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)
Will it enter the world as a full being?
Or will it become?
We have never had aeclari with a small being.
The first aeclari—
No, their being was not yet in the world when we returned to the deep. It was still becoming inside the consort.
—The Legion
Legion, come, meet our son.
The Legion stirred with excitement. It didn’t matter if they were based in the Refuge or in New York—they experienced it as one.
The ones who stood guard by the Medica didn’t all turn, for that would expose their aeclari. They didn’t need to all turn. They were one.
It was the Primary who turned and stepped to the large open wall where the consort stood with a tiny bundle in her arms. Sparks of wildfire yet lingered in the air, but as it didn’t seem to alarm the aeclari, the Primary did not consider it a threat.
He came close enough to look down at the face of the child in Elena’s arms. “He sleeps?”
“For now,” Elena said with a grin. “He was awake ten seconds ago.” She held out the babe.
The Primary—the Legion—all took a step back.
The Primary looked at Raphael, saw no glow to his wings, no fury in his expression.
“You are my Legion,” Raphael said. “You are part of me; this I know. You will end yourselves before you harm our child. This we both know.”
The Primary looked at the child again. “We do not know how to…”
“Just hold him like I’m holding him,” Elena said, “but only if you’re comfortable with it.”
The Legion whispered furiously among themselves. This was a new experience. No one gave them children to hold, far less newborn angels. They were not designed for this.
You have become far more than we ever dreamed when you first rose.
The first aeclari had said that, had given them leave to continue to grow beyond their purpose. Continue to become.
So the Legion held out their arms in the form of the Primary, and they accepted the tiny bundle that represented trust beyond anything they had ever known, and they held it exactly as Elena had shown them, and they stared down as one at the child who had come from their aeclari.
He has not yet become, was the consensus. He will grow as we grew.
We would like to see this.
We have not watched any new being become over their entire lifetime.
It intrigued them. But far more than that, they felt their duty. This was why they had risen—to protect the child of the aeclari. And it was what they would do.
“Hello, child of the aeclari,” the Primary said, speaking for all his brethren. “We are the Legion. We will protect you until you have become.”
The child’s eyes opened for a fraction of an instant, and in that instant, the Primary saw the familiar, the sparks of life that were the aeclari.
The Legion sighed, understanding now.
Not the aeclari, but truly of the aeclari.
Treasured. Precious. To be…loved.
51
Phoenix Zakriel, son of Elena, Angel-Made, who is the daughter of Marguerite and Jeffrey Deveraux, both mortals lost to time, and Archangel Raphael, who is the son of Archangel Nadiel, now fallen, and Archangel Caliane.
—The Naming Book (Archives of the Angelic Library, Refuge)
“Well, it is confirmed,” Keir said to them five days later, while Elena and the baby were yet in the Medica—the healers didn’t like to release any newborns or their mothers until at least two weeks after birth. “You are an annoyingly inexplicable creature.”
Elena grinned, hands on her hips. She wore comfortable black sweatpants paired with a dark gray T-shirt emblazoned with the Hunter Angel emblem first created by her mortal friends.
It was Eve who’d gifted her this one—as she did periodically. “It’s my job as your little sister to carry the mantle of annoying you through the ages,” she’d said the first time around.
It didn’t annoy Elena any longer; it was a treasured memory of people who’d loved her, laughed with her, joked with her.
So many of them had been part of the making of her.
As for Eve, she’d already been by to snuggle her nephew and make him all kinds of extravagant promises. She was also sitting in on the baby swaddling and other baby care lessons because she—along with Majda and Jean-Baptiste—would be staying in the Refuge for the year Elena intended to remain here.
Right now, however, it was only Elena and Raphael and the baby in the room with Keir. “Why do you look surprised?” she teased the healer. “I’ve always been weird.”
“How you continue to have human cells in your bloodstream and particularly in your heart is confounding.” The healer scowled—the first time Elena thought she’d ever seen that particular disgruntled expression on his face.
“I cannot explain it. I thought perhaps I’d made a mistake after all, and they just took on the appearance of mortal cells while being immortal, but no, these cells die at a mortal rate. I’ve had my results checked by five of my fellow healers.”