Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
A slow smile, but the darkness remained. “You’ve made me look at Lailah in a whole different way. I dismissed her, too—except for on the battlefield. There, she can fight. But otherwise, I’ve always thought of her as a useless courtier.”
He spread out his wings until all Aodhan saw was Illium-blue. “Do you think she’ll have done anything with her life after being freed of her father’s influence, or do you think it’s too late for some people?”
Aodhan stroked Illium’s nape. “I honestly have no answer to that. I haven’t lived long enough yet. But today, we speak to Lailah and find out the path she chose to take.”
* * *
* * *
First, however, they had to track down Lailah’s whereabouts. Which turned out to be far easier than Aodhan had expected.
“She’s still in her father’s former territory?” He raised an eyebrow at Dmitri. “I’d have expected Titus to eject her.” It wouldn’t have been malicious, just expected politics—Lailah was a reminder of the previous archangel, and while Titus didn’t want Charisemnon’s territory, the simple fact was that, with only nine archangels in the post-war world, there was no one else to take over that devastated land.
“I can see Titus’s reasoning on the point.” Dmitri took a sip from a black mug emblazoned with the emblem of the television show Hunter’s Prey. A gift from the youngest wing in the Tower, who were all, for whatever reason, addicted to the show, which bore no resemblance to reality whatsoever.
As for what was in the mug, it was either Dmitri’s breakfast or the single triple espresso his vampiric system could handle daily.
“Lailah never had any political power,” the second pointed out. “Charisemnon certainly never used her as his mouthpiece. She was seen as just another courtier for the most part. As far as I know, she’s in the same palace she occupied prior to the war.”
But when Aodhan made the call using a wall screen in the office set aside for the use of those of the Seven who didn’t need a permanent presence on this level, with Illium just out of visual range, it wasn’t the jaded and dissolute courtier who appeared on the screen.
This woman had the same bone structure, the same skin, but not only was she thin enough to have lost the curves of her face, her once-glossy curls were pulled back into a rough knot, and she wore not a drop of cosmetics. No jewels adorned her ears, dotted the side of her nose, or sat around her neck.
Neither was she wearing a gown, but what looked—oddly—like a gray T-shirt.
And was that a streak of dirt on her left cheekbone?
Her expression was…no expression. Not the jaded nothingness of their prior meetings but a whole different thing altogether. A wariness of showing herself?
“Aodhan.” A break in the wall, a smile that warmed her eyes until they were almost like Andi’s, her unembellished face suddenly startlingly young. “It has been many years.”
“Yes,” he said, not sure how to read this woman who was so unlike the one he’d once known. “Thank you for taking my call.”
“Of course. Is it to do with Andromeda?” A hard swallow, her gaze searching his. “Is she well?”
Aodhan had the sudden thought that Lailah truly didn’t know. Which one of them had created the distance? Mother or child? “Yes,” he said. “I saw her not long ago. She told me of her work on translating a language long thought lost.” Even an immortal race couldn’t beat the inexorable march of time in such matters.
Lailah’s face lit up in a way resplendent. “She was always the cleverest of children. And her mate? That wild creature who loves her so? He is well, too?”
“He remains as wild and loves her as much—or even more.”
“Your words are the best gift anyone could give me.” Her thin face continued to glow; she was more beautiful in her guise as a proud mother, Aodhan thought, than she’d ever been as a bejeweled courtier. “Thank you.”
“Lady Lailah,” he began.
“Just Lailah,” she said firmly. “I don’t claim Charisemnon as kin any longer and am no high-ranking courtier, nor have I earned the appellation through my work or habits. I am Lailah…or I am trying to discover who Lailah is meant to be.” That last was spoken almost to herself.
“Lailah,” Aodhan said. “I wish to ask for your assistance in solving a mystery in my city.”
“Oh yes?”
Aodhan brought up images of the jewels on one half of the screen. “Do you recognize any of these?”
A frown, as she took her time examining the photos. “My memories from huge chunks of my past are blurry, but I do remember the sunset diamond. Charisemnon gifted it to me on my majority.” Flat words without tone or timbre. “I haven’t seen it for centuries.”
“An expensive piece to lose.”