He came down beside her, confirmed he could also feel it. Fitting a finger against the indent, he pushed.
No door. No effect at all.
“I think we need to find two,” Andromeda said, thinking back to an ancient door she’d read about in a history book. “Let’s hope it’s not a code which requires the application of pressure in a precise rhythm.”
“Alexander can just drop those he doesn’t like into a boiling pit,” Naasir pointed out with a shrug. “Anyone allowed to stay alive must be given a way out.”
“Good point.” Andromeda felt for the second dent alongside Naasir.
“Got it.”
Touching the spot Naasir indicated, she nodded. “I’ll push here and you push there.”
When nothing happened, her heart squeezed, the idea of being entombed a nightmare.
A harsh groan split the air the next second, motes of dust shining in the luminescence.
Rising to stand on marginally less painful feet, she took Naasir’s hand and they backed away in case the mechanism swung outward, but when the ancient door finally moved, it was inward. The tunnel within was gray with thick cobwebs that made it clear no one had traversed it for centuries, but the walls glowed with the same luminescence as the central chamber.
“I hate cobwebs.” They stuck stubbornly to her feathers and this thick, they might even affect her ability to fly once they made it out.
Again that smile from Naasir, the affectionate one that hit her right in the solar plexus. “I’ll go first and clear the way for you.” Stepping in, he started using his claws to rip away the sticky mass.
Sword in hand, she got the bits that he missed and together, they managed to keep her wings mostly unsticky. “I’m trying very hard not to think about the spiders who built these, or about what just crawled over my foot.” She shuddered.
“You don’t like bugs?”
“Not ones with more than six legs. Or shells. Or antennae.”
Naasir chuckled and they carried on. It felt as if they walked for two hours on their burnt feet before the tunnel spilled them out into a small cave illuminated with the same luminescence that had lit their path this far. Given the lack of natural light, it was clear they were still deep inside the cave system.
Where they might permanently remain, courtesy of the angry wing brothers waiting for them, their crossbows pointed and primed.
* * *
Three hours after the tense meeting outside Alexander’s chamber, night had fallen over the oasis and the wing brothers knew what was coming. The fact their archangel was waking had caused wide-eyed awe among the younger members of the Brotherhood, grim joy in the older.
“I am happy to know I will see the sire again.” The tautly held emotion in Tarek’s tone was a testament to the loyalty Alexander inspired in his people. “I only wish his Sleep hadn’t been so precipitously interrupted. He did not plan to wake for thousands of years.”
The leader of the Brotherhood was sharing a meal with Naasir and Andromeda under the starlight. She went to speak, ask him about his long service, when a long-range scout ran in. It turned out the wing brothers’ phones didn’t work here, either—they had a hidden communications bunker a considerable distance out from the oasis.
It was of no use right now. All communications systems had gone down not long after Alexander told Naasir and Andromeda he was about to wake. As far as the Brotherhood had been able to ascertain, it had affected the entire territory, perhaps farther. All information was currently being passed through a relay of runners and old signal beacons that utilized a Brotherhood code.
“The fighting continues at the palace.” Accepting a bottle of water, the scout gulped it down. “It seems Rohan called in all his squadrons and ground troops prior to the attack.”
“Your warning,” Tarek said, and it wasn’t a question.
Naasir’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “Who is winning?”
“Rohan and Xi are evenly matched. Stalemate.”
That, Andromeda knew, wouldn’t last. “Lijuan will tip the balance unless Favashi returns home in time.” The Archangel of Persia had to know about the assault, as it had begun prior to the communications blackout.
A blood vessel pulsed in Tarek’s temple, his hand fisted on the table. “We can’t leave our post to go to his aid and I do not think Rohan would wish it.”
“Let’s hope Lijuan is too weak to arrive anytime soon.” The fact the Archangel of China wasn’t already here was a good sign. “The storm you mentioned—would it be enough to delay Raphael?”
Naasir had expected his sire to arrive tonight.
“According to the last report we had before everything went dark,” Tarek said, “the lightning storm is pummeling every part of the world except this territory, and the strikes are violent enough that all planes and angels have been grounded. Your sire may have been forced to land midway—or he was hit and needs to recover.”
“He’ll be here.” Dressed in a loose linen shirt he’d put on over his ravaged back after one of the wing brothers offered to replace his ruined tee, Naasir put another piece of meat from his own plate onto hers.
She smiled and ate the offering; it was nice to have someone who wanted to take care of her. She intended to do the same for him—the wing brothers had provided bottled blood, but she could tell he didn’t like the taste. If she ate well, he’d have no excuse not to feed from her.
The ground rumbled at that instant, the night sky above suddenly awash with a silvery aurora that rippled like water. It was breathtaking, and it spanned the sky as far as the eye could see.