Elena took time to reply, her gaze tracking a small troop of angels coming in to land on the balcony below. “She might have figured out a way to control the rate of infection, some way to make certain of their loyalty.”
“If she has, she’ll be unstoppable.” The last time Lijuan had risen, the rest of the Cadre had banded together to execute her, only to inadvertently help her in her strange evolution—now, she was no longer wholly corporeal. “I must find some way to strengthen my new ability.” The sheer life of it, born of his tie to his consort with her mortal heart, was inimical to the death that was Lijuan’s touch.
“Too bad we no longer have the element of surprise there.”
Running his hand down the silken tail of her hair, he smiled. “You will always provide surprises, Elena. You are my secret weapon.”
She laughed, eyes dancing. “Did Jason say anything about Neha when he contacted you?”
“The blood vow means he cannot speak of that which happens in the fort, unless the information becomes public.”
“Jason is a survivor.” Raphael didn’t know everything of what had happened to Jason as a child, but he’d put together enough pieces to understand the other angel had lived through things no child should ever have to experience.
Elena glanced up, as if she’d heard something he wasn’t aware of betraying. “You’re still worried about him.”
“Unlike Dmitri,” he said, releasing her to walk to the very edge of the balcony, his mind filled with images of a young angel with wings of lush black who had barely spoken when Raphael first met him, “Jason has never been in danger of becoming jaded.”
Having come to stand beside him, her wing brushing his in an intimacy he’d accept from no other, Elena said, “You think that’s changing?”
“On the contrary. The reason Dmitri became so jaded was that he tasted every sin, drowned himself in sensation.” The endless round of pleasure and pain had been an effort to escape a loss that had brutalized the other man, but the end result was a kind of emotional numbness Raphael had thought nothing would ever break, much less a mortal with a fractured spirit.
“Jason by contrast,” he continued, “immerses himself in nothing.” Raphael had known him too long not to realize that even the lovers Jason took touched nothing of him beyond his skin.
Elena blew out a quiet breath. “He’s like that all the time, isn’t he? Part of the world . . . but apart. A shadow who never becomes too involved.”
Raphael had no need to voice agreement, because it was the truth. His spymaster might not be jaded, but he was numb in a far deeper sense. “To survive eternity,” he murmured, “Jason needs to find some reason to exist beyond duty and loyalty.”
He cupped the face of the woman who was his own reason for being, who made immortality seem an iridescent promise rather than an endless road. “Such things are powerful and not to be dismissed lightly . . . but they are not enough to thaw a heart that has been encased in ice for near to seven hundred years.”
9
Jason looked out through a window of the palace that was his residence for the time being, his attention on the small enclosed garden on the mountain side of Mahiya’s palace. It was a spot he’d had to cross the center of the house to see, and one the princess had made no effort to point out to him when she’d shown him to his suite. He could see why.
Unlike the structured courtyard behind him, this hidden area, tucked between the palace and the high defensive wall that protected the fort, appeared to have been set up as a pleasure garden long ago, complete with irrigation channels that kept the wildly blooming plants luxuriant in spite of the desert sun, then forgotten, allowed to run wild.
The exquisite tiles visible on the winding pathways between the garden beds told him it had been designed by someone who expected to spend a great deal of time within its environs . . . or perhaps expected someone else to do so, someone about whom they cared enough to create a concealed paradise.
His mind made the connection it had been seeking—the tiles echoed those he’d seen on the steps of Eris’s palace. So perhaps this palace had originally been meant to be Eris’s prison, the garden his private area. Except Eris had attempted to use his time outdoors to escape, quite possibly from this very garden, thus losing even that modicum of freedom.
He made a mental note to follow up his theory with the woman who walked the pathways of the wild garden now. She looked up at that moment, and though he was cloaked in the shadows, a faint tension invaded her spine beneath the ice green of her tunic.
The hemline of the fitted garment reached an inch above the knee, the splits to mid-thigh on both sides allowing freedom of movement but remaining modest, as the tunic was worn over tapered pants of a fine cotton that hugged her legs. Dark blue, the pants echoed the thick blue border on the ends of her elbow-length sleeves and along the bottom of the tunic.
Though styles varied, the pants sometimes loose and sometimes tight; the tunics high-necked or scooped, flaring out in a full skirt or cut neatly to the body; and most often worn with a long, gauzy scarf, it was attire he’d seen many a time in this land, as common on laborers and servants as it was on courtiers. The difference was in the fabrics, the cut, and the depth of embellishment. It wasn’t unusual to see one of the court butterflies in a piece hand beaded with tiny pearls or where the embroidery had been created using fine threads of pure silver and gold.
Mahiya wore lightweight silk, but though the tunic followed the shape of her body, it bore no sparkle, no embroidery. The neck was a shallow scoop that offered a bare glimpse of her shoulder bones, her golden brown skin glowing in the morning sunlight, her hair glinting with hidden strands of red where it hung in a simple, loose braid that reached the center of her back.
Armor, he thought, Mahiya used formal clothing as armor, and he’d found her stripped of it. Taking advantage, he made certain he was waiting for her on the lower level when she reentered the palace.
“Have you broken your fast?” he asked, caught by the way a ray of sunlight lit up the tawny brown of her eyes to even more startling intensity.
“No.” She betrayed no surprise or hesitation at his presence, as if she’d realized his purpose and used the time between his sighting of her and their meeting to put on her emotional armor, if not the clothing that served the same function. “One does not leave a guest to dine alone . . . my lord.”
Pretty words that meant nothing. “My name is Jason,” he said. “I have never been a lord nor do I wish to be one in any sense.”
A blink. “I cannot use your given name.”
Jason considered the cultural mores of the land where he stood, layered them over the short period of his association with Mahiya, her status as a princess, as well as the unspoken rules of Neha’s court, and understood that for her to use his name in public would breach a barrier, leading others to believe the ritual of the blood vow had segued into a far more intimate relationship. “In private, then, I am Jason.”
An incline of her head, followed by a graceful wave as she led him into a sunny room that overlooked the main courtyard. The polished wooden table within, of a size meant to accommodate six, was already set with breakfast—the places situated across from one another. “There are no servants in this palace except for those who come in once a week to clean,” she said, picking up the elegant silver teapot to pour him a cup after they’d both taken their seats. “However, I can have someone assigned to you should you wish it.”
“No.” He took a sip of the sweet tea rich with milk and spices, and returned the cup to the table, intending to pour himself a glass of water.
Mahiya’s eyes flicked up from where she’d been putting food on a plate. “It is not to your liking?” Before he could answer, she rose and disappeared through a small door, to return with another pot only minutes later.
