They flew on.

Night fell again, the stars shattered diamonds in the sky.

It was as the night was dawning into dark gray that she pointed to a smudge in the distance, darkness against darkness. “There it is, the place where I saw the mummified hand.”

Titus didn’t land in the center of the settlement as she’d done, but on the easternmost edge. “Dawn will come in the next two hours. I think it’s better if we wait to examine your findings in the light of the sun.”

Sharine had no wish to remain so long in this eerie, lifeless place, but she couldn’t disagree with him. Nodding, she reached back to lightly manipulate one of her shoulders. Though Titus had carried her with care, being in the same position for so long had led again to a predictable stiffness.

“I intend to walk the village border,” he said in what probably passed as a quiet tone to him, and that she found comforting.

Titus’s voice was an outward manifestation of his honesty.

“A walk would also help ease your muscles.”

She froze, unaware till then that he’d been watching her. It took conscious effort to keep her expression neutral and fall in step with his bigger, stronger form. Titus, in turn, maintained a scrupulous distance between them as they walked, not allowing his wing to brush against hers.

Both of them kept their eyes on their surroundings.

With the sky already graying at the edges, it was no longer pitch-black and so it was easy to see the signs of disturbance when they turned the corner—it was as if people had fought a desperate battle against an attacking force.

Titus crouched down to examine one particular set of prints. “I’ll have to look at this more fully in the daylight.”

“Wait.” Bringing out the phone device, she pressed the symbol Illium had shown her would bring light. It shot a glow, bright and sharp, onto the tracks. Pleased with herself, she said, “You really should get one of these. It’s quite clever—I can see why my boy loves it so.”

Titus’s response was muted, his focus elsewhere. “Could you move it so that the light falls on this point?” He indicated the relevant area with one hand.

Attention caught, she did as he’d asked. The beam of light hit a mess of dirt and grass that looked to have calcified around what might’ve been blood or other bodily fluids. “What do you see?” While Sharine could pinpoint the minute differences in a work of art that spoke the language of the artist’s brushstrokes, she didn’t know how to read the earth.

Titus brushed his fingers over the section. “It’s difficult to tell after all this time, but I’m near certain these were made by wings dragging on the ground.”

Sharine came closer, still saw only a bare glimmer of what was clear to him. “An angel who saw the reborn swarming the village and landed to help?”

“It’s possible.” His broad shoulders shifted as he angled himself to check another area. “The reborn could’ve ripped a young angel apart.” Expression dark as he rose, he said, “You should preserve the energy of the device. We may need it to examine further such areas.”

He was proven right. They stopped four more times during their slow walk, while the sky lightened from the east and the world became a kind of smudged gray that reminded her of fog in the mountains of the Refuge. She knew it would brighten until the sky turned a dazzling blue, the light so bright it hurt to look at, the heat intense enough to cut, but for now, the air remained cool, crisp.

“I thought I’d miss the cool summer green and icy winter white of the Refuge,” she found herself saying. “But Lumia feels like home, as does this land.”

“Perhaps it’s because you’re a different woman from the one who lived in the Refuge.” She was still chewing over the perceptive statement when he said, “Why did you stay so long there? Why not move with Illium to New York?”

Sharine had asked herself that same question, had no real answer. “I told myself I stayed to keep vigil over Raan’s grave, that I had to do it so people would remember him, my Raan.”

A smile that held no joy. “But I’d long stopped such visits by the time I met Aegaeon, going only once a year on the anniversary of his death. Difficult as it is to accept, I think I stayed because it was safe, with defined parameters. A cowardice on my part.”

“You judge yourself harshly.” Titus’s dark eyes landed on her, the contact reverberating through her entire self. “Even a wounded boar will retreat to lick its wounds.”

Before she could respond, he spotted more evidence of an angel having been present during the fighting. During because the imprint of dragging wings had been baked into the soil by the sun, along with the blood and other fluids. Then Sharine saw a hint of . . . “It’s a feather,” she whispered, pointing out the small discolored filaments stuck in the dried mud.

Spine stiff and voice grim, Titus said, “All of these imprints appear to have been made at the same time. They overlap and interlock with one another, as happens when we grapple in battle and our wings drop.”

Titus rose again, his thighs taut against the fabric of his pants. “What I can’t understand is why did the surviving villagers leave if you found evidence they managed to burn up the reborn?”

Wrenching her gaze away from his thighs, she said, “It’s possible they were too few in number with too little food to survive here.” Even as she said that, she found herself shaking her head. “But if that were the case, I would’ve thought they’d head toward Lumia. It’s the closest settlement.”

“They would’ve had to cross mountains,” Titus pointed out. “Impossible if they had injured among their number.”

Though dawn had come, bringing with it the first kiss of the sun, Sharine rubbed her hands up and down her arms. It had nothing to do with the temperature, however, her mind filled with agonizingly detailed renderings of the slaughter that’d taken place here. At times like these, being an artist was a curse.

“I hope that’s it. I hope the survivors found safe harbor.” She refused to even consider that their bleached bones might lie somewhere in the wild, far from safety.

“There’s enough light.” Titus looked up at the sky. “It’s time to examine the site of the burning.”

While she kept watch, Titus checked all the buildings they passed, found no one alive or dead.

“Do you think the pyre included the bodies of their dead?” she murmured as they walked closer to the shriveled, blackened remnants of the fire. “Not simply the infected ones, but those who fell in defense of the village.” She’d seen no graves on their walk, no signs of disturbed earth as happened with a burial.

“I believe so, and I can’t blame them for their choice.” Titus’s tone was grim. “Even if they had no knowledge of the fact the reborn can infect the recently dead, they’re unlikely to have had the manpower to dig multiple graves, or the supplies with which to create more than one fire.”

Sharine’s throat ached for these people who’d been forced to make choices no one should ever be asked to make. “They had to know the danger they’d face out in the open,” she said, thinking of the roaming packs of reborn, vicious and pitiless. “They must’ve been desperate indeed to head out.”

“My guess is that they knew no one would be coming and, as you said, starving to death was a real possibility.” Titus looked up. “From the charts we found in Charisemnon’s court, this settlement isn’t on any normal angelic flight path. No one would’ve seen a sign asking for help.”

She touched the phone in her pocket. “Why did they not use modern devices?”

“We brought down the network across the entire continent during the battle.” Titus’s expression twisted. “It would’ve left them with no means of communication with the outside world. And so I was partially responsible for whatever happened here.”

Sharine found herself touching her hand to his forearm, the warmth of him soaking into her skin. “This is the way of the world,” she said simply. “When immortals fight, it’s the weaker beings who pay the price. Yet you had to fight. Had you not, chances are these people would’ve been just as dead, and the death wave would’ve continued unabated—you know your nemesis wouldn’t have stopped.”

Titus, his muscles rigid, didn’t say anything. Dropping her hand, she carried on at his side . . . but his open distress at the deaths here caused a crack in the walls she’d put up around her innermost self. This man, this archangel, he kept surprising her with the depth of his heart.

“We’re here.” In front of the damaged wall through which she’d seen the bones.

Titus strode up to it. “Wait.”

As she watched, he tore apart the wall with care not to damage the remains on the other side. Parts of the wall, almost burned through, crumbled into dust at his feet. She wondered why the flames hadn’t engulfed the entire village. Perhaps it was that the bodies hadn’t burned hot enough or the fire had somehow starved.

Enlarging the space with methodical concentration, Titus worked until he’d eliminated most of the wall and they were looking on at a makeshift crematorium. Piles of ash played witness to the intent of the fire. But the flames hadn’t been hot enough and skulls rolled around on the floor, while long thighbones as well as smaller finger bones lay in the light falling through the new opening.

She pointed out what had brought them here, the elongated hand . . . which she now saw was attached to a body. No wonder she hadn’t been able to see it during her first visit; the body was at the bottom of many others. Titus silently moved the other remains aside—with care, but at speed, to reveal the body at the bottom.

It hadn’t burned up in the fire, simply been scorched in a way that meant it had mummified in the interim.

It had no head.

Her eyes widened but her horror had nothing to do with the decapitation. She’d just understood the import of the body’s spinal structure. “Titus.”