Archangel's Heart

19

Elena and Aodhan wandered deliberately aimlessly through Lumia that morning, giving anyone watching the impression that they were just killing time while Raphael was in the Cadre meeting. When they spotted Xander doing flight drills with Valerius in another courtyard, they waited until he was done, then asked both males to join them.

“We’re going to meet Hannah,” Elena told them. “She said she’d be in the Gallery.” They’d met the other consort an hour earlier by chance.

Valerius inclined his head, his blond-streaked brown hair tightly curled, and the white wings arching over his back holding filaments of the same blond. “We will join you after we clean up.” A pause. “A young warrior should learn art as well as weapons if he is to be a man of strength in all its facets.”

“That sounds like something the Hummingbird would say.”

At Aodhan’s words, Valerius’s stern face cracked in a small smile that brought warmth to his eyes. “She was stuck in Alexander’s territory once for two years—she spent that time trying to bring culture to those of us far more at home with the sword and the crossbow.”

So many connections over the eons lived by an immortal, Elena thought, so many strands of lives entwining. Never would she have linked this usually dour general with the fragile Hummingbird, but from the smile that lingered yet in the greenish hazel of his eyes, that connection had been one he’d enjoyed.

Xander, his dark brown hair damp with sweat, gave Elena a small smile as Aodhan and Valerius fell into a quiet conversation. “I have a younger friend in your tower, Consort,” he said. “Izak. Is he well?”

“Izzy?” Elena couldn’t help her affectionate grin. “Last I saw him, he was determinedly learning to shoot the crossbow to pinpoint accuracy under the tutelage of a number of my hunter friends.”

Xander blinked, while Valerius’s eyebrows came down heavily over his eyes, the general clearly having kept one ear on his charge’s discussion with Elena. “An angel being taught by mortals?”

Not all the hunters in the Guild were mortal now, but since Izak’s tutors all were, that was a nonissue. “Angels can survive a crossbow hit,” she pointed out. “Mortals mostly can’t—so hunters learn to be very, very, very good at hitting the other party first.” Survival instincts gave mortals an edge immortals simply didn’t possess, especially when young.

Valerius nodded slowly, and though his expression remained reluctant, it wasn’t intransigent in the way of some of the older angels. “Galen is in agreement with this?”

“He’s the one who suggested it.” Galen was always aware of the best resources in Raphael’s territory, whether mortal or immortal, and he utilized them well. “We’ll see you in the Gallery?”

Xander and Valerius nodded before they headed off down a hallway to the right, Xander taller and more slender in comparison to Valerius’s more solidly muscled form. She saw the boy ask the general something, heard the deep rumble of Valerius’s reply. They disappeared from sight after making a turn off the hallway.

“Do you know the way?” Elena asked Aodhan. “I forgot to ask Hannah.”

Shaking his head, Aodhan said, “I haven’t worked out all the symbols. But there are Luminata everywhere. We can ask one.”

Elena had noticed that, too—the Luminata were everywhere. “Guess they don’t all have the same meditation times,” she said, thinking back to what Gian had said.

“Or it’s used as a convenient excuse when needed.”

Elena sighed. “Damn it, Sparkle. Don’t go cynical on me.”

Shooting her as close as Aodhan ever came to a glare, he said, “Illium is a bad influence on you.”

“Way I hear it, he’s been a bad influence on you since you were tiny tots.”

A deep smile that creased his cheeks, his beauty once more stealing her breath. “We took turns.”

Around them, Elena was aware of the Luminata going motionless—yeah, Sparkle’s smile had a certain effect. “Let’s stop one of the brothers who isn’t trying to be stealthy.” No reason to tip their hand, showing these men that Elena and Aodhan were highly conscious of being shadowed.

The one they approached was heading down the corridor toward them. About Elena’s height, his face was in darkness because of his hood, his wings covered. However, when they asked about the Gallery, he immediately pushed back the hood. And his smile, it was a bright thing, his teeth white against skin of darkest mahogany and his black hair cut close to his skull, his cheekbones like razors, his eyes a startling sky blue.

She was surrounded by pretty men today.

“If you would not mind the company,” he said in a mellifluous voice, “I would be happy to guide you.” His expression turned apologetic. “I’m afraid the Gallery is deep in Lumia, the route to it complicated. We would protect our treasures from all possible natural threats.”

“We’d love it if you came along,” Elena said. “This place is a maze. Fun to explore, but I can see how we could end up going around in circles.”

“Yes, it took me a year to learn how to navigate it,” their guide admitted. “I used to constantly end up doing my brotherhood meditations in the hallways because I couldn’t make it back to my room in time.”

A silvered chime sounded in the air.

“The breakfast bell for us,” their chatty guide said, beginning to walk. “I will go there after taking you to the Gallery. We breakfast long here, brothers coming and going as they finish their personally chosen meditations.”

Elena had her guard up so high she could barely see over it, and still she found herself wanting to like this angel who seemed an open book. “I don’t suppose you have a historical map of Lumia we could see?” she asked because, hell, why not? “It’d be interesting to see how the place has changed over the years.”

“I do not know of one,” the Luminata said slowly, “but I will search the Repository of Knowledge for you.” A smile so honest and innocent that Elena was suddenly afraid for him. “I am Ibrahim, Consort.”

“Elena.” She glanced to her left. “You know Aodhan?”

“We have not met but yes.” He and Aodhan acknowledged each other. “We carry pieces of your art in the Gallery.”

Aodhan tilted his head to the side. “I would’ve thought my age would disqualify me?”

“No, my brothers who are in charge of the art archive judge only on the merits of the work—and you are a student of the Hummingbird.” A smile that held shy admiration. “I am but an initiate yet learning of art, but in my opinion, you are the best student she has ever had. You have taken her teachings to heart but you haven’t tried to emulate her. You are Aodhan as she is the Hummingbird.”

Maybe it was empty flattery meant to put Aodhan at ease, but though Elena was no art expert, she agreed with Ibrahim. Aodhan and the Hummingbird were both astonishingly talented—and each was unique in what they created. “Do you have many of her pieces here?” she asked Ibrahim.

“As many as we have been able to acquire.” His expression became mournful. “Her work is beloved by those lucky enough to have obtained a piece. Not many will pass them on even though the Luminata wish only to hold her art safe for future generations.”

And keep them out of view of the world, Elena thought privately. It wasn’t as if this Gallery were a museum anyone could come by to visit. In fact, it struck her as being more like Lijuan’s creepy “Collection Room,” where she apparently pinned up dead angels with beautiful wings: a secret hoard.

As Aodhan and Ibrahim exchanged further comments, it became clear that Ibrahim wasn’t only a student of art but a practitioner, too. “I am an unknown, nowhere near your level of skill,” he said modestly when Aodhan asked him about his work. “But it gives me joy.” A soft smile. “It is my contemplation.”

“The greatest art,” Aodhan replied, “comes from great joy and great despair.”

Ibrahim’s smile faded. “I think for the Hummingbird, one turned into the other centuries ago.”

The comment resonated within Elena. There was such terrible sadness in the Hummingbird now, but she’d seen a work in Raphael’s Refuge stronghold that Illium’s mother had created two millennia ago—it burned with such radiant joy that to look at it was to smile.

However, even as she thought about art, even as Ibrahim told them about his favorite works in the Gallery, she was noting every step they took, creating a mental map of this sprawling maze. The stone of Lumia itself began to change as they got closer to the secret heart of the stronghold. Carvings done with time and care became apparent on the walls, while the floor beneath their feet turned into a delicacy of mosaics.

Those mosaics were earth-toned and gentle at the start, but the pale turquoise blues and faded reds slowly flowed into jewel tones so brilliant Elena wondered how the colors had been captured with such depth. And on the walls, the carvings turned into paintings of great events in angelic history.

“Who painted this?” Aodhan asked, stopping in front of a breathtaking piece that appeared to show an angel bursting into flame. His tone was dangerously quiet.

A heartbeat later, Elena noticed that while the angel’s hair was gold, his face was one with deeply familiar lines. She’d always thought Raphael strongly favored his mother, but the face that stared out at her from that painting was his. Change the golden hair to midnight, the equally golden eyes to a blue too pure to be mortal, and she’d be looking at a portrait of her archangel.

Wait. “His eyes aren’t golden.” And the hair whipping across his face was created of flame.

“No,” Ibrahim replied. “His eyes show angelfire burning him up from within.” Ibrahim’s entire body seemed to sag. “The artist is one of the brotherhood. He was once a healer, but now he chooses seclusion and art. But this is the only scene he ever paints. Over and over.”

“Was he a friend of Nadiel’s?” Because Elena was certain beyond any doubt that she was looking at an image of Raphael’s father in the moments before his death.

“He has never said.” Ibrahim tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe. “The older Luminata tell me that he came to us in silence and in silence he has remained forevermore.” Pausing, the blue-eyed male seemed to be about to say something further, but then simply shook his head.

Lifting her fingers, Elena traced the lines of Nadiel’s face. It was eerie, the resemblance . . . but even if the hair and eyes were changed, she would never mistake one for the other. There was something in Raphael that was missing in this man, and there was something in Nadiel that she’d never seen in Raphael.

A brokenness. A subtle madness that was visible even in the final throes of his life.

Magnificent but broken, that was Raphael’s father. And this painting captured his death, when his beloved consort had been forced to execute him lest he drench the world blood red in his insanity. “He never speaks?” she said to Ibrahim. “The brother who painted this?”

“Never with his voice. I was more curious than I should’ve been,” Ibrahim added, “and I looked up his record in the Repository. He once bore the name ‘Laric,’ but my brothers have come to call him Stillness.”

Poetic and sad.

And an erasure.

Elena knew one other person who’d given up her name—Sorrow had chosen that name in despair over the changes ravaging her body, so it hadn’t exactly been a free choice, but it had been her choice. It didn’t appear as if this healer artist had made any choice at all. “Where does Laric live in his seclusion?”

“The north tower.” Ibrahim nodded in that direction. “I do not mean to say he never emerges. He does. It is simply that he rarely interacts with us, and so he carries his seclusion with him.”

Aodhan’s wings flickered, a surprising movement from an angel who knew how to be still, until you could almost forget him despite his shattering otherness. “I would meet him.”

Ibrahim looked at Aodhan for a long moment. “You, too, were silent for a long time,” he said unexpectedly before inclining his head. “He seems to exit for sunset most often.” A pause. “I walk with him at times. I do not know if I intrude on his seclusion, but he has never given any indication that he wished for me to leave.” A hesitant but very real concern in his tone for this brother who lived in aloneness.

“Thank you.” Aodhan’s voice.

Forcing herself to walk away from the disturbing but compelling painting of Nadiel, she said, “Do you know when Laric first came here?”

“It was not in the records that I saw.” Ibrahim shrugged, then winced. It was followed by a sigh. “I am new to the brotherhood. Only on the first step to my path for luminescence.” A lopsided smile that was infectious. “You will not report my behavior?”

The more time she spent with this man, the more she liked him. And the more she worried that he was a hapless lamb among wolves. “Your secret’s safe with us. Right, Aodhan?”

“We are vaults.”

An actual grin before Ibrahim seemed to remember himself and suddenly was all contemplative quiet again.

“Who did the work on the Gallery?” Elena asked out of curiosity. “I mean, the Luminata are meant to be a closed sect and, no offense, but I can’t see your brothers learning construction skills.”

Ibrahim winced again. “I think I am not meant to talk of such.”

“Let me guess—the rules get bent now and then?”

A subtle nod. “As you say, there are certain things we need that we cannot provide for ourselves. And those of the angelic squadron that patrols our borders also have need of supplies, so Lumia has certain ties with the closest town.”

“What about shelter for the squadron and their lovers or families?” She hadn’t seen any soldiers in Lumia.

“None who have families are asked to serve here,” Ibrahim replied. “Those who do live in barracks located by the eastern wall, and during their rotation in Lumia, they maintain their chastity.” Flushing almost immediately on the heels of those surprising words, Ibrahim said, “I talk too much. Gian is in despair that I will ever achieve anything close to luminescence.”

“According to the angels I know,” Elena said, “even a hundred years of doing something barely makes you competent at it, so you’ve got a few thousand years at least to figure out luminescence.”

Ibrahim’s face creased into a smile at her dry tone. “Yes, this is so. But here, surrounded by so much peace, I wish to hasten my journey.”

“Have you ever considered that you might not want to be Luminata?” As far as Elena was concerned, he was too good for this place.

“Of course,” Ibrahim said at once. “That is part of the path—all of us who wish to become Luminata are given a century to make our decision. It is the rarest initiate who ever chooses to leave.” A tranquility to him that, all at once, made Elena believe this man would achieve the luminescence he sought. “A thousand two hundred years of adventure, excess, wealth . . . nothing in that life spoke to me as do the ancient teachings on which Lumia is built.”

Aware of Aodhan listening with concentrated focus even as he kept his eyes on their surroundings, Elena had the worrying thought that he might be considering this place . . . then mentally shook herself out of it. Aodhan had made it clear that he wanted to live, wanted to experience life in vibrant color after disengaging from the world for two hundred years.

Still, she’d ask him, make damn sure. She wasn’t convinced he wasn’t still shaken up after the fight with Illium.

“What about love?” Elena asked this initiate who appeared to have no hidden agendas, too new to have been inducted into the Luminata’s secret society.