Archangel's Storm

permission to attend the dawn funeral ceremony, but no one else. Some whispered the archangel was jealous of her consort even in death, but Jason believed Neha mourned too deeply to share her grief.
    Returning his attention to Mahiya, he saw that she was drifting away from the group. He scanned the guests who remained once more before making his way to the palace he shared with Mahiya, catching a glimpse of blue green silk whispering past the doorway.
    Entering behind her, he locked the main doors and made his way upstairs to find her on their shared balcony, her gaze on the courtyard lit only by four quiet lamps. She didn’t startle when he came to stand beside her. A single wide, shallow step separated his balcony area from hers, and where he had columns holding up the roof, the edge open for easy flight, she had a railing, which she now gripped.
    “Her name was Audrey.” Quiet words, no apparent residue of her earlier anger. “Tall, curvaceous blonde vampire. She’d been part of Neha’s circle for two decades but hadn’t made it into the inner court.”
    “How long ago did she disappear?”
    “The same day as Eris’s murder, though no one else has yet put the two events together. Those who’ve noticed Audrey’s absence believe it’s a simple case of conflicting schedules. No one has bothered to try to contact her—she wasn’t one of the favorites, and the friendships she made were shallow at best.” Hands clenching on the railing, she continued to stare out into the night. “Do you believe she killed Eris?”
    Look at me, princess.
“It’s one conclusion.”
    Her fingers flexed on the railing. “Do I matter?” It was a question with so many nuances, he knew he caught but the bluntest edge. “In the grand scheme of your existence, does my life matter to you on any level?”
    He was a man used to keeping secrets, but he knew at that instant that he had to answer this, or he risked losing something he wasn’t even aware he searched for. “Yes. You matter.”
    A tremor quaked Mahiya’s frame . . . and at last, she turned those bright eyes his way. “Then you will uphold our bargain?”
    “Yes.” Bargain or not, Jason had no intention of leaving her to Neha’s mercies, but he would make her no promises until he knew they would not be broken.
    When he stepped to the edge of his side of the balcony in preparation for taking flight, Mahiya said, “She isn’t in her chambers. I checked earlier.”
    Jason wasn’t used to explaining himself to anyone. Even Raphael gave him free rein, but Mahiya’s statement held a brittle pride that said this woman, this survivor, had been pushed to the brink. “Good.” He turned, held her gaze to show that he wasn’t ignoring her. “I have another idea I wish to explore.”
    A pause, then a small nod, her voice no longer cool when she said, “I’ll wait for your return.”
    Strange what those simple words did to him as he flew off the balcony and up into the diamond-studded jet of the night sky. There, he hovered invisible against the stars and
listened
.
His gift wasn’t one he could call up on command, but he could put himself into the optimum frame of mind to trigger it. Now, he did just that, the capricious winds whipping strands of hair from his queue and pasting the thin linen of his shirt against his body.
    Whispers began to filter through to his mind minutes later, a thousand small fragments that meant nothing. Patient, he allowed the river of sensory input to flow around him. Then he caught a single whisper that wasn’t a word so much as a
sense
. Shifting into the wind, he flew over the ridges and valleys of the mountains, following an instinct honed to a keen edge by near to seven hundred years of life.
    Nothing stood out about the valley where the trail stopped cold, but he came down under the moonlight nonetheless, careful to land with a stealth that was as innate as breathing. Swathed in shadows, the land betrayed none of its secrets . . . until the wind shifted.
    Dusty decay, but no scent of rot.
    Catching the line of the breeze, he traced it back to a tumble of gray stone, some of the rough chunks the size of small cars. The sheer rock face above told him their origin, though enough time had passed that the hardy grasses evolved to survive this harsh climate had grown to above his knee around the rocks.
    It was, he thought, sheer luck that the body had fallen into a crevice when it had been dropped. Or the remnants of it in any