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)
“No, it’s me.” Illium frowned. “And it’s not. It’s the me I’ll become unless I fight to maintain my personality.” Folding his arms, he stared down that vast internal force. “I will be myself, Adi. Even if I have to fight this battle every day for the rest of my life.”
“Illium the Bold, Illium the Courageous, Illium the Brilliant,” Aodhan said, a slow smile lighting up his face. “Do you remember how we used to make up those titles for each other?”
“You forgot Illium the Favorite.” Illium grinned. “Aodhan the Bright, Aodhan the Loyal, Aodhan the Audacious.” They’d been so proud of thinking up the last word.
“Well, I have one more for you.” Aodhan cupped the side of his head, those artist’s fingers in Illium’s hair. “Illium, the Determined, Archangel of his own destiny.”
Yesterday
35
After telling Dmitri they needed a few extra days away from New York, and receiving the second’s go-ahead, Illium and Aodhan flew directly from the celebrations in India, to Africa. Instead of traveling overland, however, they flew over water, their destination the border city of Narja. Titus controlled the section of the continent below the dividing line, while Zanaya held the northern half.
At first sight of a long-range scout Illium recognized as Kwayedza, one of Titus’s senior people, Illium immediately winged over. “Hello, my friend.” They exchanged a forearm grip, the other man’s grin a bright glow against the rich dark of his skin. “Do you know if my mother is still at Narja?”
It had been her intended destination when she left India, but as Guardian of Lumia, she could as often be found in Morocco as in the lands held by her beloved Titus. He knew the two missed each other beyond bearing when separated, but they also accepted the duty each had to the people under their care. For Illium’s mother, however, her fidelity to her post had another, more visceral meaning.
“I will never again stop being Sharine—and Sharine has been entrusted to watch over Lumia,” she’d said to him on one visit—when he’d acted as a courier to ferry a fragile piece of art to the place that, among its other charges, was the repository of angelic creativity.
“That Titus not only understands that,” she’d said, her expression tender, “but is proud of me for the position I command, my dedication to duty? It plays an important role in why I love him so. Love should seek to make you bigger and brighter, Illium, never smaller.”
It had taken Illium a long time to realize that he could never have any true comprehension of being made smaller by love—because even in the worst depths of his own anguish, Aodhan had always encouraged him to fly. He hadn’t ever tried to keep Illium locked to the Refuge, to him. Illium had been important enough to Aodhan that though he hadn’t spoken much after his abduction, he’d found the will to confront him about his hovering vigil.
“Don’t you dare bury yourself here,” the other man had growled at Illium a year after his rescue, while he continued on his long recovery.
A piercing look out of those eyes devastated by lingering physical pain. “Fly, Blue.” The first time in over a hundred years that he’d used that childhood nickname. “Dazzle the world as you’ve always been destined to do. I’ll never forgive you if you dull your shine because of me.”
Illium wanted to turn, kiss the life out of his lover, but Kwayedza was replying to his question.
“You’re in luck.” The scout’s smile cut even deeper grooves in his cheeks at the mention of the adored Lady Sharine. “If you stay on your current trajectory, you will be with her before dark.”
“My thanks. And while I know you have to alert the citadel that we’re on our way, could you ask them to keep it a secret from her?”
Kwayedza chuckled. “Yes, no problem. Titus has made it known that you are free to fly through his lands whenever you wish to see Lady Sharine. Aodhan, also.”
“My thanks, too, Kwayedza.” Aodhan exchanged a forearm clasp with the other man before he and Illium angled away to continue their flight to the border city.
Narja was a bustling metropolis centered around the citadel that sat on a rise at its center. It had begun life as a trading city, a center of commerce between territories, turned into a battle citadel when Charisemnon became an obnoxious—and later, an evil—neighbor, only to once more return to its original function after Zanaya took over Northern Africa.
While it was a thriving modern city of steel and glass, its streets flowing with cars and motorcycles, it had no skyscrapers—because skyscrapers were targets in a border city. The only reason the citadel itself sat high was that it permitted expansive sightlines in battle—and even the citadel had been shaped to have a massive footprint, so that it couldn’t simply be knocked down. It was too heavily rooted to the earth.