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)
Caliane’s breathing sped up, her lips appearing to tremble before she pressed them tight. “I will ask Marduk and Tiamat for their judgment on this,” she said at last, her voice yet uneven. “You must allow me this—they are older, have knowledge that we have long lost.”
It struck him then that she wasn’t talking to him like a fellow archangel or even an ancient, but as a mother who’d made a promise to her son to never again become a monster. In the pursuit of that promise, she was prepared to exile herself from the world because he’d asked it—all she wanted was a chance to plead her case.
His eyes burned, his throat painful. “Yes,” he said. “Ask them. Tonight, while I am with you.”
“You no longer trust me.” Caliane’s gaze was hurt but beyond that lay a growing coldness that told him the time would soon come when she’d no longer care about her promises to him—or to the world.
Shh, my darling, shh.
“I buried children, Mother.” Raphael was harsh because this line he would not permit her to cross. Never again. No matter what it took. “I dug rows upon rows of graves for the babes who died of a terrible, dark grief after you sang their parents into the sea.”
The anguish and horror of that time would live forever within him.
It was a pitifully small penance for his mother’s crimes.
“Their lives flickered out one after the other,” he continued, refusing to let her look away. “Keir could not stop it. No one could stop it. So many died in my arms, Mother. I couldn’t hold them to life, couldn’t do anything but be with them as they left this world.”
“I forgot them.” A horrified whisper. “Raphael, I forgot about the children. I never forget about the children. They haunt me night after night, tiny ghosts that reproach me for my cruelty. Yet when I spoke with Elena just now, I did not remember them.”
She took a rapid inhale. “I must talk to Marduk and Tiamat now.”
“I’ll organize it. You know the library at the far end of the house?” At her nod, he said, “Go there. I’ll get the others to you.”
“No.” Caliane gripped his arm. “No, you must not leave me alone. Not when I am not…well. I do not trust myself.”
Hating her anguish and the specter of madness that haunted them both, he walked with her while reaching out to Marduk with his mind to ask if he and his consort would join them in the library. I apologize for taking you away from your ball, he said at the end.
This is more important, Marduk responded. I will find Tia and meet you at once.
Elena-mine, Raphael said afterward, telling her what was to take place. Will you ensure the guests don’t notice we are all missing?
It was a hard thing he was asking of her, especially since he was taking away the hosts themselves, but she said, Consider it done, Archangel. Bluebell and Sparkle just got back—I’ll ask them to do one of their aerial displays. It’ll hold everyone’s attention. I hope you find an answer for Caliane. A mental kiss, steel awash in the windstorms of spring.
He held Elena’s touch close as he stood in the library only minutes later, none of the group having taken their seats. Marduk had shut the heavy doors after he entered with Tiamat, enclosing them in a cocoon of silence thick with portents dark and unwanted.
“Lady Caliane,” Tiamat-Neith said after Raphael had explained the situation, with Caliane admitting how long it had been since she’d slept of a night. “I’m afraid there is only one solution.” Her tone was gentle. “At a certain age, the brain cannot…process, I believe that is how those of you in the new world put it.”
“Too many memories, too much emotion.” Caliane’s lovely gift of a voice was all grit. “It is all leaking out, becoming a sludge.”
“Yes, just so.” Tiamat’s gaze was tender as she looked at her consort. “It’s part of why Marduk was so against staying in this time for a long period. At our age, we can begin to fray in ways dangerous to those around us.”
Marduk entered the conversation, his voice dark with eons-old knowledge. “It does not impact all of us equally. In truth, while I would not last, Tia could.” His turn to look at Tiamat, before he pressed a kiss to her hair.
She closed her eyes, leaning into him. Their wings overlapped.
“Marduk is right,” Tiamat said on the heels of the moment, her eyes open once more—and in them was that eerie, inexplicable motion. “It is an affliction that knows nothing of fairness.”
“So it is clear.” Caliane’s face was pale. “I will not delay, for in that delay, I could cause great suffering and horror.”
“That is for the best,” Tiamat said, “but it is possible that since you are choosing to go into Sleep while your mind is clear rather than tangled in madness, that you will not need centuries to recover. Toward the end of our time, some of our old ones Slept for a decade or so at a stretch every two centuries, and they were many millennia your elders.”