Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Keir took time to consider her question, the silky black strands of his hair slipping over his forehead as he leaned his head a little to one side. “Yes and no. The Michaela we knew before the War of the Death Cascade is forever altered—but this altered Michaela has regained more of her passion, more of the spirit that made her such a powerful warrior.”
“Weird as it is, I’m glad to hear that.” Elena put down her own wine to pick up a handful of salted nuts from the tray Sivya had arranged. “Never thought I’d say it, but I didn’t like seeing her so…broken, I suppose.” Withdrawn and quiet. “It felt wrong.”
“Yes. I, too, did not like to see her thus.” Keir smiled his thanks at Raphael as her archangel topped up the healer’s wine. “But while she has become more spirited, she has no time for cruel games or such fripperies as those that previously gave her pleasure.
“She is…a mother focused on the well-being of her child. I think if there is an influencing force in their relationship, it isn’t coming from Michaela. She’s so proud of him—and in this I can’t fault her.” This time he sounded very much like a father. “She weighs her actions against the question of whether they will disillusion or disappoint her son.”
“Gavi is kind and smart and honorable,” Elena said. “Quite frankly, she’s doing the right thing using him as her metric.”
“I’m happy for Gavriel.” Raphael’s deep voice was contemplative as he swirled his cognac, the liquid a fiery red-brown against the fine crystal of his snifter. “As for Michaela…time alone will tell.”
* * *
* * *
It was only later, when they were alone in the Legion forest long after they’d tucked the children into bed—leaving them under the watch of Sivya and Montgomery—that her archangel said, “Uram was an adult who chose not to purge the toxins in his blood, and in so doing, he started the clock on the horror he became. For that, there can be no absolution.”
Elena’s entire body tightened at the memories of the brutal hunt.
Torn bodies, gleaming viscera, bloody holes where eyes had been…and limbs piled up in corners, blood dripping to the floor to run across it in sluggish nightmare streams, Uram’s crimes had been monstrous.
“But”—Raphael took her hand—“I will ever believe that Michaela pushed him over the final edge, nudged him to make the critical decision that led to his murderous insanity.”
Elena forced herself to take deep breaths of the cold night air. “It’s good to be wary.” She, for one, wouldn’t be volunteering to be best friends with the archangel anytime this millennium.
“Still, I’ll tell you something, Archangel, bearing a child changed me in a fundamental and unalterable way. Maybe it did the same for her? One thing I know for sure, though—Michaela has loved Gavi since day one.” Her last thought as she lay wounded, dying, had been of him. “That, on its own, has to have affected her.”
Raphael swept his wing behind her. “I never thought to hear you defend her, hbeebti.”
“Not defend, just…let’s give her this chance to show us who she can be.” Elena, too, had matured over the years—she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to allow Michaela such grace even right after the war—but back then, she hadn’t lived a thousand years.
“As we gave my mother a chance.” Raphael’s voice was contemplative. “Yes, I can do that. After all, had I not met you, I would’ve walked a pitiless and dark path that may have led me to acts far beyond cruel.”
“You, none of you”—Elena squeezed his hand—“are one-dimensional. It took me time to understand that. Even Her Creepiness was once someone else, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, she had a wisdom that helped guide me—without evil intent—at the start of my reign.” Raphael looked up to acknowledge one of the Legion who was following along on their starlit walk by crouching in among the treetops above.
Not listening in, not spying. Just being with their aeclari.
“As well,” Raphael added, “she had the genuine love of her people for a long time. I have heard stories from elders in the Refuge who are of an age to have witnessed her entire life—and they say there was a time when she didn’t keep her people ignorant and stifle their growth.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Elena murmured. “She always seemed so ‘lady and her serfs,’ if you know what I mean.”
“Indeed.” Raphael smiled as, this time, she spread her wing over his closed ones, the slide of feathers against feathers a hushed intimacy. “But the elders told me that, once, China was the center of culture and intellectual pursuits. Many of the foremost scholars of the world came from her court.”
“I’d ask you how someone could go so far off the rails, but I know the answer,” Elena said, because while she’d matured enough to understand that Michaela no longer fit the mold she’d occupied for so long—the mold she’d liked to occupy—there was also evil in this world that couldn’t be forgiven. “Arrogance and ego. Overweening ambition that led her to believe herself a goddess.”