Angels Dance

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
    Published by the Penguin Group
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    “Angels’ Dance” previously appeared in
Angels’ Flight
, published by Berkley Sensation.
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
    ANGELS’ DANCE
    A Berkley Sensation Special / published by arrangement with the author
    PUBLISHING HISTORY
    Berkley Sensation Special / January 2013
    Copyright © 2012 by Nalini Singh
    Excerpt from
Archangel’s Storm
by Nalini Singh copyright © 2012 by Nalini Singh.
    Cover image of “Flying Girl” © Thinkstock/iStockphoto; “Wings” © Pakhnyushcha/Shutterstock; “Mountains” © Rechitan Sorin/Shutterstock. Cover design by George Long..
    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
    For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
    a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
    ISBN: 978-1-101-60651-3
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    Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
    a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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1
    FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO
    S he had seen empires rise and kingdoms fall, queens come and go, archangels clash in battle and drown the world in rivers of blood. She had recorded the archangel Raphael’s birth; recorded, too, the disappearance of his mother, Caliane; the execution of his father, Nadiel.
    She had watched her students take flight century after century, heading out into the world with dreams in their hearts and tentative smiles on their faces. She had read the letters they sent back from far-off lands of primeval forests and drenching rains, endless deserts and unforgiving winds. And she had celebrated the rare, joyful times when they themselves became parents to a little one.
    All this she had experienced from the craggy peaks and glimmering beauty of the Refuge, an earthbound angel, her wings never meant for flight. The first thousand years after her becoming had been hard, the second heartbreaking. Now that more than half of the third had passed, and with the specter of another devastating war a stealthy shadow on the horizon, she felt only a bleak acceptance.
    “Jessamy! Jessamy!”
    Turning from the edge of the cliff where she stood, looking up at a crystalline blue sky she would never touch, she crossed the rocky earth with quick steps to meet the child hurtling toward her, the girl’s wings dragging along the ground. “Careful, Saraia.” She knelt and captured that small, sturdy body dominated by wings of pure chocolate brown streaked with filaments of bronze that glittered under the piercing mountain sunlight.
    The bronze echoed the colors of both Saraia’s skin and her hair—messy and tangled around her face, the shiny