Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Her archangel’s respect for the healer was as profound as Elena’s.
Keir was the one who’d watched over her as she lay in a coma after Raphael kissed ambrosia into her mouth. Keir was the one who’d healed a devastated and broken Aodhan once upon a time. Keir was the one who had vowed to cherish and protect an archangel’s orphaned child after she fell in battle to injuries so grave that she might never again rise.
And that was only a drop in the ocean of all he’d done.
“Cadre,” he said right then, “I have a child under my care. The babe adores Jessamy. Ask her, this beloved friend of mine, to take care of him in my absence.”
“It will be done.” Caliane’s beautiful, pained voice. “He will know no lack in life, this we promise.”
Tears blocked Elena’s throat, burned her eyes, even as Keir turned to Marduk. “Am I apt to explode or otherwise make a violent show of things? If so, we should step away from the Medica.”
Marduk looked at Keir with eyes in their dragon phase, the pupils long slits. “I do not know if all reactions are the same,” he said, and there was something akin to respect in that hard-to-read face. “But the Compass as a whole was created to balance the power streams of the world, so there is a risk.”
“Very well. We move.”
It was surreal, the eleven of them rising into the air as a group to make a short flight to the edge of the Refuge—but an area that remained under the Mantle. Should an explosion in fact occur, no one in the outside world would see it.
The sunlight hadn’t reached their chosen location yet, the area cold with shadows.
Elena bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as she landed, Keir’s robe cradled in her arms. He smiled at her and she knew what he was thinking: he wouldn’t need that robe if this ended as they thought it would.
Setting her jaw, she held the cloth closer, the gentle, comforting scent of Keir in every thread of the weft and weave.
“We don’t have any more time.” Caliane’s voice held raw anguish. “The state of the Mantle is perilous at best.”
Keir nodded. “My staff will deal with the Medica until you appoint a successor.”
None of the Cadre moved. Not even that ass, Aegaeon.
“No,” Zanaya spit out. “This is wrong. I will not spill a healer’s blood. This is not our way.”
Keir shook his head. “It must be done, Queen of the Nile. It seems we are born of a bloodthirsty people. It makes sense, if you think of it. We create vampires, after all—that thirst for blood stems from somewhere.”
“How can you be so calm?” Aegaeon demanded, looking a touch green about the gills.
It made Elena like him far better, that he couldn’t make himself do this horrific act.
“As I said, I am a healer, and the world is wounded, close to death. If my blood will cure that, so be it.”
Frowning, Elena thrust Keir’s robe into the hands of the archangel closest to her. It happened to be Alexander. Who stared at her, speechless. Ignoring the Archangel of Persia, she took the subcomponent from Raphael and strode over to Keir. Archangel, I need you with me.
Of course, Guild Hunter. But what are we doing?
I have an idea. All this talk of blood. Put your hand over mine. Halting in front of Keir, she placed the blade flat against the skin of his upper arm and saw the ripple of glowing obsidian-blue arc through his veins. “I need something to tie or tape this to him.”
“Here.” A strip of fabric that held a faint sparkle being handed to her.
A piece of Zanaya’s dress.
“Is she decent?” she whispered to Keir sotto voce as she tied the blade to him while Raphael held it in place—she ensured she kept contact with his skin while making the tie. “That dress was short to start with.”
Keir’s cheeks creased in a smile deep and intense and rare on the healer, even his aged eyes warm with it. “Only just. If you need more strips, better to tear apart my tunic. The others are all in leathers.”
Job done, she stepped back and pointed to Keir’s arm—where a network of veins pulsed obsidian-blue on his upper arm. “What if we don’t need to stab him?”
“The instruction is for a gift of blood,” Marduk reminded them. “The subcomponents must become one with the base to create the Compass and initiate the reset.”
She held his gaze, not flinching from the primal power of him. “A gift of blood doesn’t mean a gush of blood. There’s no harm in trying my way before we have to stab Keir—we have enough minutes if we’re quick.”
The rush of agreement from the Cadre made her like the whole lot of them more.