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Yet she smiled. “Every perception is so different in this form,” she whispered. She traced her fingers over Arden’s cheek. “I’d forgotten. There are such limits—but such feelings too.” Then she looked over Arden’s shoulder. “Jericho.”

Arden craned around to see that Papa had followed her a few steps, though she had no words for the expression on his face. “Angelica.” His voice was but a hoarse, broken whisper.

Her mother’s arms slid down, the fingers of one hand lacing with Arden’s. “There were truths I could not tell you then. Some by command of Elyon, but some because the human mind, the human language cannot contain or express them.”

Sapphire slipped up beside Papa, wove her fingers through his. Admiration and love pounded through Arden at the sight. How much courage, how much strength did that take?

And when her mother saw it, she smiled too. “I know the questions you all have. I have been sent to deliver what answers you need.”

Papa must have drawn strength from Mama’s touch. He lifted his chin. “Perhaps Arden deserves to ask hers first, but I will beg your indulgence.”

Arden couldn’t even think of words to compose her own questions with, so it was just as well.

Her mother nodded. “I was one of many seraphim called to the court of Elyon—decades ago by your measure of time. The High One announced that the time had come for our blood to mingle again with humankind. Once before, in the earliest days, our kind were let to dwell among humans, to infuse your race with strength and might.” Her gaze flickered to the right, and Arden glanced over her shoulder to see that Enoch stood beside Seidon.

“You know the stories, brother. You are named for the man of Elyon who recorded those days.”

Enoch’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He nodded. “Those marriages created a race of giants.” He cast a glance up at Arden.

Arden lifted her brows. “I may be taller than average, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call me a giant.”

Her mother laughed, and it sounded like the warble in Ora’s avian throat.

“In the ancient days, humanity needed our physical strength to help them overcome the disease and weakness that their own disobedience had introduced into the genome. In these days, it is a different need that has been met. A different strength.” She opened her hand, and wind blew up from her palm, somehow visible to Arden’s eyes, shimmering like iridescent strands of opal and pearl.

“The magic of the skies,” Enoch murmured.

“As one example—yes. Just as the magic of waters was given after the Cataclysm because the men under the waves needed it to survive.” Mother looked to Papa again.

“When Elyon asked who would go, I said I would. Because I had been watching you as you settled on these islands. Because I saw your nobility. Your strength. The purity of your heart. And how very alone you were. I volunteered because you were worthy of this gift of Elyon. For the first time in my existence, I took human form.”

She lifted one arm away from her side, the other hand still holding Arden’s.

She frowned, but it was a soft frown. Gentle.

Full of wonder. “I was unprepared. I did not understand, before I landed on your beach, how frail this body was. How loud a human’s emotions are.

So many of my thoughts could not be held in this mind.

So much of my truth there were no words to express.

” She squeezed Arden’s fingers. “And I certainly didn’t understand how devastating the heartbreak would be when Elyon called me back to the skies. ”

“Why?” Arden didn’t really mean to ask the question aloud, but the moment she did, her mother’s attention turned to her again. “Why couldn’t you stay?”

The twist of her mother’s mouth wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a grimace either.

It was something in between. “My being cannot long be contained in this flesh, precious one. It strains to break free from these confines. They are too small. Too limited. The hawk is easier to maintain, with its size and yet simplicity—there is less physiology to vie with my nature. But every minute I stand before you like this, my soul is struggling to break free. I held this body as long as I could. For you. For your father.”

“If you remembered those days, Arden,” Mama said softly, “you would know how true those words are. Angelica was wasting away. Several of us came every day to help with you, to try to nurse her. Your father sent for the king’s own physicians, but they couldn’t understand why her body was breaking down when there was no disease to account for it. ”

Arden drew in a sharp breath. Not at the words, but at the reminder that these two mothers of hers had known each other.

Been friends, when the one was married to her father and the other to a good friend of his.

Before the Lonely Days. Before the death of Jade’s father.

Before the family she now claimed was her own.

“But I knew you would raise her well, Jericho. I knew you would see that she grew into exactly who Elyon needs her to be.” She inclined her head toward Papa.

“I regret the pain my passing caused you—I did not know, when I took this flesh, how vast such pain could be. To my kind, love is obedience. Love is being. Love is untangled by anything else, because it is only the perfect love of Elyon reflected in us. Human love is not so simple. Less pure in some ways—fiercer in others. Humans love without the vision of what will come. They love on faith. That makes it both more beautiful…and more terrible.”

Thoughts Arden would no doubt turn over as she considered her own love.

But she didn’t question them now, not when her mother shuddered, and her image flickered.

It was too quick for Arden to be certain what she was seeing—but the feathers shifted, her face contorted, light broke free and then faded back into flesh and bone and hair.

She could feel in the squeeze of her mother’s fingers that this time, she certainly wouldn’t hold this form for years or even months or weeks or days.

She had only minutes. Arden could feel the strain to break free in her own blood, even as she recognized it wasn’t her strain, any more than the fire still blazing from the hand Seidon had rested again on her back was her fire.

Her mother let go of her fingers and stepped to where Papa and Mama stood.

She pulled Sapphire close first, holding her tight.

“Thank you,” she said, voice somehow both firm and wavering.

“Thank you for loving my daughter as your own. I have not been given the knowledge of what will happen to Jade, but I will do all in my power to help Arden find her and restore her to you.”

Sapphire held her just as tightly, her tears dripping down her cheeks. “It wasn’t Jade you dove in after.” The words held no blame, just understanding.

Her mother pulled away. “Guarding my daughter is my sacred charge, until she has harnessed her power and needs me no longer. But the moment she was safe, I went back for your girl. I am sorry that my efforts failed. That form, like this one, has its limits. But I did not have the leave of Elyon to shed my flesh and chase after her farther. Because this too is part of his plan.”

Sapphire pulled away, dashing at the moisture on her cheeks. “I understand. We can only do what we are created to do.”

“I pray you will embrace your daughter again. And I pledge my help in rescuing her because you did not withhold your love from mine. Such selfless love deserves all I can give.”

Arden had to blink back tears of her own when Mama dissolved into sobs. Papa slid an arm around her, even while Mother turned to him.

“Jericho.” She reached up, touched a hand lightly to his face.

His eyes slid shut. “I have watched and guarded mankind since the first days. I have seen humanity struggle to its feet, fall again, rise up once more. I have watched kings and emperors, shepherds and fishermen, scholars and soldiers. But there has never been another man like you. It was my honor to be a part of your life, if only for a whisper. An honor to join my blood to yours to create this new thing.”

The wind raced up the beach, and Arden shivered…or perhaps she shivered, and then the wind raced? The tingling of her fingers made her doubt her own perception of the order.

Papa opened his eyes. “Every ounce of pain was worth it. For our girl.”

She turned to Storm then, and her lips curved into a smile.

“I held you in my lap when you were an infant, nephew. And I kissed your brow and spoke strength and speed and skill over you. But your heart—that is your own badge of honor, and it is more formidable than any other blessing. You will be a protector about whom songs are sung in the heavens and on the earth, like your uncle before you. Like your sons and daughters who will follow after you.”

Storm’s nostrils flared. “I remember,” he croaked out. “I remember…the touch of your breath.”

He shouldn’t—he hadn’t been more than eighteen months old when she left them. But perhaps the touch of heaven had made an impression that wouldn’t fade.

Then she turned to Arden again—or rather, given the angle of her face, to Seidon, who stood behind her.

“King Seidon. When first we met, your loyalty to your friend made you distrust me, as well you should have. But I will tell you now what I couldn’t then—you are the king Elyon has chosen for this time, because you are the only one who can do what needs done.

The only one strong enough to match my daughter.

You are his anointed. Your faith and humility please him beyond measure.

And because you seek him above all, he will give you the desires of your heart. ”

Seidon’s hand slipped down, so that his arm encircled her waist.