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)
“No!” He reached for her, intending to kiss her, love her until she couldn’t leave him.
The sword she wore like it was her favorite piece of jewelry was suddenly between them, the tip pressed to his heart. “No, not this time.” A hard tone brittle at the edges. “I’m breaking us before we break each other in ways that can’t be undone. I’ll Sleep and when I wake, I’ll be sane when it comes to you—instead of this half-mad creature I’ve become.”
Heat flushed his skin, his shoulders knots upon knots. “Our love isn’t a madness! The things we’ve done together, Zani. The adventures we’ve had, the discoveries we’ve made!”
“The blows we’ve landed, the fractures we’ve created in each other, the rages we’ve incited.” She pushed the tip of the blade in further warning when he would’ve moved forward. “We hurt each other, Alexander. We do it over and over again. Neither one of us is innocent.”
She continued on when he would’ve spoken. “Look how angry and out of control you are now. This isn’t the calm and stable Archangel Alexander your people know and revere. As your Zani isn’t the good-natured and even-tempered Archangel Zanaya her people follow. I don’t like who I become with you when we fall into one of our dark periods.”
Her words staggered him—all the more so for being pure truth. “We’ll find our path,” he said. “Don’t go to Sleep, Zani. I would miss you for all eternity.”
Her eyes shimmered for a second before she gave a harsh shake of her head. “I’ll miss you even in my dreams, lover, but we’ve proven many times over that I’m not the right woman for you. And I refuse to stay awake and watch you dim into the madness of an archangel who will not Sleep for fear of losing his grip on power. Forget me.”
He didn’t run after her when she left, furious and heartbroken in equal measures. And despite her resolve, she must have rethought her decision, because she didn’t go into Sleep right then. Still angry with her for scaring him, for showing him just how much emotional power she could wield over him, he kept his distance . . . and a decade later, even though he was an immortal, there was no more time.
Zanaya went to Sleep in a place of her choosing of which he had no knowledge.
“You’ve broken my heart, Zani,” he said to a night dotted with starlight, but nowhere near as beautiful as the darkness that had heralded her ascension. “I’ll never forgive you for leaving me.”
It was a lie, of course. Had she woken then, he would’ve fought with her—then kissed her. Because Zanaya was as much a part of him as his own beating heart. But she didn’t wake. Not that century. Not that millennium. And not in the millennia that followed.
His Zani Slept through age after age after age.
Cascade
19
Zanaya knew there was something wrong with this waking. An archangel’s waking should be self-mandated, but this felt outside herself. As if a huge hand had come down through the earth and wrenched her out of her well-earned rest.
She hadn’t made her decision to Sleep in haste, had intended to stay in this suspended state for millennia upon millennia. But now here she was, being shaken awake by someone who clearly didn’t know that she was a most terrible beast in the mornings.
Perhaps it was Alexander. Impatient with her as he was often wont to be.
Another violent tug, that invisible hand viciously powerful. More powerful than any archangel.
Not Alexander then.
Not wanting to waste energy when she didn’t know anything of the enemy, she allowed the unknown power to wrench her from her rest. The sands of what had once been the territory of her beloved parted around her like golden water as she rose from the secret place she’d made beneath. A place only an archangel could make, and only an archangel could survive.
Her power stretched out as she woke, and she knew that the world was now a moonless night. That was how it’d been when she ascended, a lush ebony night filled with a thousand scents that mesmerized and haunted. It was said that mortals and immortals both had gone into eternity searching to once again scent the mysterious beauty of her ascension.
The finely woven and short length of cloth in which she’d gone to Sleep, the hues of it starlight and sparkle, hugged her with delicate grace as she rose. The fabric was as soft as a baby’s skin, and as fine. It covered her breasts and her torso, and only fell to her upper thighs, but what use did a Sleeping archangel have for anything more? She’d preferred to rest in beauty and softness—but for Firelight, of course.
Her beloved sword had lain beside her in her rest, but she slung it down the sheath along her spine as she rose. Her dress might be nothing but moonlight and stars, but beneath it was a softness of leather, a sheath and harness.