a direction.
He couldn't have as effectively used the tree road had the oasis been surrounded only by the tall spires of date palms, but the villagers had planted and nurtured many kinds of trees, including those with spreading branches. While Andromeda was right about the planting being used as a front to stave off the curious, the true reason had likely been to create shadows below, where the sentinels could mount an ambush.
He couldn't blame them for not worrying about a climbing foe.
Naasir was one of a kind after all.
He was on top of them now, but they were scattered far enough apart that no one could take them all at once. It also, however, meant he only needed to handle one at a time. Focusing on the desert camouflage-clad male directly below, his hair covered in a dusty brown scarf tied at the back of his head and dull brown and green stripes on his face from camo paint, Naasir didn't hesitate.
He dropped down, taking the sentinel to the ground with an arm pushed up against his throat so he couldn't cry out. "We are not the enemy," he said in the male's ear. "We are here to warn Alexander."
The man attempted to break free. Gritting his teeth, Naasir did the only thing he could and knocked him out. He did the same to two others before the sentinels suddenly realized they had a predator in their midst.
"Up!"
The order was vocal. Naasir crouched flat on his current branch . . . then realized they were reacting not to him, but to the wings beating in the distance. Moving with stealth, he angled his head just enough to look up.
The wings that came into view less than three seconds later were not ones he wanted to see. Below him, Alexander's sentinels crouched down, crossbows pointed up at the flyers clad in dark gray uniforms bearing red accents, but they didn't shoot.
Good.
If Lijuan's people were just doing a flyby--likely after someone spotted the swarm--then the best thing to do was to lie low and not give them a reason to believe the area was in any way interesting. The squadron did multiple passes, until well past the dawn. Naasir, Andromeda, and the sentinels remained silent and unmoving throughout.
Even when the squadron landed near the village, no one moved. The sentinels' family members were no doubt trained to act innocent under questioning or the secret would've never held so long--and if Naasir judged these men and women right, even the noncombatants would've been taught to fight well enough to protect themselves until the sentinels could get back to them. It was over an hour later, the morning sun bright in the sky, that the squadron finally took off, their wingbeats disappearing into the distance.
It left Naasir, Andromeda, and the sentinels in the same position they'd been in before the squadron's arrival.
Andromeda's voice rang out into the silence. "We're with Raphael! That squadron was wearing Lijuan's colors in case you missed it! Raphael's mortal enemy!"
The sentinels below Naasir didn't move, but a deep male voice came from the left. Speaking the same well-known local dialect as used by Andromeda, he said, "This land is forbidden to outsiders. Leave."
"We can't. Lijuan is coming to kill your archangel."
A pause before the speaker's voice came again. "We will listen. Face-to-face."
"Swear on Alexander's honor that you will do us no harm!"
This time the pause was longer, more potent, but when the voice came, it was resolute. "On Alexander's honor."
Naasir had made it to the speaker by then, a tall and husky male vampire with tanned skin and hair hidden under the same kind of scarf as Naasir had noticed on several others. He dropped down right behind the man who had to be the leader of the sentinels, a deliberate choice to ensure the other male didn't attempt to treat them as prey.
The sentinel whirled around, pale gray eyes glinting and crossbow held up and pointed at Naasir's heart.
33
"The silver-eyed beast." Despite the description, the leader's voice held no insult as he lowered his weapon. "How many of my men did you kill?"
"None--there was no need." Naasir shrugged. "They'll have headaches when they wake if they haven't already. You should remind them never to forget to look up, even if there are no wings in the sky."
A slight incline of the leader's head. "A point well made."
Andromeda appeared out of the trees right then, her dark brown pants dusty and the paler brown of her fitted tunic bearing a streak of dirt. Her eyes went to Naasir, skimmed over him, the tense lines of her only easing once she'd taken in his uninjured state. Naasir wanted to preen at having a mate who cared, and he wanted to nuzzle at her to ease her worry. He also wanted to run his hands over every inch of her to confirm that she, too, was unhurt.
"So," she said, sword held out at her side and eyes on the sentinel leader, "we're all here and not attempting to kill one another. Why don't we go back to the village? I need some coffee."
Naasir didn't dispute he
r suggestion. Until they convinced the sentinels of their intent, they'd get exactly nowhere. "You know who I am," he said to the leader of the sentinels. "This is Andromeda."
"I am Tarek," the other man replied, his skin smooth over angular cheekbones and his jaw shadowed with dark stubble. "We will head to the village, but do any harm to the villagers and our agreement is void." When he pulled down the scarf to allow it to lie loosely around his neck, his hair proved to be not black but a dark brown threaded with gold.
"We have no cause to harm anyone," Andromeda said and the three of them walked back to the village, the other sentinels no doubt at their backs.
The villagers looked at them with wide eyes when they walked in, though a barefoot child with dark hair and skin not many shades lighter than Naasir's, ran straight for Tarek. "Grandpapa!"
The vampire, who looked no older than his third decade and yet who was likely not "grandpapa" but great-grandpapa many times removed, picked up the little girl without breaking his stride and held her with an ease that shouted familiarity. The child peered curiously at Naasir. Her eyes were the same light gray as those of her living ancestor.
Naasir smiled, flashing fangs; the child immediately dimpled and waved. Children liked him. They knew without being told that he wouldn't hurt them. It didn't matter if the child wore skin or fur or scales.
Osiris had taken and killed the young of many species without compunction. That was one of the many reasons he had to die. One of the many reasons why Alexander had to execute him.
The latter was a fact Naasir hadn't known until he was older. He'd always thought Raphael had done it, but Raphael hadn't been an archangel at the time, and Osiris had been an Ancient's brother.
"Whatever our later disagreements," Raphael had said to Naasir a hundred years earlier, "Alexander and I always agreed that Osiris had to die." A grim tone that echoed the hard line of his jaw. "Alexander's older brother wasn't insane. He was just wired wrong and he committed infanticide on a horrific level. Simply because he killed the children of mortals and animals didn't make his crimes any less terrible--he wiped out entire species in his obsession."