Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
He could feel the general’s piercing gaze on the top of his head. Akhia-Solay’s deadly black eyes were legend, but now Alexander lifted his head and met those mysterious orbs. They sat in a face that was all sharp lines and angles beneath skin of a rich brown, the only softness provided by the general’s shoulder-length hair.
A liquid black, he wore it open today, only a single feather woven into it to speak of his allegiance to Esphares. Because that feather was brown speckled with blue—the shade on the underside of Esphares’s wings.
“Rise, child,” he said, his voice a touch impatient, then turned to bid farewell to the courtier.
Alexander waited only until the courtier was out of earshot before saying, “Sir, I need help.” The general wasn’t known for his patience with people who didn’t get to the point, so Alexander got to it. “Phiron, Fourth to Archangel Rumaia, has kidnapped my mother, and grievously wounded my father.”
Akhia-Solay turned and spat onto the grass that encircled a tree planted in the courtyard. “Rumaia runs her court like a brothel.” As an insult, it was a grave one, but then the general said, “But my archangel will not war with her over this.”
Alexander had his answer ready. “I know. I’m not asking for the help of Archangel Esphares. I’m asking for yours.” He continued to hold those strange, dangerous eyes. “A dispute between a second and a fourth will be exactly that—a dispute between warriors. A personal matter.” One Phiron wouldn’t want escalated should he lose, because to do so would be to draw attention to the fact that he’d proved weaker than another senior angel. The bastard would be trapped by his own arrogance and pride.
Akhia-Solay stared at Alexander for a long time. “You realize this will end your parents’ protection under Rumaia?”
Alexander couldn’t help the rage that seeded tremors in his voice. “She gives no protection. Rather, she makes us prey.” A stark difference. “And my parents are highly intelligent scholars. My mother leads the field in the study of rocks and the earth—and I know Archangel Esphares has many earth shakes in his lands. She’d be a valuable resource for him.”
The general waved that aside. “I’ll do this, pup, but not because of your mother’s scholarship. Because I want you under my wing and under my command. You have a heart like a lion’s—and a mind that is too bright. You need discipline and the right kind of guidance so that you don’t make the wrong decisions as you grow.”
He gripped the side of Alexander’s neck. “Now, you must stay here. Phiron is a peacock I can crush with ease. If only I could wring his neck and pull it off his body, but that might actually start a war. I’ll leave him alive and extract your mother. I don’t need to be watching out for a fledgling at the same time.”
“I’ll go to the healers, sir,” Alexander said, his pulse a stampeding beast. “Get help for my father.”
“Good. So long as you stay out of my way. I’ll bring your mother to the infirmary. Let us hope she doesn’t need it for herself.” Stepping back on that, the general took off in a blast of wind.
Waiting only until he wouldn’t have to fight the backdraft of the general’s flight, Alexander rose into the air—and went exactly where he’d said he would, no matter the nausea that burned his throat and scalded his gut. The general knew how to strategize an attack far better than Alexander; Alexander wouldn’t ruin the operation by being a child who couldn’t listen to necessary orders.
His chest squeezed.
* * *
* * *
Later, much later, while his father rested in the infirmary, his mother—unharmed on the outside but broken inside—took Alexander’s hand in her trembling one. “I’m sorry you were put in that position, my darling boy.” Tears rolled down her face. “I never thought Phiron would stoop to such horror.”
Alexander felt as if he’d aged a hundred years in the hours past. So he didn’t berate his mother for not facing up to the cold, hard truth. He just put his arm around her and said, “It’s all right, Mama. It’s not your fault.” That was as true as the fact that his parents preferred to be blind to the darkness in the world.
“It’s all right,” he said again as his mother cried as if her heart was broken. “I was born for this. To protect. To fight for what’s right.”
And to understand that power mattered.
Else people could crush and belittle and humiliate you.
No. Never again.
To keep that vow, he needed to gain so much power that no one would dare treat him and his as prey. A goal toward which he’d already begun to walk—General Akhia-Solay had made it clear that, fledgling or not, Alexander was now under his command.