She stumbled, clumsy in such frigid cold. Audric caught her at once, his arm strong around her waist.
“We’re turning around this instant,” he told her, having to shout against her ear to be heard, for the hard wind had begun to howl. “This is ludicrous. We’ll fall to our deaths.”
But Rielle could not allow that. The wailing wind, the swirling snow, and the black night beyond it—these were remnants of her dreams.
“If you fall, I’ll catch you,” she shouted back to him, dusting snow from his nose with her glove.
Framed by ice-crusted fur, his face creased with concern. He looked up the slope, which seemed to rise forever into blackness.
“Is there something you need to tell me?” he asked her, not looking at her.
Rielle shook her head. “I’m cold. That’s all I can think of at the moment.”
He smiled, she thought, though she couldn’t be sure. Vaska shouted for them to hurry; stopping on the mountain could mean death. They followed her up, and up, and when at last Vaska called out something Rielle could not understand, gesturing ahead of them through the snow, Rielle faltered and stared.
It was the black château from her dreams.
Built to accommodate the mountain’s crags and cliffs, tucked between juts of rock, it hugged the slope in long, flat layers, the rooftops square and sharply peaked, as though each level of the building wore a pair of horns.
What is it? Ludivine asked. You’re terrified.
I’m not. It’s nothing. Rielle fumbled to draw shut the doors of her mind. Her thoughts felt as ungainly and numb as her fingers. I’m very cold.
As she followed Vaska up the path, she searched the snow, her heart pounding so hard she felt it in the soles of her feet.
• • •
They were given rooms in a private wing of the Obex temple—dimly lit, the musky, still air sweetened with incense. The hallways were silent, lined with thick carpets that offered some respite from the bitter cold. A few Obex shuffled throughout, quiet in their thick robes and furred slippers. Hoods drawn, heads bowed, they ignored the exhausted newcomers tracking ice and mud across their floors.
The rooms they were assigned were blessedly warm, an enormous fire roaring in the hearth.
Once Ludivine had left them, and her Sun Guard had stationed themselves outside the door, Rielle stripped off her clothes. Shivering, she retreated to the bed, heaped high with furs, and once Audric joined her, they clung to each other, saying nothing until their bodies had warmed.
“This is a strange place,” Audric murmured at last. “I don’t like it. I fear we should not have come. Once the storm has stopped, we should leave.”
“We need the casting,” Rielle argued, her head tucked beneath his. “This is how we find it.”
Audric said nothing, his fingers absently combing through her hair in the way she so loved.
What are you hiding from me? Ludivine’s voice came sharply from her room across the hall. What are you doing, Rielle?
Trying to sleep, Rielle replied. Leave me alone.
But she did not sleep. She lay awake until Audric’s breathing slowed and then sent out a single, quiet thought: I’m here. Are you?
Corien answered at once. I am. Come find me.
She slipped out of Audric’s arms and dressed, hardly noticing the cold, not entirely sure if she was dreaming.
Are you watching me? she asked, tugging on her stiff trousers, her battered boots.
Always, Rielle.
She should have been alarmed, enraged.
She was not.
I wish I weren’t wearing these rags, she admitted, fumbling to fasten her cloak. They aren’t fit to be seen by you.
His pleasure arched against her like a contented cat. You want to look beautiful for me.
Rielle fled down the corridor, past her oblivious Sun Guard, her gloved hands in fists. The temple had darkened, most of the candles burned to stubs.
I don’t know when I’ll see you again, she explained to him. I want you to…
She hesitated. Her face burned and tears tightened her throat.
He finished the thought for her. You want me to remember you at your loveliest. Oh, Rielle. He laughed, a silky fall of sound. Your beauty is beyond anything of this world, whether you appear before me in dirty rags or in a gown woven of stars.
She hesitated, leaning against a wall. She tried to gather her breathing into a steady rhythm.
You’re feeling frightened, he observed.
I am feeling many things. She realized she had heard nothing from Ludivine. Have you hurt her? If you have, I’ll kill you.
No. I am hiding you. His voice curled, delighted. The little rat thinks you’re asleep.
Don’t call her that. Her name is Ludivine.
That is the name she stole from your friend, he pointed out. Her true name is—
Not yours to tell, Rielle snapped.
He relented. Come find me.
Where are you?
You know exactly.
Yes, she did. She crossed one of the temple courtyards, climbed over the low stone railing, sank into a shallow white drift. She trudged on through the snow, following the trail left behind by her dreams.
• • •
She found him, at last, in a clearing hedged by cliffs. A green clearing, quiet and fresh, empty of snow. Birdsong trilled sweetly.
It was a lie of his creation, and he stood waiting in the middle of it.
“Change it,” she said, short of breath as she approached him. She could hardly speak—her side cramping, limbs numb with cold, ribs tight and hot around her heart. “I don’t want to see your lies. I want to see the truth.”
At once, the warm green clearing disappeared from her mind. Instead, Corien stood before a set of sheer cliffs, at a cave mouth piled high with snow.
He lowered his hood, revealing himself to her—his white face, his pale-blue eyes, snowflakes melting in his hair.
She ran for him, forgetting herself, forgetting the cold and her exhausted body and the fact that she wanted to flee from him as utterly as she wanted to touch him.
He opened his arms to her, just as he had in her dreams, and when she stumbled against him, he enveloped her in his cloak. She clutched his coat; it was stiff with cold. Drunk on his nearness, her head spinning and her knees hardly able to hold her up, she reached for his face, hands burning inside her gloves. She ripped them off with her teeth, let out a soft cry of frustration, and then her bare hands were on his cheeks, her thumbs smoothing over the sharp turn of his jaw.
“You’re here,” she whispered, smiling through her tears, hating herself even as she rejoiced to feel his body pressed against her own. “You’re here, and I’m here, and I shouldn’t be.” She wiped her face, her hand shaking. “God help me.”
“God has no place here,” Corien murmured, and then lowered his mouth to hers.
She stretched up onto her toes to meet him, hooking her arms roughly about his neck. He opened her mouth with his tongue, lifted her against him, moved swiftly to steady her against the cave wall. The sharp stone dug into her back, lighting it up with pain. Her heartbeat howled in her ears, drowning out the sounds of the storm, and when he wound his fingers in her hair and sharply tugged her head back, exposing her neck to his hot, seeking mouth, Rielle cried out a wordless plea.
He looked up at her, dark hair falling over his eyes, pale eyes glittering. “Shall I stop?”
Stop? Stopping was unthinkable. Stopping was death. But suddenly it occurred to her how he knew that she liked to be kissed this way, with fingers roughly twined in her hair. Her stomach clenched, and she pushed herself away from him.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please stop.”
He released her, watching as she stumbled away, collecting herself.
“You’ve
been spying on us,” she whispered, looking back at him. “On me and Audric. Haven’t you?”
“Only occasionally.” His smile was sharp and unhappy. “I enjoy tormenting myself, it seems.”
She wanted to slap him, but if she touched him again, she would not be able to stop. “You’re disgusting.”
“And your conflict is delicious,” he replied, unperturbed. “One moment you despise me. The next, you ache for me.”
She clutched her cloak tightly around her body. “I forbid you from spying on us again. My time with Audric is ours alone.”
“Very well. You have my word. I’ll stay away.”
“And you’ll allow me to sleep?”
“I never kept you from sleeping,” he replied smoothly.
“Every time you enter my dreams, sending me images I don’t understand, I wake feeling more tired than I did the day before.”
He smiled a little. “I’m flattered that my presence is so distracting.”
“I have to sleep, Corien.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what you want of me, but I’m useless to everyone if I can’t sleep.”
“I understand,” he said at last, grave and soft, “but it’s the only time I can see you, Rielle. When you’re asleep, and your bustling world is quiet at last.”
“That is not my concern.” She lifted her chin. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Ah, and here she is once more—Lady Rielle, the Sun Queen. All duty and obligation, chained to her beloved prince.” He smiled bitterly. “The joy of imagining him finding you in my arms just now will sustain me for weeks.”
“How pathetic you are.” Her stomach turned over as the reality of the last few frantic moments settled in her mind. How could she have allowed that to happen? She retrieved her gloves from the floor, her mouth souring. She wiped her lips with her back of her hand as if clearing them of poison. “You’re not worthy of him.”
“Neither are you, my dear,” Corien snapped. “And the sooner you accept that, the happier everyone will be.”
He stalked away into the cave’s shadows. When he returned, he held a battered bronze shield.
“Take it,” he muttered, shoving it at her, avoiding her gaze. “Take it and go to him.”
Rielle’s palms smarted against the shield’s rim. Its thrumming power rushed through her blood, clearing her mind. As her thoughts settled, her vision expanded beyond the physical, beyond the cave and the snow and the shield’s ancient engravings. Golden shapes emerged in the depths of her mind—a pale woman with white hair, fire cradled in her palms. She stood before a hole in the sky and plunged her blazing shield into a knot of storms.
“Marzana’s casting,” she whispered. She looked up at Corien, found him watching her. “Why did you give this to me? How did you steal it from the Obex?”
“I stole it because I am powerful, and they are not,” he said. “And I’m giving it to you because I’m tired of waiting.” He took her chin in his hands. His pale gaze roamed over her face. It was not easy to hold herself back from him. But the thought of Audric, sleeping in the temple, unaware and innocent, burned tears of shame from her eyes.
Corien released her, his mouth twisting. “Giving you the shield is a show of faith and a demonstration of my devotion. I won’t force you through trials. I won’t bring you before a crowd and urge you to play with your power like some common street performer. These fools in their temple would have tested you for weeks before allowing you to take the casting. A waste of time, and insulting to you.” His hands gripped her face, bringing her close to him, but he did not kiss her again. “I see you, Rielle. I see you. And I am not afraid. You will never have to pretend with me. Not ever.”
Then he released her. A subtle tremor shifted the air. Rielle stumbled, as if jerking out of sleep. She was alone in the cave with Marzana’s shield, and Corien was gone.
• • •
When she returned to the temple, it was nearly dawn.
She entered by way of the same snow-covered courtyard and trudged upstairs, feeling ill in both body and heart. The shield was heavy; her arms ached, and the muscles in her legs burned from plowing through the endless snow.
Evyline, standing at the door to her rooms, gave a soft cry when she saw Rielle. She hurried over, the rest of the astonished Sun Guard at her heels.
“My lady,” Evyline said, “what’s happened? We thought you were asleep. What…” Evyline’s gaze dropped to the shield. She knelt, kissed her fingers, and brought them to her temple. “Is that the casting of Saint Marzana, my lady?”
“It is,” Rielle said wearily, moving past her. “I’ll explain later, Evyline. I don’t want to wake Audric.”
But when she closed the door behind her and stepped into her rooms, she saw that Audric was already awake. He sat on the edge of their bed, his shoulders slumped and the expression on his face one of such sadness that Rielle lost her breath.
Beside him stood Ludivine, hands clasped behind her back. She met Rielle’s gaze without shame.
“At last,” she said, her voice tight and terrible. “We’ve been waiting up for you.”
24
Eliana
“Contained within the pages you are about to read is a theory only those with bold hearts and bolder minds dare to posit: ours is not the only world. In fact, there are many, and between them stretches the eternal Deep. What horrors from those worlds the angels might unleash in pursuit of their revenge we cannot possibly guess. We must be always on our guard. We must never allow ourselves to rest.”
—Many Worlds: A Radical Study, author unknown
“Yes, it’s me,” said Patrik, obviously and smugly amused. “And this is Jessamyn.”
He gestured at the red-braided woman beside him, who nodded sharply.
“I have a proposal for you, Eliana,” he said. “A choice. When we make port in Meridian, we intend to raid an Empire outpost a few miles from the shore. Primarily, to distract them from our party of refugees, also aboard this ship, whom we’re escorting home to a city called Karlaine. Secondarily, because one should never miss an opportunity to kick the shit out of some adatrox.”
Beside Eliana, Harkan shifted. “When we met in Vintervok, you told me our payment would be sufficient for passage. You said nothing about who you really are or your Red Crown affiliations.”
“That was before I realized with whom you would be traveling,” said Patrik.
Eliana’s impatience snapped like fire. “What is this choice, Patrik? What do you want from me?”
Patrik leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You can help us accomplish our goals in Meridian, bringing your considerable talents to the aid of the cause. Or you can die.”
“That’s not much of a choice,” Harkan muttered.
Patrik shrugged. “If you don’t agree to these terms, we’ll dispatch you before we make port and drop your corpses into the sea. Well.” He glanced at Harkan. “Perhaps not the boy, if he doesn’t do anything stupid. I don’t hate him yet.”
Eliana smiled thinly. “But you hate me?”
“Yes.”
“Because of Crown’s Hollow?” Harkan asked.
“Ah,” said Patrik. “So you told him.”
“Yes, I told him,” Eliana said, “and he understood why I did what I did.”
“Oh, I understand why you did it, Eliana. I’m saying I don’t forgive you for it. But helping me and my colleagues will go a long way toward repairing our relationship.”
“And if I don’t agree to help you, how exactly do you imagine you’ll manage to kill me?”
“Easily, I expect.” He glanced at her hands. “You’re wearing bandages. I’ve watched how you handle yourself while working here on the ship. You’re in pain. That’s a new thing, isn’t it?”
Eliana flinched.
“Yes,” Patrik said quietly.
“A very new thing indeed for the great Dread of Orline. What happened to you, Eliana? What changed?”
Beside her, Harkan tapped on his thigh.
No. Silence.
She could have slapped him. As if she would tell Patrik anything of importance.
“Many things have happened,” she answered instead. Then a startling thought occurred to her. “Why didn’t you come to Dyrefal? Hob was there. Surely you wondered if he was. You knew we were going to Astavar and that Hob had joined us. Why did you stay away?”
Now Patrik was the one to flinch. “Because if I had gone to Dyrefal and seen Hob, I would never have left his side, not again. I would have abandoned Red Crown for him.”
“And now Astavar has fallen, no doubt,” Eliana said, imagining driving a knife deeper and deeper into Patrik’s heart until it could go no farther. “And perhaps Hob with it.”
Jessamyn, leaning against the wall, watched Eliana calmly. “What an awful person you are. I understand now how you could have betrayed Crown’s Hollow and left them to die.”
Eliana pinned her with a glare. “I was trying to save my family. My brother, my mother.”
Jessamyn looked curiously about the room. “Yes? And where are they now, this family of yours?”
Harkan stepped forward. “This really isn’t necessary—”
“Gone.” Eliana forced herself to speak. She hoped her words hurt Harkan as deeply as they hurt her. “They’re all gone.”
• • •
After their meeting with Patrik and Jessamyn, Harkan disappeared somewhere, looking troubled, and Eliana returned to her hammock to brood. At dawn, she was roused from an ill sleep by the hateful clang of the morning bell. She completed her assigned tasks, and in the evening, she retreated to her hammock, shooed away two giggling girls who lay kissing inside it, and proceeded to brood some more. She slipped her hand inside her coat pocket, absently fingering the lines of Zahra’s box.
Then she sat straight up, sending the hammock swaying. She clutched the box tightly for a moment, her palm smarting, and then went searching for Patrik.
She found him sharpening his knives near the bow of the main deck. Torches lit the starboard side, where a group of people drank and sang. One staggered up from his seat, went to the railing, dropped his trousers, and pissed overboard. This elicited a round of applause from the onlookers, one of whom promptly retched onto his shoes.
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