Page 101 of Archangel’s Lineage

She tore her hand away from the others.

Breathless, she leaned over with her palms on her thighs, Raphael beside her. “I can still hear it,” she said through her heaving breaths. “The melody. It hasn’t lost any of its strength. I can feel the direction in my bones.” A literal vibration, as if she was a tuning fork.

“Can you fly in this heaviness of rain?” Alexander demanded, his hands on his hips.

“Yes.” To Raphael, she said, Archangel, I have no idea if I can or not, but I have to try. We have to try.

“We fly above Elena in a line.” Raphael’s voice was a command. “Shield her.”

Not even Aegaeon protested. Elena didn’t say anything, either. Because this wasn’t about her pride. This was about Sam and Zoe and Maggie and Laurent and countless other children who’d hurt and scream and die if the world spiraled into a chaos of destruction.

Already dressed in the streamlined cold-weather leather jacket she’d brought along, she zipped it up to her throat, her small pack abandoned on the balcony. “Ready, Archangel.”

Two seconds later, the entire Cadre was aloft.

Elena’s heart caught at the sheer power of the sight, at the magnificence of these beings through whose veins ran energies so violent they could destroy the world itself. But she had only a breath or two to admire them before they settled into formation.

Taking a deep breath, she rose up through the driving rain, protected from the pounding only by the wings that created a living shield above her. The pressure eased at some point, and when she looked up, she saw that the archangels had stacked themselves in rows of three, creating a carpet of wings.

It was a carpet permeable, however; rain got through. But the protection still made it far easier for her to fly than if she were directly exposed. All the while, she thought about why she was the one to hear the melody. Yes, she had a piece of Raphael’s heart inside her, but if it was about that, he should’ve heard the song, too. And it should’ve been far louder for him.

Cassandra, she said in an effort to reach the Ancient.

But there was no response today.

Her heart drummed a violent beat, struggling with what she was doing—leading death to a person who had no idea it was coming. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She kept hoping the melody would stop, the choice taken out of her hands, but it only grew stronger with each wingbeat.

Until by the time she had to stop for a rest, her muscles quivering with exhaustion, it was all she could hear, an opera rising toward crescendo inside a sealed theater. When Raphael told her he’d carry her, she just nodded. Because she’d seen areas flooding beneath them, homes being swept away, mountains crumbling in slides of mud and stone, and the landscape blurring as the earth shook again and again.

The world was falling.

So she kept on indicating the necessary direction, and though she’d much rather have flown on the wing, she stayed in Raphael’s arms once she realized how much faster the entire group was with him carrying her.

Darkness fell. The rain halted, but no stars emerged.

Elena tried not to see that as an omen.

They came to a point where even the archangels had to stop to take a breath and refuel their bodies using the dried meats and nuts that Caliane’s people had thrust into their hands prior to flight.

Their landing spot was an isolated grassland exposed to the wind and the fine spits of rain that had started up in the last hour.

Elena strode across cold and dark emptiness, both to stretch her legs and in an effort to outrun the certainty growing in the back of her brain. She’d come up with only two possibles—and one outlier—for people trusted by the entire Cadre. It had to be someone who had enough contact with archangels to build that bond. A senior person, then, and since this was a matter of the angelic race, most likely an angel.

Raphael walked to join her. “Your face tells me you’re thinking along the same lines as I am.” A glance back at where the others either spoke to each other or had walked off to stand by themselves. “There’s a high chance we all have the same short list.”

When Elena forced herself to name the people on her list, he nodded. “I can’t think of anyone else. Not if it is to be an individual trusted by us, one and all.”

“I wish it was me,” Elena blurted out. “It’d be easier than basically going to a person—a good, kind person—to ask them to sacrifice themselves.” Her breath accelerated, her shoulders rigid. “I know what I said before, but now the time’s here... I don’t know if I can do this.”

The earth gave a violent shudder at her feet, cracking in a vicious line that put them on opposite sides. As if the world was sending her a warning, telling her this wasn’t a choice. Not for her—and not for the person at the end of this flight.

Her face flushed, a scream tearing out of her. “I hate this!”

Raphael’s face was cold in the way it got when he was holding back violent emotion. “This is what it means to lead, hbeebti. Some decisions carve out a piece of your heart.”

Eyes burning, she flew across the new gorge and into his arms. He wrapped both his wings and his arms around her, a moment of warmth and love before they had to do a thing terrible.

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