Eyes closing, his consort released a sigh of pleasure. “Nothing torn, but I’m fairly sure if I make the return trip to the township again, I might snap something.” A pause. “But you have to go even if I can’t. My gut says what’s happening there ties in with the Luminata as a sect and exactly how far the Cadre can trust them.”

“I need your contacts, Elena. The vast majority of mortals are terrified by archangels to the extent of muteness.” He knew exactly what would happen if he landed in the town without his mortal consort—their fear would overwhelm every other response and he’d get nothing.

“I should be able to ease the strain on your wings.” His healing abilities remained erratic, but he’d learned to access a certain low level of power at will—it should be enough to settle a minor strain.

Elena gripped his wrist, her fingers strong and warm. “After we’re back at Lumia. I don’t want you distracted out here.”

Since Lijuan’s squadron was by no means the only possible threat with so many of the Cadre in the vicinity, Raphael nodded. “You’ll also need to refuel and rest your body a little.” Meanwhile, he’d keep an eye on her flight patterns to make sure she didn’t need an earlier landing.

Hand dropping off his wrist, she said, “Raphael, I’ve been thinking . . . the way that painting of Nadiel was left where Caliane might’ve seen it, it can’t have been a simple oversight.”

“It reads as a power play to me, too.” And it made him wonder what other small aggressions the Luminata had taken against the Cadre. “If the Luminata have become so arrogant as to challenge archangels, then they have become a danger that needs to be swiftly eliminated.”

The survival of the world depended on the archangels being the ultimate authority. The Cadre had to be the fear beyond fear. The instant anyone began to question that, they empowered vampires and mortals to do the same. The end result of any such insurgency was always the same: a tide of horror and death.

“When I was a boy,” he told Elena, “a small group of powerful angels in a distant part of Caliane’s lands mounted a rebellion. Not because she was a bad leader.” His mother had been sane then, and beloved by her people for the most part. “They just believed they were too old and too experienced to be under an archangel’s yoke.”

Elena frowned. “Most archangels seem to leave the older angels pretty much alone to keep an eye over their areas of influence. I mean, you don’t interfere with Nimra or Nazarach when it comes to the day-to-day running of their regions.”

“It was no different then.” The wildflowers swayed in the wind as he spoke, brushing against his wings. “But the angels objected to even the fine thread that linked them back to Caliane and made her their official liege.”

“What did she do?” Wariness in Elena’s expression.

He didn’t blame her; his mother had earned her reputation for mercilessness. “She was tired of their behavior so she told them they were free to rule their section of the territory with no oversight from her.”

“I have a feeling this story doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“The angels bragged to anyone who would listen that they reported to no archangel.” Raphael could remember the whispers in the Refuge, had been aware even as a boy of the tension that whitened the lips of more than one adult. “Word soon got out to the vampires that they were under the angels’ control, with no archangel in the mix.”

“We’re talking angels as strong as Nimra and Nazarach?” Elena shifted their positions so she could take his hand, tug him on a walk through the wildflowers. “Those two are plenty strong enough to keep vampires in line.”

“These angels were even older and stronger.” Arrogant men and women who were used to people cowering before them. “But we live in a world of predators and prey, Elena. And while archangels can only be killed by other archangels, even powerful angels can be killed by anyone.”

Elena snorted. “If anyone has a tank or five and a hail of burning hellfire, and oh, maybe eight layers of armor.”

“Truth—but vampires chafing at the bit don’t think with such logic.” He wasn’t talking about people like Dmitri or Cristiano, who owned their vampirism, but creatures weak of character and selfish of need. “Such minds are blinded by hunger until they see only the possibility of total freedom to glut themselves on fresh prey.”

Eyes stark with the knowledge of a woman who’d survived just such a monster, Elena stared at him. “How many died?”

“Five thousand mortals, four hundred and seventy-three vampires, one angel.”

Her fingers clenched on his. “An angel?”

“A predator attacking the herd goes for the weakest link.” Vampires in a twisted kiss were akin to a pack of feral dogs, hunted in that same instinctual way.

“In this case, a number of violent and old vampires decided to attack a scholar who was maybe six hundred years old. He stood no chance, was cut into pieces in front of his household.” As Jessamy would stand no chance against Dmitri—angels weren’t automatically stronger than vampires, a fact most mortals never understood.

“Jesus.” Elena’s face was white. “And once that first boundary is crossed, there’s no going back.”

She’d seen it, the point he was making, his consort’s mind as sharp as the blades she wore with such lethal grace. “Do you want me to finish the story?”