“Shit.” Elena blew out a breath, rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. These Luminata, though—they hide things.”
Aodhan didn’t argue. “I think secretiveness has become embedded into their culture.”
“What happened to Laric?” Elena asked. “Did he really come here to find luminescence?”
“He was in the sky when Caliane executed Nadiel.” Aodhan’s words were like rocks thrown into a still pond. “He wasn’t close, was attempting to land when he saw what was about to happen, but he wasn’t fast enough. The flames from Nadiel’s death crawled across the sky like the ‘most violent lightning fire’ according to him, and he was caught in the inferno.”
“Hell.” Elena couldn’t begin to imagine the pain Laric had suffered. “Why hasn’t he healed?” She’d seen angels heal from all kinds of things, including wings that had been sliced off.
“Even Keir can’t give him an answer to that.” Aodhan led her down a narrow corridor. “He is healing, but at a glacial pace. In the over a thousand years since Nadiel’s execution, he says the scars have become less rigid, freeing up the movement of his hands. But there is no outward sign of that softening, no indication the scars will one day disappear.”
Elena thought about what Aodhan was telling her. “He was caught in the backwash of an archangel’s death at the hands of another archangel. That violence of energy . . .”
“Yes. It would burn even an immortal to the bone—only the fact he was so distant and descending rapidly saved him, I think.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, and a number of times, as they entered covered external walkways, Elena felt the pummeling force of the wind, saw lightning stabbing at Lumia, the clouds above thunderous black. Nothing would be flying in that until it was all over. “Good thing Lumia’s built to last.”
“This lightning is scoring the stone nonetheless.” Aodhan pointed out the signs of charring she’d missed in the erratic flashes of light. “If the storm doesn’t abate within a day, it may threaten the integrity of even this place that has stood for millennia.”
Because the Cascade made its own rules.
Her eyes took in the purple-hued sky split with lightning. “You know what that would mean.” Raphael and the other archangels would have to fly out, drawing the lightning with them—and risk being smashed to the earth by the bolts.
“It won’t kill him,” Aodhan reminded her softly.
Elena’s hand fisted. “But it’ll hurt him badly.” Forcing herself to flex her hand after they passed back into an internal hallway, she blinked away the after-images of lightning on the backs of her eyes. “Let’s not borrow trouble, focus on the now.” Thinking of Raphael heading out into the malevolence of that unnatural storm made her stomach churn, a cold hand choking her throat.
“I think Laric is hiding here,” Aodhan said after nearly a minute, the words heavy. “As I hid in my home in the Refuge. At least I was protected in a sense by my appearance. It is unusual, but also coveted by many.” A long pause before he continued. “Immortals do not have to face physical ugliness in anything but a fleeting manner—many were not kind to him. Especially the girl he was courting at the time of the fire.”
Elena thought of her own comments about immortals winning the genetic lottery, her mind awash with the searing beauty of the angels and vampires she knew. And she thought of Jessamy, so gifted and kind, but with a twisted wing that defined her in the minds of many immortals.
Her heart squeezed. “He’s been here the whole time?”
“From about a decade after the incident,” Aodhan told her. “He says this place had a kind heart once, that the Luminata in charge had true luminescence in his soul, and he offered Laric sanctuary with no end date attached.
“Not only that, Laric says the Luminata sat with him for many hours, offered him wise counsel, urged him to return to his studies at the Medica, and spoke to him in the silent tongue.” Aodhan moved his hands to show what he meant. “But that man has long been Asleep. I think he is afraid, Elena, afraid that the heart of Lumia is gone and he will be shoved out into the world again.”
Elena thought of how Laric kept his shoulders hunched in, his face angled in a way that kept light from illuminating his scarred face. “How old is your new friend, Aodhan?” From everything Aodhan had said, she didn’t think Laric was very old. “Or I should ask—how old was he when he came here for sanctuary?” Because he’d stayed in stasis since then, no matter the physical passage of time.