Archangel's Light by Singh Nalini

Author:Singh, Nalini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Love has a way of crushing a man until nothing remains.

—Dmitri, Second to Archangel Raphael

32

Yesterday

Aodhan went looking for Illium as soon as he found out what had happened. Even though he knew all the places his best friend went to when he wanted to be alone, it still took him hours to track him down.

Eschewing all his favored locations, Illium had gone to a cold and craggy outcropping on the far edge of the Refuge, a place overhung by spears of ice above a carpet of shattered boulders. Nothing thrived here, not even the tiny frost-resistant succulents that grew in other icy places. It was often called The Cold because no matter the season it was a place of no warmth, all hardness and jagged shards.

Illium hated it.

Now he sat hunched over on one of the rocks, the stunning blue of his wings violent slashes of color against all that grim gray and ice. He wore only his faded boots and an old pair of pants that he used for training, his upper body bare.

Landing, Aodhan sat down next to him and immediately wrapped a wing around his exposed upper half. Angels didn’t feel the cold as mortals did, but Illium was barely beyond his majority. The cold might not kill him, but it could cause vicious hurt.

“Your skin is like ice.” Aodhan curled his wing tighter even as he curved his other wing around in front of them, to better conserve the heat in the space in between—where Illium sat cold and silent. “We have to get you off this mountain.”

Illium said nothing—and he didn’t move. And while Aodhan was strong, he wasn’t strong enough to carry an unwilling Illium down into the warmer zones. Instead he tried to use his nascent power to warm up his friend. That power was less than nothing in immortal terms, but as young as he was, Aodhan wasn’t complaining.

The only angel similar to his age he knew of who had even a hint of power sat mute beside him. And mere droplet or not, it was enough to add a whisper of heat to the air, enough to bring a little color to Illium’s skin. But still he didn’t move or show any other sign of life.

“I know you’re proud of your coloring,” Aodhan said, as his heart squeezed, “but trying to turn yourself blue is taking it too far.”

Illium didn’t react to Aodhan’s attempt to lighten the moment—of the two of them, it was Illium who was the one forever trying to make people smile. Aodhan didn’t do jokes except for rare low-voiced pieces of aggravated sarcasm that sent Illium into choked laughter.

“Warn me next time, why don’t you?” he’d said the last time around, after he’d nearly lost it in public.

“Sorry,” Aodhan had muttered. “I can’t predict when someone will be idiotic enough to set off that part of me.” Because it took a lot.

Illium had grinned and thrown an arm around his shoulders. “If only your legions of admirers knew the things you think in that pretty, sparkling head.

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