Charisemnon. You’ve healed?”
“Of course I have,” he grumbled, but allowed her to put more food on his plate. “I’m an archangel.”
Sharine’s plate was more than full enough, but since Titus was over twice her size and was expending enormous amounts of energy on a daily basis, she dished him out more before taking her seat. They began to eat in silence, though she was aware of Titus sending her wary looks.
It pleased her.
No one was ever wary of the Hummingbird. She was meant to be lightness and gentleness and kindness and no threat at all. All that was part of her nature, it was true. But Sharine was part of the Hummingbird, too, and a long time ago, Sharine had been far more than an artist with her head in the clouds.
It had been so very long ago, eons before Titus had existed even as a mote in the universe, but the memories had begun to awaken with her return to the real world. She remembered things others had long forgotten or never known . . . except for Caliane.
“Do you remember Akhia-Solay?” Caliane had asked her in one of their final conversations before her friend left to fight Lijuan. “I wonder if he’ll wake this Cascade.”
Sharine hadn’t had any personal memories of the Sleeping Ancient then, the veil yet fading, but it had come to her as she flew across the African landscape, the long flight nudging loose memories of other such flights.
Once, after Raan and long, long before Aegaeon—so long that Akhia-Solay was a myth to even most angels—Sharine had flown with a general as his army’s battle historian, the artist who made frantic sketches to add to angelkind’s histories. She’d also—she glanced down at her hand, caught in the fragments of memory. At some point, she’d faced an enemy combatant . . . and she’d . . .
“You’re displeased with the meal?” Titus’s big voice snapped her back to the present, the past fading back where it belonged but for the echoes of knowledge it left behind.
“What?” Looking down at her plate, she saw that she’d stopped eating. “No, not at all. It’s all delicious. I must compliment your chef.”
“Cook,” Titus corrected. “He is adamant that he will quit on the spot if anyone dares call him a chef.”
“I’ll take care not to anger him.” She paid attention to what she was eating, savoring the tastes and textures and scents. Food was another thing she’d allowed to fade from her life in her time in the fog. She’d eaten, but had tasted none of it, her mind distanced.
Only after she’d cleared her plate did she look at Titus again. He was smiling at her. That smile was . . . devastating. No wonder many of her warriors sighed when talking about him. Though he seemed to take only women as lovers, that didn’t stop all and sundry from pining after him. Truly, the adulation went some way toward explaining his high opinion of himself.
“Here.” He held out a dish she’d particularly enjoyed.
She hadn’t realized he’d been paying close attention. “Thank you,” she said, a touch of heat under her skin. “I’m full for now.”
Putting down the dish, Titus leaned back in his chair and ran both hands over his head. He seemed about to say something, when a warrior with dust-covered wings that might’ve been white when clean dropped down outside the doors and yelled, “Sire! Massive reborn nest sighted just beyond the new barriers! They’re awake and climbing!”
Titus moved so fast she’d have thought it impossible for such a big man if she hadn’t seen it happen. He was outside and taking off before she’d even gotten out of her chair. Heart thunder, she raced after him to see multiple squadrons take to the sky, all of them arrowing southward. Heavy-duty vehicles painted in camouflage colors screeched out of the courtyard at the same time.
When a young and slender warrior dropped next to her, his skin ebony, his eyes a pale brown, his hair twined into falling locs decorated with wooden beads, and his wings a spread of black dusted with green, she said, “You’re not with the squadrons?”
“I’m to be your guide here, my Lady Hummingbird,” he said with a deep bow, and though he attempted to hide his misery, he was too young—barely beyond a hundred if she was any judge—to succeed. “I am Obren, the newest member of the sire’s forces.”
And so he’d been given the unenviable task of babysitting Sharine. “Call me