Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“We didn’t expect to see you rise from your injuries,” Titus said bluntly before Michaela could respond to Suyin’s words; his voice was a boom of thunder in the obsitru meeting chamber. “This gives me hope for Astaad and Favashi.”
“I can give you no news of either,” Michaela said in the same oddly subdued tone she’d used thus far. “I know Astaad and I went into anshara together because Lady Cassandra told us so—her voice was the last thing I heard. But she has not spoken to me since, so I have no further knowledge.”
She looked around. “I see we are nine.” A deep frown. “How long were you eight?”
“A mere glimmer,” Alexander answered. “Less than a turning of the moon.”
“In fact,” Zanaya added, the infinite darkness of her skin flawless, “we didn’t even know that both Caliane and Marduk—whom you did not meet—had chosen to Sleep until this week. You come into a world more stable than you may have ever known it.”
“My mother will return,” Raphael said to the room at large. “She plans to Sleep for a mere decade and has left a strong team in the role of caretakers. Archangelic oversight will be necessary, but I don’t believe the territory needs to be broken up to be ruled piecemeal.”
“How certain are you of this?” Elijah asked, and it was no challenge, not from the archangel who had once been Caliane’s first general and was now one of Raphael’s closest friends.
“It’s her stated plan,” Raphael said.
“She governed her lands with grace and control.” Alexander folded his arms loosely, his right hand on the opposing biceps. “It won’t take much to keep an eye on it. Ten years is but a breath.”
“I’m with Alexander—we keep watch, but don’t split up the territory,” Illium said, to an echo of agreement from the others—with those closest to Caliane’s lands agreeing to put in appearances to give silent notice to any dangerous vampires who might think to take advantage of the situation.
“I hold what were once your lands.” Aegaeon met Michaela’s gaze, the blue-green of his own aggressive. “I do not intend to give them over.”
Raphael waited for aggression from Michaela in turn, but she said, “As I understand it, the Pacific Isles stand without a ruler. I claim them as my own.”
Well, came a private message in front of Raphael, that’s weird. Why is she being reasonable?
Of course it was Illium.
I, too, am somewhat concerned, Raphael replied.
Maybe she’s still coming fully out of Sleep, will get back to her usual irritating ways soon enough.
But as it came to be, that didn’t happen. In the reports Raphael received from her new territory in the days that followed—though no longer from Andreas, because Michaela had asked him to step in as her second for an interim period at least—it seemed that she was being a good archangel. Strong, thoughtful, and not unnecessarily harsh. And crucially, so different from Marduk that they could not be compared.
The vampires in her territory were already in thrall to her beauty and power.
She didn’t, however, seem to revel in it as she once had. Jason’s spies reported her as contemplative, said that she was often seen walking through the desert gardens in the most western of Marduk’s strongholds.
As for Gavriel…
“Just received a formal letter from Michaela,” Illium told Raphael a week after her return, holding up what looked to be a sheet of heavy parchment. “A request that I allow her to make contact with her son if he would accept the contact.”
No, Raphael thought, this wasn’t the Michaela they’d all expected to rise from the shattered remains of herself. “Your answer?”
Illium shrugged onscreen, his shoulders muscled under well-worn black leathers. “Gavriel is a man of his own—we’ve spoken, and he knows that if he wants to open communications with his mother, even go see her, I won’t stand in his way.”
The other man put down the letter, the currently overlong strands of his hair—black dipped in blue—sliding over his forehead before he shoved them back. “He can take leave for as long as he wishes. I’m also prepared to lose him if he decides to stay with her, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“How is he doing?”
“You know Gavriel.”
“Yes.” Whether it was growing up under Keir’s care, or his own temperament, Michaela’s son—a cherished son—was as calm and centered as the healer. Not much unsettled him. He also knew how to stand his ground without making it a battle. All of which made him an excellent man to have on your team.
“Still,” Illium added, “I’m keeping an eye on him—has a way of going quiet, our Gavi, into his own head at times. Been that way since he was little. I remember finding him sitting on rocks in the Refuge, just frowning and thinking hard. I’d just sit with him then, until he was ready to talk. Bit harder now he’s an adult.”