Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,1

terror into the hearts of mortals and vampires both.

The condor that had been sitting beside them took off in a jagged sweep of wings that hit Honor’s right leg. Circling the air in front of them, it opened its beak and released a grating shriek. Birds flew up from every roof in the city at the same instant. The wind rose, slamming at them like an angry opponent.

Planting her feet wide to maintain her position, the soft ebony of her hair streaming behind her, Honor said, “What’s happening?”

Dmitri didn’t know, but his eyes turned toward the Enclave, where the sire lay as motionless as the dead—and Elena was lost inside a chrysalis that didn’t pulse or show any other indication of life.

2

The Sleeper

Archangel Cassandra turned restlessly in her Sleep. Peace would not come, her mind flashing with images of a future she did not want to see. But it had never been a choice for her. Eyes open or closed, clawed out or whole, she saw.

The threads of time.

Shining and bright.

Dark and broken.

Tangled and silky.

She saw.

Yeah, well, I’m not convinced on the whole predestination thing.

That voice, so young, so rash, so determined. The child had altered time, torn apart the future glimpsed.

“Prophecy of mine,” Cassandra mumbled in her broken Sleep, her vast mind sensing the energies rising, the future morphing yet again.

An archangel in Sleep gave out no energy, could not affect the world. This was known, had never been questioned. It protected both the Sleeper and the world. For who could predict the dreams or nightmares of an ancient immortal being? What terrible changes might be wrought in the world without intent or thought?

But Cassandra hung on the twilight verge between wakefulness and Sleep, with a gray awareness of the external world. She stretched out her arms and wrapped them around an energy that would burn down the world.

3

The Legion

The Legion sat watch, their patience endless. Time was a thing that had no meaning to them. The mourning Bluebell spoke to them at times. He told them that six months had passed, then seven. The Legion asked him what this meant.

He said: “A monarch butterfly emerges from its chrysalis in ten days. A child grows in the womb for nine months. The earth completes a revolution around the sun in twelve months. It takes decades for a seed to grow into a mighty oak. An angelic child is not considered an adult until they have lived one hundred years. Seven months is . . . a drop in the well of time.”

The Bluebell said this, but the Legion saw new lines of pain score his face with each day that passed in silence in the room where the Legion kept watch. Their archangel slept unmoving under a spidery blanket of white that came from the chrysalis that had enclosed Elena.

Elena, who was one half of the aeclari. Elena, who grew things. Elena, who had a house of glass that was always green and warm. Elena, who was a warrior. Elena, who spoke to the Legion in ways no one else had ever spoken to them.

Elena, who lay silent inside a chrysalis.

The filaments from that chrysalis had spread rapidly across the room in the past hour, as if feeding on an energy the Legion could not see, could not sense. The midnight of Raphael’s hair was barely visible, the huge width of his wings obscured. The chrysalis that had been too small was no longer visible.

Does the chrysalis grow?

We cannot see.

We cannot know.

It cannot grow in an hour.

The filaments grow.

And grow.

Snow silk covers the walls.

We cannot taste energy.

But the filaments whisper over the room.

The chrysalis must grow.

We cannot see.

It was too small.

Where will her wings fit?

The Bluebell made us remember butterflies.

We forgot butterflies.

He showed us a too-small chrysalis.

But Elena is not a butterfly. An angel does not emerge from a chrysalis.

Why do the filaments spread?

Does the chrysalis grow?

We cannot see.

The voices were him and he was the voices. They were Legion.

“We watch,” the Primary said. “We protect.”

But things were altering in front of them, a faint glow emanating from where the aeclari had been before the filaments obscured both Raphael’s body and Elena’s chrysalis.

Beyond the balcony doors now partially covered with the snow silk of the filaments, the Bluebell turned. His eyes widened at seeing the ocean of filaments, the glow. But before he could open the closed doors, a familiar voice entered all their minds.

Leave now. It was an order from an archangel. Clear the skies above.