Page 88 of Archangel’s Lineage

“I have a vague memory of Sha-yi talking to me of a dagger that was a relic of utmost importance...” Caliane pressed two fingers against her temple. “I—”

A sudden pause.

“Yes, I’ve seen it. Not in Amanat. It was once, but no longer. I think... it lies in Archangel Fort. Part of Neha’s golden throne that I had placed in storage... and I especially noticed the blade. I meant to go back to it, examine the strange metal from which it is made.”

“I have never seen anything of its like to my memory,” Suyin said.

“I can’t say I have, either,” Elijah murmured. “But I have been in my territory for hundreds of years. If what you say is true, Marduk, it’ll be close by.”

“I will search both my chosen home and my predecessor’s favored palace.” A scowling Aegaeon kicked out his booted feet, crossing them at the ankles.

“I believe I’ve seen such a blade.” Zanaya looked into the distance. “What I can’t recall is if I saw it in my first reign or my current one.”

Alexander, who’d been quiet until then, reached down into his boot to pull out a blade, held it out.

The metal was unlike any Raphael had ever before seen. It wasn’t multihued or in any way flashy, but it seemed strangely fluid. As if it was alive while lying quiescent in Alexander’s hand. And... “Can you hear the hum?” he asked, raising his hand to push absently at the Legion mark that had begun to throb with renewed fervor.

“What hum?” was the resounding answer—from all but Marduk.

The other man gave him a considering look but kept his silence.

Letting the conversation continue, Raphael listened as Alexander explained why he had the blade—the subcomponent of the Compass. “I found it in the sands near my court soon after I woke.

“Though the blade is nowhere as sharp as my others, I felt it was meant for me as soon as I took hold of it.” He closed his fingers over it now, and in that moment, they all saw the eerie blade glow within his fingers, light blue-black escaping through his firm grip.

“So”—Marduk looked around the circle—“all that remains is for the rest of you to find your pieces of the Compass.”

“No archangel ruled this land until I took it over,” Raphael pointed out. “There wasn’t enough mortal or vampiric civilization here for an archangelic base. No other archangel could’ve left behind a blade for me.”

“It will be here,” Marduk insisted. “That is its entire purpose—to find an archangel, then stay dormant until needed.”

Archangels—even angels—shifted in their Sleep, Raphael remembered. Was it possible these so-called subcomponents had access to the same power?

“Can we set our people on the hunt?” Caliane asked.

“No. To their eyes, it will be nothing but a dull blade. Only an archangel can help another.”

After that, no matter how much they spoke, there were no further answers.

“I am not an Ancestor!” Marduk shouted at one point, the bass of his voice filling the chamber and bouncing off the walls in a roar. “I was a child to their eyes when they chose to Sleep. I know only that which I learned as an archangel in my time—and you now have that knowledge.”

In the end, they—one and all—decided to return to their territories in haste, to search for or retrieve their part of the Compass.

As archangels lifted off into the star-speckled night sky to scatter in all directions, Raphael stood on the cliff edge of his Enclave home with Marduk and watched them fly. “The last time I had so many archangels in my territory was during the war.”

Marduk, his head turned skyward, said, “It is a glory to see the skies filled with wings again.”

Raphael glanced at the other man, wondering if he was simply talking about waking from Sleep to see the sight... or if he was talking of a time when the skies had emptied. But even before Marduk looked away from the sky and to the waters of the Hudson, he knew the old archangel wouldn’t answer him.

So he asked a different question. “Why did the Ancestors make the decision to hide our early history?”

50

“Because in a world of immortals, history can become a weight that halts growth. To allow their children to spread their wings without fear, the old ones decided that their mistakes and their world—a world they nearly destroyed—should vanish into the mists of the past.”

It was a deeper answer than Raphael had expected to be given.

“How long?” he asked. “How long ago did the old ones walk the earth?”

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