Page 33 of Archangel’s Lineage

In Vivek’s case, that meant he’d gone through the initial “out-of-control” or “proto-bloodlust” phase without any physical outlet. The healers had worried he’d go insane, and she knew he’d had intensive sessions with them prior to his Making where they’d stressed the importance of developing iron-clad mental control.

Vivek had succeeded at such speed that the most senior of the healers, Keir, had come to check that his transition had actually been successful.

“Never have I heard of a vampire so composed at this stage of the process,” the worried healer had said, the deceptively youthful lines of his face heavy with concern.

Elena hadn’t stopped Keir, wanting Vivek to have the best possible care, but she’d known the reason for his control.

“I learned to swallow my screams quickly, Ellie,” he’d told her one quiet day in his former subterranean domain of the Cellars. “A kid who can’t move, one whose parents have dumped him at an institution where he has no one to advocate for him... well, no one cares if he screams—or they care only to shut him up.”

Throw in that he was hunter-born but had never been able to exercise those furious instincts, and stifling his emotions and needs wasn’t a problem for Vivek—which of course was a whole different issue. But his control paired with the fact he’d entered the Tower as the genius head of the Guild’s surveillance operations meant no one in Raphael’s team had ever considered him “young.”

It would’ve been stupid not to utilize V’s skills, especially when Elena knew his word, once given, was unbreakable—and he’d vowed loyalty to Raphael. He also had a man crush on Raphael’s spymaster, Jason. The black-winged angel, in turn, treated Vivek as his right hand. Vivek pretended to be normal about that, but Elena was sure he did a secret happy dance when no one was looking.

Now, there was no laughter. She and Illium watched in unforgiving silence as Vivek went through the relevant images, having already discarded the ones Illium had added so the techs wouldn’t get suspicious about his focus on one particular region.

“No,” Vivek said at last. “Can’t see it.”

Elena exhaled, stomach muscles unclenching.

“Only problem I can see is here.” Vivek tapped the lower left corner of the screen. “It’s an echo. Can you see it? An image on an image.”

Frowning, Elena stared, but he had to zoom in and point out the exact parameters before she could make out the shape of it. “What does that mean?”

It was Illium who answered. “That whatever is hiding the Refuge is beginning to disintegrate exactly as the Cadre suspected.” His cheekbones cut against the gold of his skin. “Right now, all anyone on the ground will see is rocks and mountain blooms, but the farther the Mantle withdraws, the higher the chance of a mortal or vampire spotting an element that could lead to dangerous curiosity.”

“Shit.” Elena put her hands on her hips. “Is there anything we or the Cadre can do?” If she’d learned one thing over the years, it was that archangels were a power. Raphael had once caught a freaking plane!

“The sire told me the Cadre has no idea of the origins of the Mantle.” Illium folded his arms, the arches of his wings vivid against the dark of the screens. “It’s so old it’s beyond any of their memories.”

Her mouth fell open. “But Caliane and Alexander and Zanaya are—”

“—old,” Vivek finished, rubbing at his temples. “My brain hurts at how old. How can they not know?”

Illium shrugged. “I’m barely past five hundred. I know nothing in comparison.” He tugged on a strand of Elena’s damp hair, playing with it as his pampered pet cat did her toys; Smoke might be getting on in years, but that hadn’t stopped her playfulness.

“Truth is,” he added, “the information probably just faded out of immortal consciousness bit by bit over millennia. Angelkind has a far longer history than any angel awake in the world at the current time.”

The idea of that span of time... Elena’s mind refused to give shape to it. “If they don’t know how it works, they can’t fix it.”

“I’ll start hunting,” Vivek said at once, and she could almost see the sparks as his mind fired up. She sometimes wondered what it was like inside Vivek’s complicated and brilliant brain—the man could handle more incoming data than anyone else she’d ever seen, without losing track of any of it.

“Jessamy reaches out to me every so often with the more esoteric research stuff she isn’t able to track down through other methods,” he told them. “Even old material ends up online, sometimes as an image or a reference in another object.”

Elena’d had no idea that Vivek was in touch with the angelic Librarian and Historian, but it made sense now that she considered it—both were in the business of information.

“I’ll hook up with her on this—I mean I’ve always assumed her security clearance is at the pointy end?” At Elena’s nod, he continued. “It’d help if angels digitized anything, but even Jessamy’s fighting me on that.”

“It’s hard to keep secrets when they become electronic,” Illium pointed out. “The Library and Lumia, in contrast, have stood for eons—and held our secrets safe.”

“But physical media fades.” The thin lines of Vivek’s face were flushed with passion. “At least this way, angelkind wouldn’t lose data.”

Illium considered that. “Maybe, V, we should lose information. In a race of immortals, history can become a crushing weight.” A slight glow around his wings.

Elena’s gut twisted. They all knew Illium would one day ascend—he was too strong at too young an age for it to be otherwise—but his growing power had flatlined after the tumult of the Cascade. That meant nothing except that he was back on a normal trajectory, the growth slow enough that ascension wouldn’t tear him apart... or so they were hoping. Because that glow to the wings? That was an act meant to be limited to the Cadre—except Illium had been doing it for a while.

As for the words that had fallen from his lips... yes, their Bluebell had depths most people who saw only the surface flash would never know. He was far more than beauty and a quicksilver wit, far more than wicked speed in flight and laughter untrammeled. He was exactly the kind of person who should be an archangel... but she worried the power of it would ruin him.

The Cadre was no place for an angel gentle enough to rescue a stray kitten, and bighearted enough to keep up a friendship with mortals who inevitably died and broke his heart.

---