“Waiting until Illium turned over onto his front, Aodhan painted words on the outer surface of his wings with a special ink that soaked in but dried without leaving a sticky feeling. When Illium woke, he didn’t notice anything.”
Andromeda giggled. “What did Aodhan write?”
“Well, when Illium went out to join his squadron commanders for a drill, they patted him on the shoulder and said, ‘Sorry, you’re not my type’.” Naasir had seen it all from his vantage point on a balcony.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.” Andromeda thumped him playfully on the shoulder.
Naasir grinned. “Free Bluebell kisses on offer.”
Andromeda stifled a snort.
“The best part was that the ink didn’t wash off, not for three days. Illium finally hunted Aodhan down and had him ink out the words so it just looked like he had splotches of black on his wings.”
“Will Illium retaliate?”
“Of course.” Illium’s accident, Naasir knew, would’ve terrified Aodhan. “But they will always be friends, no matter what tricks they play on each other.” Naasir had a feeling nothing would ever sever that bond. The two were incapable of betraying one another.
“Do you have a friend like that?” Andromeda asked, a wistfulness to her tone.
“I have family. I have friends.” Far more than he’d ever imagined he might have when he’d been a feral boy who didn’t understand what it meant to be civilized. “Janvier and Ashwini see me, understand me, are my friends.” Like the others in the Seven, as well as Raphael, they had never asked him to be anything but exactly what and who he was. “But they belong to each other first.” As it should be. “I will be always-friends with my mate.”
Andromeda’s voice was small. “She’ll be a lucky woman.”
He scowled; who did she think he was talking about? Before he could challenge her, however, he caught the first traces of a scent. “We have to be quiet now,” he murmured. “This scent is old but it means the wing brothers patrol here.”
The tunnel widened soon after that point and Andromeda was able to walk next to him, her hand in his. His eyes penetrated the darkness as if it was nothing, but he knew that for her, it must be a stygian nothingness. Yet she walked into it without flinching.
Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles.
Her wing brushed over his back in a silent, affectionate response just as the darkness of the tunnel became suffused with a soft light.
Hearing nothing and scenting nothing fresh, Naasir continued on until they found the source of the light. It was inside a large cave—part of the roof was slightly cracked. Not enough to allow access, but enough for a shaft of sunlight to spear in.
“We’re still far too high,” Andromeda said, her lips brushing his ear. “We need to go deeper.”
Nodding, Naasir did a careful scan of the cave. “That’s the easiest downward option.” He pointed to the tunnel entrance across the cave. “No fresh scents, but old ones are buried within.”
“A trap?”
“My gut says yes.” He and Andromeda walked across with utmost care. He felt the minute change in the slope of the sand beneath their feet an instant before Andromeda put her foot forward.
35
Hauling her back before her foot could land, Naasir pinned her to his chest, her scraped and cut wings between them. “There’s something beneath.”
Fine white lines bracketed her mouth, but she just nodded. “I won’t move.”
Releasing her after making sure she had her balance, he crouched down and went to brush away the sand when he realized his fingers might create too much pressure.
“Here.” Andromeda held out one of her feathers, this one a pale brown that turned dark at the tip. “It was about to fall off anyway.”
He gently stroked her calf, knowing her wings had to be hurting. Being immortal didn’t mean suffering no pain.
When he leaned forward, one hand still on her, and brushed away the sand, he found what he’d expected. “It’s a pressure switch.”
Andromeda’s calf muscle tensed. “I don’t think the ceiling cracks are accidental,” she said slowly. “This cave is rigged to collapse.”
“Burying all intruders with it.” Naasir rose to his feet. “We can’t risk crossing it—no way to know how many switches lie under the sand.”
Making it safely back out into the tunnel by retracing their steps, it took them another thirty minutes to find a downward sloping tunnel again. It also brought them far too close to the entrance to the caves. So close that at one point, Naasir heard two wing brothers talking—a male and a female.
He immediately pressed a finger to Andromeda’s lips so she’d know to be silent.
“. . . in the caves.”
“No sign so far, but if they are, they can’t get past us.” A gritty voice, holding a weight that spoke of experience. “All possible entry points to the chamber are tightly guarded.”
“That explorer got in,” said the first speaker, her youth apparent.
“Shavi was a new wing brother at the time. Green as grass. He fell for a distraction. Just as well the explorer went insane or we would’ve been knee deep in the curious and the dangerous.”
A long pause. Naasir was about to move on when the younger wing brother said, “I always wondered about that.” Her voice was diffident. “The others have told me he went inside sane and cocky, came out screaming having clawed out his eyes. That that’s why we didn’t kill him—because it would’ve been dishonorable to kill a madman.”