It would be easy, she thought, to mend these holes. All she would need to do was sew them back together, as her father had tried and failed to teach her with a needle and thread long ago. She had been terrible at mending clothes, and impatient, pointing out that they had servants to do such things for them, and now she found herself wishing she had paid more attention during those long hours bent over her father’s worktable.
She swallowed hard, dislodging the hot lump in her throat, and closed the door on her father’s memory. She stepped toward the Gate, her hand outstretched.
Then a terrible scream pierced the air.
Rielle stumbled back from the Gate, just as Atheria landed on the rocks before her. The chavaile looked more ferocious than Rielle had ever seen her—ears flattened, sharp teeth bared, head lowered as if preparing to bite. She held her wings fully extended on either side, enormous and dark.
Rielle’s tongue tingled; the air around the Gate had numbed her. “Atheria,” she managed, holding out her hand. “Come here, my sweet girl.”
Atheria’s eyes narrowed. She pawed the ground, snorting.
“Darling Atheria. Are you watching out for me?” Rielle went to her, trying to ignore the Gate’s insistent pull. She embraced the chavaile’s great head, pressed her face against her velvet muzzle.
Atheria relaxed, whickering gently.
“You don’t want me to touch the Gate?” Rielle murmured.
Atheria nudged Rielle’s face with her own, folded her into the bend of one of her wings.
Smiling, Rielle stepped back to meet the godsbeast’s enormous eyes. “But I must,” she said simply, and then, stepping back, she gathered a clutch of air in her palm, thrust her fist at Atheria, and shoved her away.
The air rippled with the shock wave, but Atheria was apparently too powerful to be cast away completely. She simply staggered back a few steps before sinking to her knees. Another flick of Rielle’s wrist, and a golden net encased Atheria, pinning her cruelly against the rocks.
Rielle made her way back to the Gate, ignoring Atheria’s furious screams as she struggled to free herself. “It’s all right, Atheria,” she murmured. “I’ll release you in a moment or two, once it’s done. I can mend it. I see it so clearly.”
She stepped onto the base of the Gate, squinting past the brilliant light contained between the enormous pillars of rock. The light vibrated, drowning out Atheria’s frantic cries. Rielle could hear only the deep thrum of the Gate in her bones and the wild pounding of her heart.
She reached for the first crack she saw, floating before her like a dark river etched across a map. The solution was clear: she would gather this fissure in her fingers and pinch together the two golden expanses that flanked it, binding them into place with her own power until the crack was sealed.
She reached for the tear, her fingers buzzing. A great invisible force pushed back against her, the air dense and hot. Too dense and hot for a human to move inside it?
But, then, she was not entirely human. She was the Sun Queen. She was more.
Distantly, she heard a man call her name, pleading with her to stop.
Ludivine’s voice came next. Rielle, no!
But Corien was delighted. Keep going, my marvelous girl, he told her, and for a moment she could see herself facing the Gate, and Corien standing behind her—his arms guiding hers toward the light, his lips caressing her neck.
I can mend it, Rielle told him.
You can do anything, he replied. When he kissed her throat, his teeth scraped her flesh, making her shiver.
She touched the crack in the Gate.
Lightning struck her—a thousand bolts, simultaneous. Too much light, too much power, as if all the sun in the sky were trying to force its way inside her. The feeling consumed her, convulsing her body; she could not see or move.
Step back! Corien screamed, no longer amused. Break free of it!
But Rielle couldn’t move. The power of the Gate would not allow it, knitting her bones to the rock under her feet.
Another cry arose, closer than the others. “Rielle, stay with me! Listen to my voice!”
Audric.
The sound of his cries shook her. With monumental effort, she took one step back, pulling free of the Gate’s hold.
A burst of energy erupted, flinging her off the plinth and back several yards into Audric’s arms. Ilmaire caught them both, and they all went stumbling to the ground. Rielle shook against Audric’s chest, her body steaming and crackling, her hands blazing gold.
“My God,” Ilmaire murmured.
“Don’t touch her hands!” Ludivine cried. “Audric, be careful!”
Rielle’s eyes fluttered. She tried to focus on the image hovering above her—Audric’s face. He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Are you all right? Say something.”
Rielle forced out a word. “Something.”
His laughter was fragile. “What were you thinking?”
“I can mend it,” she replied.
“Forget the damned Gate, Rielle. Forget all of this. What good is any of it if it kills you?” He kissed her temple. “You’re still a human, my darling. Still breakable.”
Rielle gazed past him at the Gate, her vision spinning. She struggled to rise, Audric helping her up. “But I can mend it.”
“What is she doing?” Ingrid snapped.
“Let her go,” said Ludivine quietly. “She has to learn.”
Rielle struggled against Audric’s grip. When he held fast, she snapped at him, “Following in Corien’s footsteps, are you?”
He released her at once, looking as though she had slapped him.
Jodoc approached, drawing an arrow from the quiver on his back. “I’ll shoot her if I have to.”
Audric unsheathed Illumenor. It crackled to life, casting brilliant sunbursts across the ground. “Make one move against her, and I swear to you, I will cut you in two.”
Rielle took the opportunity to break free of him and make unsteadily for the Gate, the world tilting around her. Atheria had stopped screaming, and she wondered, her mind distant and distracted, where the chavaile had gone or if she had given up fighting or if she had died.
Scrambling up onto the plinth, Rielle found a crack at once, and seized the planes of light on either side of it, trying to press them closed. Instantaneous pain ripped up her body, as if some burning creature had possessed her, determined to rip her open from the inside out.
She stepped away, more easily this time, and gasped for breath. Hot ropes skipped across her skin like miniature bolts of lightning.
On her hands and knees she crawled back toward the Gate, reaching for the same tear that had eluded her—and saw, her stomach dropping, that even more tears now existed than there had been only moments before.
She hesitated, heat gathering helplessly behind her eyes.
Do you see? Ludivine’s voice was full of pity. You’re making it worse.
I can mend it, Rielle insisted.
I believe that you can. But not like this. Not yet. You must be stronger.
And that, Rielle decided, was entirely unfair. To be so powerful, to be such a rarity—the subject of a prophecy, for God’s sake—and yet to be unable to do this one small thing?
Her temper ignited. She pushed herself to her feet, charged at the Gate with a scream that ripped her voice in two, and slammed her fists against the field of light that so mocked her.
The resulting shock wave threw her back off her feet and into blackness.
• • •
She awoke lying on her stomach in a candlelit room, on a bed of soft white linens.
Audric slept in a chair beside her, his hand holding hers, and Rielle herself lay with her head on a pillow in Ludivine’s lap.
Ludivine combed her fingers through Rielle’s hair. “How are you feeling?”
Remembering everything that had happened, Rielle set her jaw against a rising tide of shame. Her head pounded; her body felt beaten by a thousand angry fists.
She glared at the aged wooden floor. “Don’t you know?”
Ludivine’s finger caught on a tangle, which made Rielle wince. “I do, but I would like to hear you say it.”
“Fine. I feel like shit.”
Ludivine said primly, “I expect that you do.”
“Leave off, Lu,” murmured Audric. “She’s been through enough.”
At the sound of Audric’s voice, Rielle turned toward him and squeezed his hand. “Are you angry with me?”
He brought her fingers to his lips. “Yes. But more than that, I’m glad you’re all right. And I understand why you did it.”
Then she remembered. Panic punched her upright. “Atheria. Where is she?”
Audric hesitated. “She is not wounded, at least not that we could see, but she flew away shortly after the Gate threw you and hasn’t been sighted since.”
“I was mad,” Rielle whispered, tears sewing her throat shut, fists clenched against her thighs. “I lost my head. If she doesn’t return, it’s what I deserve.”
“Please don’t worry. She’ll come back to you. Just give her time.” He bent to kiss her, and Rielle cupped his face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his, devouring the sight of his steady dark gaze, so close to her own.
“I just wanted to help,” she said.
“I know,” he replied softly.
And you wanted to show off, Corien pointed out, sounding sulky.
And you urged me on, she shot back, even knowing that it would hurt me.
He paused. I didn’t know it would hurt you that badly.
Audric would never do such a thing to me.
No, I don’t suppose he would, Corien replied, his voice curling. Not yet, anyway.
Rielle ignored him, preparing to apologize once more—but before she could, Jodoc burst in, accompanied by four Obex in plain gray robes. Beyond them, Ilmaire and Ingrid and three of their own guard stood at the ready.
Jodoc began speaking without preamble. “In the twenty-four hours that have passed since your foolish and perhaps disastrous attempt to repair the Gate—”
“Twenty-four hours?” Rielle glanced at Audric. “It’s been that long?”
“In those twenty-four hours,” Jodoc continued sharply, “I have already received a dozen reports from Obex around the world.”
He glanced at the stack of thin papers in his hands. “An earthquake in Astavar. A typhoon in the Vespers, which has destroyed six fishing villages on the eastern coast of the main island. A blizzard in the Mazabat city of Zamar—a tropical city, mind you—which has completely incapacitated the Ferej Canal, an important shipping route for that part of the continent. A tidal wave, even more enormous than the one you recently encountered, off the coast of Vindica—which is largely uninhabited, thank God. And in your own country, in the coastal city of Luxitaine, a flock of birds, thousands strong, dropped dead from the skies, killing several and terrorizing many.”
Audric closed his eyes and looked away.
Jodoc folded up the papers and placed them in his coat pocket. “And these, Lady Rielle, are only the events we know about.”
Rielle sat in silence as he spoke, ignoring the temptation to lower her eyes in shame. Instead, she met Jodoc’s flat gaze. “How could you know about such things so quickly?”
They have marques in their employ, Ludivine answered at once. They have offered them asylum from their governments in exchange for their service.
Jodoc raised an eyebrow. “That’s the question you would ask of me right now?”
“It’s a fair question,” said Ilmaire. “How are we to know you aren’t falsifying these reports?”
“And why would I do such a thing?”
“To frighten us into doing whatever you demand?” Ingrid snapped.
“Or to shame Lady Rielle?” Ilmaire added.
“She should feel shame, and you should feel frightened.” Jodoc faced Rielle. “What you have done has exacerbated the problem that already existed. The elemental scholars in our order, who have spent lifetimes studying the empirium, have now counted an additional thirty-three fractures in the Gate. The catastrophic effects of its accelerated collapse cannot be overstated and will touch all of Avitas.”
Ludivine’s grip on Rielle’s hand tightened.
“Have any additional angels emerged in the past day?” Rielle managed, after she had found her voice.
Ludivine shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
The look Jodoc threw at her was one of utter disdain. “But they certainly will. And we are equipped to fight them, for now. But our blightblade stores are not limitless and cannot be replenished. And when the Gate falls at last and all the angels return, our meager weapons will mean nothing.”
Ludivine fiddled with the end of her left sleeve, beneath which the blightblade scar glistened.
Ilmaire regarded Jodoc thoughtfully. “You said blightblades are forged using the blood of beasts called cruciata, and that cruciata come from the Deep. How did you obtain this blood?”
“A single cruciata escaped through the weakening Gate many years ago,” Jodoc replied. “We were able to subdue it, at the cost of many lives, and conducted experiments with its remains, which yielded us the first blightblade. We have access to only this one corpse, and when our supply of its blood is depleted, we will have no means of forging additional blightblades.” He paused, looking grim. “At least, not until the Gate truly collapses, and everything contained in the Deep comes pouring out.”
Into the ringing silence that followed Jodoc’s words, Audric spoke. “For how long can a blightblade contain an angel?”
“It depends on the strength of the blade,” Jodoc answered. “Some for only minutes; some for years.”
Audric began to pace. “So the question remains: How do we repair the Gate?”
“There is no way to repair the Gate. The kind of magic the saints possessed, the sheer power they used to create it, no longer exists in this world. The empirium is fading, and has been for years.” Jodoc glanced at Illumenor, now sheathed at Audric’s waist. “The kind of power you possess, Your Highness, is an anomaly now, as you well know. And even that is not enough to repair the Gate.” He glanced at Rielle. “Nor is the Sun Queen’s power, apparently.”
“There has to be a way, some method no one’s tried,” Ilmaire insisted. “Texts, journals from the saints—”
“Journals are no use without the proper power to implement their teachings.”
“I have enough power to do it,” Rielle interrupted quietly. “I know I do.”
“As we have already seen,” Jodoc said, “that is not the case, Lady Rielle, no matter how dearly you wish it were.”
She lifted her chin to meet his glare. “Maybe I can’t do it now, but I think I will be able to someday.”
“And when will that day arrive? Tomorrow? Next year? Twenty years from now? Have you no understanding of what’s happened? The Gate is a volcano waiting to erupt, one large enough to obliterate us all, and we have no way of knowing when it will do so, no way of knowing what the angels are doing on the other side in their attempt to break free of their prison. No knowledge of how many cruciata they themselves have encountered, and subdued, and bound to them in service. And you,” he added, “have merely stoked the building fire.”
A moment of silence passed. Then Ilmaire said thoughtfully, “Perhaps she needs a casting.”
Rielle laughed. “As you’ve seen, castings aren’t necessary for me.”
“Maybe not for stopping arrows or tidal waves, no,” Ilmaire said. “But to repair a Gate sewn into the very fabric of the empirium? A Gate that required seven of the most powerful humans the world has ever known to create? For that, I think,
you might need some help.”
Beside Rielle, Ludivine tensed. He has an idea, but he doesn’t want to say it.
Who does?
Jodoc. Ludivine hesitated. Ah. It’s an excellent idea.
“You have something to suggest, Jodoc?” she said out loud.
The man’s face closed at once. “Poking around in my head, are you? Can’t help yourself?”
“When you are withholding information that could assist Rielle,” Ludivine replied, “then yes, I will poke around as I see fit.”
After a moment of tense silence, Jodoc spoke. “Some of our scholars have theorized that the original castings of the saints might be necessary to achieve any sort of true repair of the Gate.” He glanced at Rielle. “As with all castings, even after their user’s death, they hold some residual power and will contain the memory of the Gate’s creation. They are familiar with the fabric of it, with how it was originally constructed.”
Audric’s expression brightened. “You think that if Rielle wields the saints’ castings—”
“That might provide her with the tools she needs to make the repairs,” Ilmaire finished.
“As Magister Cateline Thoraval wrote in A Treatise on the Inner Life of Magic,” Audric continued, “even for the most naturally talented elemental, structure is key. In the execution of any elemental task, especially those foreign to the elemental, or particularly dangerous—”
Ilmaire snapped his fingers, finishing the sentence for him. “A strong foundation of support—from knowledge to memory to the casting itself—is essential for success.”
Ingrid cast a look of disgust at them both. “That was frightening, and I beg you to never do it again.”
Rielle turned the idea over in her mind. Is this possible?
I can’t say, Ludivine replied. Jodoc seems to think so. And he has spent his entire life studying the Gate.
“If I wanted to attempt this,” Rielle said, “where would I find these castings? They are guarded by your order, are they not?”
Jodoc raised his eyebrows. “I cannot give you that information, Lady Rielle.”
“But you just said—”
“Guarding the saints’ castings and protecting the Gate are sacred duties that have been entrusted to the order of the Obex for centuries by the saints themselves. The information we hold cannot be shared.”
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