Wings continuing to glow, Neha looked down, frowned, and waved a hand. A thin layer of ice formed over the places where the noxious green of Nivriti’s web had begun to bubble through roofs and walls . . . and people. It froze, then seemed to break off in inert pieces. Neha waved her hand again, but the fires Jason hadn’t smothered continued to burn, the archangel’s ability to create ice apparently exhausted.
It wasn’t only fatigue that marked both women.
Neha’s wings and body bore raw wounds from the same acid, her cheek gouged on one side to reveal her jawbone, her left wing sporting a palm-sized hole that would’ve crippled most angels. Meanwhile, blood of near black seeped from Nivriti’s nose and ears, even the corners of her eyes, the poison in her bloodstream attacking her from the inside out.
“Your forces are decimated,” she said to her own mother, wanting Nivriti to turn around, to see how many of her people were dead or viciously injured. “And you are fading.”
Nivriti swept out a hand, the burst blood vessels in her eyes having turned her gaze crimson. “Get out of the way, child.”
“I am not the child here.” Mahiya held her position, speaking to them both. “You are at a stalemate, and soon, you’ll be wrestling each other on the ground with the mortals watching as they would a circus act.”
Frozen silence from both Neha and Nivriti.
Then her mother started to laugh, and it was awash with near-manic delight. “That would certainly not do for your vaunted dignity, sister dearest.”
“It would suit you very well” was Neha’s cutting response, grooves of pain bracketing her mouth as one of the minor tendons in her left wing appeared to give way. “You have ever wanted to perform.”
Nivriti shrugged, wiped her bloody nose on her sleeve. “At least I did not believe a great act for truth and take a man who did not love me as my consort.”
“No, you only bore his child and stayed faithful while he rutted like a tomcat.”
Mahiya had the strangest feeling of being caught in the middle of a sibling squabble. Except this squabble had already cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. “My father,” she said with a deliberation designed to offset their emotion-fueled dialogue, “was a man beautiful enough to enchant a heart of stone, but he was not strong, was not worthy of either one of you.”
“My daughter speaks the truth.” A great bitterness in Nivriti’s expression, an ugly thing that could eat a person up from the inside out. “I did you a favor, sister. He was lifting the skirts of one of his no doubt many whores inside your fort when I came to rescue him. So I returned with a few gifts.”
Neha hissed and snapped out the poison whip, but weakened as she was, it didn’t go far. “It was not your place to render judgment.”
“You dare say that?” Nivriti attempted to spray her with the acid, failed. “After you played judge and jury?”
Jason, you must speak. They won’t listen to me, no matter how much sense I make. The fact was, they dismissed her as a child. Their pride is the weakest point for both.
Jason stirred. “If you wish to duel to the death,” he said in a quiet, steely voice that demanded attention, “we will get out of the way, but in your current condition, you will end up wrestling on the ground, amusement for the mortals. I am certain no archangel or angel has died so ignominious a death.”
Silence.
Then Nivriti raised an arm and the remainder of her troops formed around her, even as Neha’s own troops stood down. The archangel’s lips twisted into a cold smile. “Run while you can, little sister. I’ll make sure we meet again.”
Nivriti’s responding smile was as dark as the blood dripping from her eyes. “Be assured I’ll be waiting.” With that, she swept around, her troops closing behind her in a black guard. Mahiya.
Mahiya started at the command from her mother, but that shock was nothing to when she heard Jason’s voice in her mind. Go with her. It is the safest place for you.
She wanted to argue, wanted to shake him, tell him her place was by his side, but he was already turning toward Neha. Far more, she realized, was in play than the needs and desires of a princess who had never had a kingdom to rule or a man to love, until she gave her heart to an enemy spymaster with wings of midnight.
Even so, he could’ve taken an instant to reassure her that he would find her.
Agony wrenched through her at the sight of him getting further away with each wingbeat. Biting her lips, she stilled the urge to call out after him. She’d already laid her heart at his feet—she would not beg. Because while she didn’t expect Jason, his scars soul deep, to love her as she loved him, she understood he must choose to be with her free of any other consideration.
It wasn’t enough, would never be enough, if all he felt was a responsibility to watch over her because she had no one else. Now that the latter was no longer true . . . Swallowing, she reached out one last time with her mind and set him free. Take care of yourself, Jason.
Her mother’s squadron parted to allow her into the center, closing behind her to form an impenetrable wall.
* * *
Jason forced himself not to turn and watch after Mahiya. He knew that at this moment, he was the known, the familiar. If he asked her to come with him, she would. Once she’d spent time with Nivriti, however. . . .
No, he would not steal the familial relationship she had the chance to forge, not even if it caused an agonizing hollowness inside him to lose the mental connection with her as she flew out of range, protected by her mother’s people. He would give her time and space enough to decide if she wished to walk beside him now that her life had a whole new dimension.
Having flown escort to Neha while Rhys made certain of Nivriti’s retreat, he kept an eye on the archangel’s damaged wing as she brought herself in to land in front of the Palace of Jewels. When she dipped to the side as she came in, he deliberately landed too close to her, so that her stumble would be blamed on his clumsiness rather than taken as a sign of weakness by the others landing around them.
Pride, as Mahiya had said, was an integral component of Neha’s nature.
Righting herself by pushing off his body, she ignored him as she entered her private apartments, but he knew that to leave now would be to undo any good he’d done. So he walked out to the courtyard to help deal with the injured—just because angels and vampires were hard to kill didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. A man who knew how to inject morphine and other pain relief medication was always useful in battle conditions.