Archangel by Sharon Shinn Page A

writing music again. “And then I wondered if you remembered the wedding at all.”
    “I remembered,” Gabriel assured him, stripping off his flight gloves and vest. Because more than half the inhabitants of the Eyrie were mortal, the entire complex was heated, and most of the angels found the temperature a bit too high. “And I considered forgoing the honor of singing at Lord Jethro’s son’s wedding, but I decided it would not be politically sound to offend the burghers even before I ascend to the position of Archangel.”
    “You’re in a foul humor,” Nathan observed, pouring wine for both of them without waiting to be asked. “I assume you have not found your angelica. Could Josiah not name her, then?”
    “Oh, he named her. Rachel, daughter of Seth and Elizabeth. He even gave me the location of her dedication—some backwater farmland in the Jordana foothills.”
    Nathan raised his eyebrows. He looked a great deal like his brother, though his eyes were a deep brown and his appearance was not so striking; yet the resemblance was impossible to miss. “Jovah has a sense of humor, I see,” he remarked.
    “The theory, according to Josiah, is that my angelica will possess qualities I do not. Since, as Josiah so kindly told me, I am arrogant, she, apparently, will be humble. Whatever. I am sure Jovah had his reasons for picking her.”
    “But you cannot find this plot of land, this farm in Jordana, where she is supposed to be?”
    “Oh, I found it. A little community. Homes, farms, a cluster of buildings. All—” Gabriel swept one hand before him. “All leveled to the ground some eighteen years ago.”
    “Leveled … By Jansai?”
    “They say not. I went to Breven. Although why the Jansai should tell me the truth when a truth like that would cause me to call down Jovah’s wrath upon them—”
    “Then, what happened? Where is she?”
    “I have not been able to answer either question in the past three weeks. The Jansai say the Edori may know. The Edori say, oh yes, perhaps a girl from a certain tribe may know, but we do not know where that tribe passes the winter months. And no one seems to have heard of this girl specifically. And I can’t comb every cave and campsite in Samaria looking for Edori who mayknow something about some vanished farm girl—but may not know a thing!—and I have about five months now to find her. And instead of continuing my search, I have to go play tame angel in Semorrah to prove that I can deal reasonably with the merchants, who do not like me much anyway—”
    “And they have reason not to like you, since you do not like them,” Nathan said, smiling a little. “But back to the problem of this girl. If—”
    “Rachel.”
    “What?”
    “Rachel. That’s her name. Josiah says she is twenty-five years old.”
    “If there are Edori who know where she is, can’t we go to the next Gathering and ask all the Edori at once?”
    “That’s my last hope. But the next Gathering is only three or four weeks before the Gloria. And if I wait till then, and no one knows a thing about her, my situation is indeed desperate.”
    “How desperate?” Nathan asked, alarmed.
    “Josiah says Jovah may not accept another woman’s voice. In which case—the end of the world looms. But I cannot credit that. If I am unable to find her, then I will sing and someone will sing beside me, and if Jovah has any mercy in him at all, he will accept who I bring him. But I would prefer not to make the experiment. Because Josiah seemed so doubtful—”
    “We’ll go to the wedding,” Nathan said decisively. “And then we’ll organize a hunt. You and I and ten or so of our angels. And we’ll search for the right Edori until the Gathering. And then we’ll go to the Gathering. And until then we will not despair. And for now you need to rest, because we leave tomorrow for Semorrah and all the delights in store for us there.”
    “Amen,” Gabriel said. “Let’s leave at first light.”
    So it was