Alexander, Mother, can you spare your escorts to join Aodhan?
Both answered yes and Tasha and Valerius fell in with Aodhan, ready to track Lijuan’s people far enough out that they couldn’t double back in a surprise attack.
Alone on the field of golden grass but for the others of the Cadre around him, Raphael touched his consort’s mind. Any thoughts, Guild Hunter?
Lijuan is playing games, was the grim response. Or Xi is covering for her, hoping to give her enough time to finish whatever it is she’s up to.
Yes. He saw Michaela hand the letter to Caliane.
“I think of all of us,” the green-eyed archangel said, “you are the one least likely to be accused of tampering with this on the trip back to the meeting chamber.”
Caliane took the letter but didn’t spread her wings. “There’s no need for any accusations. We read it here.” With that, she broke the seal and the Cadre came together in a circle, close enough to hear but not close enough that their wings would overlap.
Raphael found himself on the opposite side of the circle from his mother.
“‘To my fellow archangels,’” she read out in her crystal-clear voice, “‘I write this knowing you meet at Lumia. There is no need. I am fully capable and in charge of my territory. As a goddess, I do not accept the authority of the Luminata to call me to order—no one holds that power over me.’”
Favashi spoke into the pause, her voice toneless but her words blade-sharp. “Well, it sounds like Zhou Lijuan in any case.”
“Xi has known her a long time,” Astaad pointed out, because for all his traditionalist views on respecting a fellow archangel’s territory even with bloodlust licking at the edges, he’d been Cadre for over two thousand years. He understood politics.
“Shall I continue?” Caliane asked. “I think we can all guess the rest.”
“She may surprise us yet.” Michaela’s acerbic tone.
“Indeed.” With that single word that said nothing while communicating a great deal, Caliane continued to read the missive. “‘I have no need to prove my existence. It lives in the strong and ordered beauty of my territory. I will emerge when I wish. Until then, you should return to your own territories. They are vulnerable without you.’”
The threat couldn’t be much clearer.
“Despite her delusions of godhood, she has signed it ‘Zhou Lijuan, Archangel of China,’” Caliane said. “I assume the Historian will be able to verify the veracity of that signature?”
“It does not matter, does it?” Elijah said with the calm for which he was known. “Nothing in that letter says it was written yesterday or a month ago or even a year ago.”
“She knows we are at Lumia,” Charisemnon pointed out, his arms folded across his chest.
It was Neha who responded. “An easy guess if she was preparing for this in advance.”
“And,” Favashi added, “we don’t know how many different letters she wrote and left with Xi. She could well have written one to be sent should the Cadre have decided to meet with no interference from the Luminata.”
“Or,” Charisemnon said, his jaw jutting forward, “the letter could be legitimate and we are wasting our time here.”
“Do you never cease repeating yourself?” Alexander sounded as pompously Ancient as anyone might expect—except those who knew him. It had been many centuries since Alexander went to Sleep, but Raphael had known the Archangel of Persia for all of his life before then. As a result, where others might hear pompous, Raphael heard aggravation and a temper close to the edge.
Charisemnon squared his shoulders, locked gazes with the Ancient. “Careful who you mock, old man.”
Alexander laughed, his amusement appearing genuine. “Ah, the arrogance of youth.” He shook his head, a handsome man with golden hair and wings of silver who would not appear in any way old for countless millennia, if ever.
In truth, Raphael had never seen any adult angel who showed signs of visible age once they’d reached their prime in terms of physical appearance. It was theorized that they did, in fact, age after a certain point, but at so very slow a rate that it was all but invisible. The other theory was that they reached their prime and stayed in that state. Raphael tended to believe more in the former than the latter—because he’d seen changes in himself. Nothing anyone else would notice . . . except an eagle-eyed consort.
Elena was dead certain he hadn’t yet hit his prime. “Alexander calls you a pup and I think he’s right, at least in terms of your immortality. You’re still maturing and becoming impossibly more beautiful with every day that passes.”