And I am going to do something about that ,
she resolved then and there. Um. Right after we dont die here. Because hell . That was a lot of chimaera, when you saw them all together like that, charging down a hillside. Zuzanas neek-neek courage shrank up in her chest. She was glad for Miks arm around hernot that she had any delusion that her sweet violin virtuoso could protect her any better than she could protect herself.
Im starting to question our choice of life skills, she whispered to him.
I know. Why arent we samurai?
Lets be samurai, she said.
Its okay, Karou said, and then the Wolf was upon them, closely flanked by his entourage of lieutenants. Zuzana met his eyes and tried to look defiant. She saw scabbed scratch marks on his cheeks and her fury flared anew. Proof, as if there had been any doubt as to Karous attacker.
Wait. Had Karou just said, Its okay?
How was this okay?
But Zuzana had no time to ponder the matter. She was too busy gasping. Because behind Karou, taking shape out of the air and filling it with all the splendor she remembered, was
Akiva?
Well, what was he doing here?
Another seraph appeared beside him. The one whod looked really pissed off on the bridge in Prague. She looked pretty pissed off now, too, in a focused, come-any-closer-and-Ill-kill-you kind of way. Her hand was on the hilt of her sword, her gaze fixed on the gathering chimaera.
Akiva, though, looked only at Karou, who did not seem surprised to see him.
None of them did. Zuzana tried to make sense of the scene. Why werent they attacking one another? She thought that was what chimaera and seraphim did especially these chimaera, and these seraphim.
Just what had gone down at monster castle while she and Mik were away?
Every chimaera soldier was present now, and though surprise may have been absent, hostility was not. The unblinkingness, the concentration of malice in some of those bestial stares. Zuzana had sat on the ground laughing with these same soldiers; she had danced chicken-bone puppets for them, teased them and been teased in return. She liked them. Well, some of them. But right now, they were terrifying without exception, and looked ready to tear the angels limb from limb. Their eyes flicked to Thiago and away as they waited for the kill order they knew must come.
It did not come.
Realizing shed been holding her breath, Zuzana let it out, and her body unwound slowly from its flinch. She caught sight of Issa in the crowd and gave the serpent-woman a very clear what the hell? eyebrow. Issas answering look was less clear. Behind a brief smile of unreassuring reassurance, she looked tense and highly alert.
What is happening?
Karou said something soft and sad to Akivain Chimaera, of course, damn it. What did she say? Akiva responded, also in Chimaera, before turning to direct his next words to the White Wolf.
Maybe it was because she couldnt understand their language, and so was watching their faces for clues, and maybe it was because she had seen them together before, and knew the effect they had on each other, but Zuzana understood this much: Somehow, in this crowd of beast soldiers, with Thiago front and center, the moment belonged to Karou and Akiva.
The two of them were stoic and stone-faced and ten feet apart, currently not even looking at each other, but Zuzana had the impression of a pair of magnets pretending not to be magnets.
Which, you know, only works until it doesnt.
4
A BEGINNING
Two worlds, two lives. No longer.
Karou had made her choice. I am chimaera, she had told Akiva. Was it only hours earlier that he had escaped the kasbah with his sister, to fly off and burn the Samarkand portal? They were to have returned and burned this one, too, sealing Earth and Eretz off from each other forever. He had wondered which world she would choose? As if she had a choice. My life is there, she had said.
But it wasnt. Surrounded by creatures she had enfleshed herself and who, almost without exception, scorned her as an angel-lover, Karou knew it wasnt life that awaited her in Eretz, but duty and misery, exhaustion and hunger. Fear. Alienation. Death, not unlikely.
Pain, certainly.
And now?
We can fight them together, Akiva said. I have an army, too.
Karou stood rooted, scarcely breathing. Akiva had been too late. A seraph army had already pushed through the portalJaels
ruthless Dominion, the Empires elite legionand so this was the unimaginable offer Akiva made to his enemy, to the astonishment of all, his own sister included. Fight them together? Karou saw Liraz turn an incredulous look on him. It was a good match for her own reaction, because one thing was sure: If Akivas offer was unimaginable, Thiagos acceptance of it was unfathomable.
The White Wolf would die a thousand deaths before he would treat with angels. He would tear the world down around him. He would see the end of everything. He would be the end of everything before he would consider such an offer.
So Karou was as astonished as the restthough for a different reasonwhen Thiago nodded .