Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Today

It was clear that Montgomery had no idea how to treat Illium post-ascension. With his dark hair cut short and precise and his crisp black suit paired with a white shirt, Raphael’s butler was the consummate professional. But today, when he opened the door, his face went to break out into a smile…then it was as if he glitched, froze.

“I’m still me, Montgomery,” Illium said through a sharp stab of loss, because this would happen over and over again in the coming days and weeks. Despite his own words, he wasn’t the same any longer, and all his relationships except for the one with Aodhan would change. It was inevitable.

“Can you ask Sivya to please make me a tray? No one told me that ascension makes you hungry enough to gnaw off your own foot.” It was no lie; his body was burning energy at a rate that had led to Aodhan literally shoving food into his hands.

“I can see you losing weight in front of me,” he’d said with a scowl. “Eat.”

Illium had eaten, but was still hungry.

“The—” He caught himself, corrected. “Raphael says it eases up after the first day or so, but I’d rather not be skin and bones at the meeting.”

Montgomery’s face softened. “Of course, Archangel Illium.”

The address felt like a scratch on an old-fashioned record machine, an original of which Illium had kept and babied for over a century until it finally fell apart. “My thanks, Montgomery.”

“Will your second be joining us?”

That question—that assumption—put his heart back together, erasing the bruise caused by their initial interaction. “No.” Illium winced. “He’s muttering and gathering up all the paintings I didn’t manage to destroy when I erupted out of his studio. Shadow is muttering along with him as she pads about, sneezing in the dust.”

She’d given Illium a jaundiced look, but had accepted his strokes after a careful sniff to ensure he was still the same person who’d fed her that morning. At which point, she’d begun to complain vocally to him about all the strangeness.

Illium got it; he was still reeling, too.

Now, he spread a hand over his heart. “I’ve promised to hand-build Aodhan’s next studio. No promises on straight lines, though.”

Montgomery’s lips twitched, all the tension gone from his body. “I’m sure Sivya will have already prepared food for you.” A smile that held deepest love for his wife’s sweet, giving spirit. “I’ll bring it to the meeting chamber. As you’re the one who supervised its placement, I know I need not give you any instructions.”

“I’d be insulted if you dared.” With that light retort, Illium made his way into the house with an ease he’d never feel when it came to the home of any other archangel.

But this home that had stood for centuries after being rebuilt after the War of the Death Cascade was as welcoming to him as his and Aodhan’s own home. It wasn’t only because the extraordinary artwork of a skylight through which sunshine entered the central core was Aodhan’s work, each tiny element done by hand—and repaired personally by him when needed. Or that the chandelier of crystal rain that hung below had been made by his mother.

Or even that the greenery that thrived everywhere held Ellie’s loving touch.

It was the life he’d lived within these walls, the conversations he’d had, the laughter he’d shared, the games he’d played.

He’d spent time teasing Sivya in the kitchens until she’d put him to work cutting vegetables and making dough, and had joined in on Aodhan and Elena’s continuing movie dates—though five centuries ago, he’d been banned from any commentary until the movie ended.

He’d sat with the sire in his study, the two of them going over Tower business—or just talking as they shared a bottle of mead. Because before becoming Archangel and First General, they’d been family. Would always be family.

As well he’d spent night after night around the large dining table with the rest of the Seven, at home in the home of his archangel and the woman who’d become one of Illium’s closest friends.

The door to the secure comms room he’d helped install opened to his palm print. Heartache, bittersweet and poignant, was a weight on his chest. Shoving it to a distant corner, where it would stay until after this meeting of predators, he walked down the smooth black steps lit up by soft lighting in the walls themselves.

Raphael and Elena weren’t the type to drape their home in black, but this technology required walls of a particular sleek black material that the mortal who’d invented it called obsitru. Given Raphael’s requirements as a member of the Cadre, rather than creating a box within the basement, it had been easier to create the entire basement out of that material.

The obsitru was smooth and warm under his touch when he put his palm on it and, right now, quiescent. Once active, however, it would sing with the softest hum. Nothing that irritated, more like one of the old computers that used to purr in the background, a technology as far from this as computers had been from stone tablets.

The same ambient glow he’d encountered on the steps illuminated the meeting floor. Illium could’ve put ten circles on the floor, to mark the spot for each member of the Cadre, but it would’ve been a useless affectation. Quite aside from the fact that Raphael used the room for non-Cadre meetings, too, the Cadre itself had been nine when he helped install this; a defined placement would’ve left an obvious gap each time.

The tech was also clever enough to create a meeting circle on its own.

Taking a deep breath, Illium activated the slick touch panel integrated into the main left wall. It recognized him from that minor contact, immediately flicking to his profile…which had a new security setting that could’ve been added only by Raphael in tandem with two others of the Cadre.

Archangel.

That was it, all that was needed. Prior to today, he’d had administrator access, but even with that, he couldn’t have ever spied on meetings of the Cadre. The system was built to make that an impossibility, with the entire team of builders acting as cross-checks on each other to ensure that—though the latter had never been a necessity except for the peace of mind of future archangels.

Every single person on that team was a being of integrity, and say what you would about archangels across time, the good and the bad, they were sticklers about certain things. One of which was the privacy of Cadre meetings. Not even Her Batshitness would’ve found it acceptable for anyone but an archangel to be privy to their conversations.

Now…now he was one of them.

He checked to ensure the system had changed his name over from First General Illium to Archangel Illium. He hated giving up that title, but it was no longer his, and much as he didn’t enjoy playing politics, he also wasn’t an idiot. Before he could change the Cadre, he had to learn how it functioned. Good generals always did their research.

The door opened, footsteps heading down. “Archangel Illium?”

“One minute, Montgomery.”

The butler waited with quiet patience as Illium finished the setup. Then he stayed while Illium methodically ate his way through the tray. Because Montgomery had been with Raphael since Raphael was a very new archangel. He understood that it wouldn’t do for Illium to be seen with food nearby at this first meeting. The technology wasn’t supposed to pick up random objects in the space, but they couldn’t take the risk.

“My thanks to you and Sivya,” Illium said after he’d eaten everything, and thrown back the glass of cold, clear water provided to cleanse his palate.

“Archangel, if I may…”

“Always, Montgomery.”

“If anyone was to ascend, I am very glad it was you.” The butler’s voice was thick with emotion he rarely permitted himself to show. “But we will miss you terribly. The city won’t be the same without you and Aodhan in the skies.”

Illium swallowed his own thickness of emotion. “If I have a steward half as good as you, I’ll consider myself a lucky man.” Montgomery might prefer the title of butler, but they all knew he was so much more to Raphael.

After the vampire left—with a stiff nod that said everything—Illium set his wings and body to warrior formality, then stepped onto the main floor. “Activate.”

A slight shimmer in the air at his command, and where he’d stood alone, now he stood across from Raphael. Caliane appeared within the next half heartbeat, Titus and Elijah at almost the same instant.

Alexander, Zanaya, Aegaeon, Suyin, and Marduk followed suit.

Each of them appearing as solid as if they stood in person in this circle of power, nothing akin to the flickering holograms of the first versions of the tech.

“The Cadre,” Lady Caliane said, “is in session.”

Her voice was clear, resonant, but the words might as well have been a gavel coming down, they held such portent.

Titus was the next to speak, a beaming smile creasing the mahogany skin of his face. “Welcome, Archangel Illium.”

Illium had made a short call to his mother and Titus prior to his flight here. Now he smiled at Titus’s warm greeting. It was echoed by others, several with enthusiasm, others less so—his father’s muttered welcome was more sour than a lemon on the tongue.

Asshole.

“Well,” Zanaya said, “that was unexpected.”

Dressed in a shimmering skinsuit of a vivid indigo that left her shoulders bare, she was as stunning as always. She’d pulled her long hair, silver washed through with purple, back in a high tail, leaving her eyes to take center stage. Set against skin of the deepest night, the dark orbs that flickered with light were compelling.

“I do believe, Lady Zanaya,” Illium said, “that I have the distinction of being the most surprised.”

A lyrical laugh from the Queen of the Nile, but it was Illium’s father who next spoke. “How did you hide the increase in your power levels? Why pretend that you weren’t going to ascend?”

Illium wished he could tell the ass who’d fathered him that he’d done it to piss Aegaeon off. Despite the fact they had no relationship beyond that of politeness—which Illium had maintained because he was part of Raphael’s Seven—Aegaeon had apparently been embarrassed that his powerful son had turned out to be a “dud.”

Idiot asshole.noveldrama

You do realize, Illium—Raphael’s voice in his head, the communication between them seamless after so many centuries—you no longer have to be polite to your father. You no longer risk starting a war between him and I…though I suggest you try not to start a war with him directly until you’re settled.

Illium’s seething gut calmed, a faint smile on his lips as he spoke with all the charm at his disposal, directing his words to the Cadre at large…except for Aegaeon. A subtle insult but one that’d enrage the man Illium had once idolized—until he’d realized that not only did his idol have feet of clay, but that those feet were rotted through.

“I thought I was the outlier in showing early signs of increasing power. I know Lady Suyin didn’t.”

“Just Suyin to you, Illium.” The Archangel of China’s smile lit up the obsidian of her uptilted eyes. “I am beyond delighted to see you on the Cadre, my friend.”

He had once done her a service and she’d told him she’d never forget it. It seemed she intended to keep her promise even now that he’d become a being who could be a threat to her.

“And yes, you’re right,” she continued, her ice-white hair a glossy rain down her back. “While it is said that archangels do sense a rare few who have the potential to ascend, more often than not, it’s a surprise.”

“It was for me,” Elijah said.

The Archangel of South America wore a formal high-necked suit of pale gold embellished with a darker gold that echoed the hue of his hair, his wings held neatly to his back. The suit was cut in angular panels that suited Elijah’s martial nature and evoked the feel of warrior armor, but formal as it was, he had to have come from an event.

“One moment I was a general like you,” Elijah added, “and the next, I was Cadre.”

“First General,” Caliane said with a smile. “You were a first general, Elijah, as was Illium.”

Elijah inclined his head at the woman he had once called sire, his lips curved. “I stand corrected.”

“We knew with Raphael.” This from Alexander, golden haired and silver eyed, and wearing a cream-colored tunic with an open neck that could’ve come from any time.

“It wasn’t simply that both his parents were Cadre that marked him,” the Archangel of Persia continued. “He was a power even as a child, and he kept growing into that power. Never any hint of a plateau.”

A considering glance at Illium. “You’re unique in that you appeared to plateau only to smash right through that plateau after a number of centuries—but you’re also the only one who came into your power during a Cascade of Death.”

“Alex is right,” Caliane murmured, her eyes the same piercing, dangerous blue as Raphael. “The Cascade attempted to force you to become too fast, may have disrupted your natural growth for a period.”

If it had, Illium thought, then he was glad of it. He wouldn’t have wanted to become an archangel any earlier. Even if he’d survived the influx of power, he wouldn’t have had the entirety of his experiences of the past seven hundred years, experiences that gave him both the confidence and the maturity to stand face-to-face with other apex predators and not blink.

You’ve never lacked in courage, Blue. Common sense is another matter.

A memory from his youth, when he’d pushed an off-the-wall scheme far enough to aggravate even his partner in crime. The memory made him want to smile, but it was also a reminder that he’d needed all those years of life to become seasoned enough that no one could use the drop of impulsiveness in his nature against him.

Marduk, who’d remained silent and watchful this entire time, now held Illium’s gaze with the disconcerting directness of his, the ice-blue of his eyes intense in that face primeval and of another time so far in the past that his world wasn’t theirs. “Welcome.” His voice was subterranean caverns and darkest echoes, his entire being as extraordinary today as it had been when he woke out of what had been meant to be an eternal Sleep.

Illium continued to be fascinated by the iridescent scales that covered one side of his face before flowing down his neck to his shoulder and arm, a protective armor that was all but impenetrable.

It always made Illium wonder about the world Marduk had called home.

“I sensed a ripple in the currents of the earth two days past,” said the archangel, who insisted he was no Ancestor, but who had wings that shimmered with the hues of a black pearl and featured feathers so small, they were but embellishments. “But that is all. You have become in your own time.”

Illium, Raphael said, bring up territory. Stake your claim.