Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,139

the pile from above, his bloody body sliding down the flesh pile to end at the bottom with his remaining wing smeared dark red . . . and black. Some of those in the pile weren’t alive, not as everyone but Lijuan understood life. They were reborn.

A choked-off sound drew his attention to Suyin, so silent till this instant that he’d nearly forgotten her though she stood beside Elena. Her hands clutched the edge of the table, the ice white of her hair a liquid waterfall as she leaned forward.

“Our family line was one of honor.” Her voice shook. “Warriors and scholars and an archangel who was the cause of much pride. We are not this. She is not us.” Agony contorted her features. “My memories of the moments after I woke this time are blurred, but I have a vague recollection of a conversation between Xi and my aunt while they stood over me.”

A furrow between her eyebrows, those brows black in contrast to the white of her hair. “She said words that made no sense to me: ‘Your troops will not die, Xi. Be content, for they will become of me, their goddess.’”

Oh, fuck, Archangel.

Come stand with me, Elena. His rage was a cauldron in his gut, cold and deadly. I need to remember why I cannot simply fly out right now and attempt to stop this atrocity.

His hunter slipped to him, coming to stand so that part of her back brushed his chest, wings of stormfire defiant with life against him. We’ll get her. Steel and wildfire in his mind. She doesn’t get to do this and win.

A stirring on one side of the camera feed before Lijuan flowed into view, as graceful and regal as ever.

“Her wing’s dragging.” Suyin’s voice steadied, a grim joy in it. “You hurt her.”

“Not enough if she’s able to walk.” He’d expended far more wildfire than he had in the last battle, but done far less damage.

Dressed in a gown of fog gray that darkened to black at the edges and followed the shape of her body until it flared out in waves from the waist, she was an empress in her bearing and in the elegance of her features. No skeletal mask showed through her pearlescent skin, no nightmares danced in her haunting pale eyes. Even her wings, dove gray and soft, were so lovely that the damage to the left one appeared an abomination.

A hush fell on the world.

56

Halting in front of the mountain of wounded, Lijuan smiled with a kind gentleness that Raphael remembered from long ago, when he’d been a boy holding on to his father’s hand while they visited Lijuan’s court.

She gave me a plate of sweets once, he found himself sharing with Elena. Then she told me I was free to run around in her maze garden while she and my father spoke—and that I wasn’t to cheat by flying to look down at the maze from above.

Elena shook her head. What happened to her?

Greed and ambition. Lijuan had always chafed at not being the oldest and strongest in the Cadre. I remember my father laughing and telling her not to wish for age; that he knew far too many mad old ones. The irony of Nadiel’s declaration echoed through time.

Onscreen, Lijuan knelt beside the broken body of the last angel to have been dropped into the pile; as they watched, she brushed back his hair with utmost gentleness. The camera had enough definition that when Vivek zoomed in, they saw awe and wonder and joy on the face of the fallen angel. His lips shaped the words, My Lady.

Lijuan murmured something that made him attempt to bow his head even as blood dribbled from a corner of his mouth. Lijuan touched his hair again before rising. Hands dropping to her sides, she threw back her head and—

Darkness.

“Shit.” Vivek wheeled to a computer, began to work it with frantic hands. “I don’t get it. The cameras say they’re transmitting, all functions optimal.”

“It’s the fog.” Jason, his gaze unblinking as he stared at the darkness. “She’s created a mini-fog.”

“Rouse one of the miniature drones we have in the area,” Dmitri ordered. “Get an aerial view.”

“I’ll pilot,” Illium volunteered, and Vivek passed across the controller, but Ashwini said, “Wait,” before they could activate the drone. “Fog’s fading at the edges.”

“I don’t see it,” Suyin murmured, but that was to be expected. She hadn’t experienced Ashwini’s third eye.

Five seconds later and shapes began to appear in the