Rielle could not bear the sight of his numb disbelief. One parent dead only months before. Now, the other.
She had recognized that bleak desperation in Genoveve’s voice, there at the end. And then there were the queen’s fists pounding against her temples, her hands clamped over her ears.
A swift heat snapped up Rielle’s body.
You did this. She reached inside herself, past her shock, and gathered up every rageful feeling she could find. The fury crystallized her mind, her vision, her certainty of what she must do.
Corien replied after only a moment. I won’t lie to you, my darling. I considered it. But as it turns out, I had to do very little.
Rielle fled the room, her vision a pure, hot crimson. Ludivine shot her a feeling of protest, grabbing her arm. Rielle wrenched herself free and ran on.
The woman was grieving, Corien continued as she flew down the stairs, shouting at every wide-eyed guard she encountered to move out of her path.
And that gave you the right to end her life? Rielle spat out.
You’re making many awful assumptions. Had it occurred to you that Genoveve had already decided to take her own life by the time I began visiting her?
Rielle flung open the castle’s front doors, guards streaming in and out on either side of her. The queen’s body, she deduced from their confused shouts, had been found shattered in the stone yard.
You lie. She sent him a vicious wave of anger. You infected her thoughts. You’re trying to break him, and you’ll fail.
Him? Oh. Corien’s voice was mild. You mean your cow-eyed lover.
My lover, yes, and someday, my husband. And with that, Rielle flung all her thoughts outward, banishing Corien as best she could, though she could still feel him hovering at her edges, though the effort of resisting him made her stumble.
Guards had gathered around Genoveve’s body, shielding her from any onlookers through the castle gates, but at Rielle’s approach, they scattered.
She sank to her knees, forcing herself to examine the queen’s body—every gash, every crack in her skull. The skewed position of her limbs; the dark pool of blood spreading beneath her. Her still, glassy gaze.
Audric arrived, breathless, tears streaking his cheeks. He let out a horrible ruptured sound at the sight of his mother’s body, and then sank to the ground beside her.
“Don’t touch her,” Rielle commanded, her vision already broadening past the capacity of her human eyes. She was sinking into a sea of furious gold. “Stay away.”
Then she bent low over the dead queen and began to work.
She knit in a controlled frenzy, her fingers skimming across each broken bone. She drew golden tracks down the queen’s limbs and chest, around the shattered plates of her skull, her snapped limbs. In the bright unblinking eye of her mind, she saw the queen as she had been before Bastien’s death—healthy and strong, a true northern beauty with her pale skin and auburn hair. Her straight nose, her eyes pale and sharp as Ludivine’s.
This time, when Rielle felt that tight shift deep in her gut, it felt not like a strain of muscle but rather an expansion. She welcomed it, leaning in to its fever. She opened her mind to it and let it consume her, and when it had enveloped her completely in its fire, she carried stars in her hands and held flames under her tongue. She burned cold and clear, and when she opened her eyes once more, it was to a world both familiar and strange.
She smiled a little, sinking back into her body. Beatific, she relished the hum of her bones. She was sapped clean of all worry, all anger and desperation. There was a distant clanging din, battering against the edges of her awareness, but she dismissed it as she would have a buzzing fly.
“I am everything and nothing,” she whispered, laughing a little, and when she found Audric’s eyes, the look he gave her, quiet and even, tear-bright, was one she could not decipher.
Then Genoveve’s trembling body arched up from the ground, bloodstained but whole. Audric darted forward to support her against his chest, and then, wild-eyed, Genoveve shifted, grappling for something unseen. Her eyes met Rielle’s, and she let out a horrible scream of anger, so raw that, despite Rielle’s euphoria, the sound shook her to her toes.
“You should have let me die,” Genoveve said, her voice tripping over her gasped breaths, and then she howled it to the sky: “You should have let me die!” And her hands clamped over her ears once more, and she rocked in Audric’s arms.
“She will kill us,” she whispered, turning her face into Audric’s chest. She moaned and wept. “She will kill us all.”
Then that distant din rose, sharpening itself against the queen’s keening cries. Rielle turned to greet it, peering curiously across the torchlit yard.
The crowd gathered at the lower gates had been banging their fists against the elaborate wrought iron, slamming their mock castings, their hammers, their knives against the thick stone wall. And now, as Rielle rose to greet them, they quieted slowly, until only a few stubborn murmurs remained.
“Do not be afraid,” Rielle called out to them, raising her hands as if to show them she carried no weapons. A useless gesture, but one she hoped would placate them. “I mean you no harm. Your queen was unwell, but I have brought her back to us. Just as I did Lady Ludivine. Just as I will do for any who require it. I am your Sun Queen, and you need not fear me. Do not be afraid.”
Then, smiling faintly to herself, she turned away from them and knelt at the queen’s side. Genoveve whimpered, struggling to move as far away as she could while still in Audric’s arms.
And Audric said nothing, watching Rielle quietly. She had seldom seen his gaze so somber.
She touched his face. “My love,” she whispered. She dropped a kiss onto his brow. “Do not be afraid.”
Almost immediately, she regretted kissing him. For when her lips touched his skin, the spell of her power shattered. She was left tired and aching, entirely human, and as Evyline helped her to her feet, she became aware of how, for the first time since she had known him, Audric was regarding her with something like fear.
40
Eliana
“During the longest winter the world had yet seen, as the seeds of war sprouted slow from the dirt, Gilduin traveled far.
His heart ached for lands unknown. A nettle in his blood compelled him to travel without rest.
And this ache was one he did not cherish and longed to be rid of.
And Morgaine remained in her castle, her rule fair and just. Her eyes were steel and her mind cut sharp and true.
But at night she wept, alone in her tower, and she did not know that, alone in the desert, on a far white dune,
Gilduin wept for her and tore at his chest,
that he might rend the terrible angry ache from his veins, and return home to her
and take up his sword alongside her.”
—“The Ballad of Gilduin and Morgaine,” ancient Celdarian epic, author unknown
That night, as the rain grew to another storm, Eliana lay awake in her bed, unable to shut off the wild whirl of her mind.
Then a crack of thunder shook her, and before she could think better of it, she climbed out of bed, heart pounding. The air was chill, the wooden floor cold against her bare feet, and the sleep shirt Dani had given her provided little warmth.
But when she opened the door to her room, all thoughts of cold fled from her mind.
Simon was there, his hair rumpled as if he had spent the night running his hands through it, his fist raised to knock.
For an instant they simply stared at each other, and then a stubborn wall inside Eliana gave way at last. Her restless night, the tension of the day, and the awful weight of what lay ahead combined to fell her. Horrified to feel her face crumpling, she leaned in to him, hiding her sharp sob in his sleeve.
His arms came around her at once, and he held her there for a moment in the open doorway. She felt
his cheek against hers; he kissed her hair. Then he gently moved her inside the room, shutting the door behind them.
“Is this all right?” he said. “Or should I leave?”
She shook her head against his chest. “Please don’t leave me alone. God, I can hardly breathe. I can’t sleep, I can’t think.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You’re frightened.”
“Yes, and I hate myself for it.”
“I’m familiar with the temptation for self-loathing, but in this case it’s unnecessary. You have every right to be frightened.”
“Are you? Please tell me you are.”
“And that will make you feel better?”
“Marginally.”
“Well, then. I’ll say truthfully that I’ve been frightened every day, for as long as I can remember.”
She pulled away, looking up at his tired face. The room was dark, save for a stub of candle near her bed and the occasional flash of lightning. She wished suddenly for more light, so she could better see the familiar lines of his nose, the map of his scars, his sharp, strong jaw.
“How did you do it?” she whispered. “All the years of fighting, of seeing and dealing awful cruelties. Being trained by the Prophet. The horrors you’ve endured, things you haven’t yet told me about.” She touched his chest, over the spot where the scar she’d healed had once lived. She stared at her fingers, suddenly nervous. “How did you live through it all?”
A pause, and then his hands were in her hair, gently guiding her to look up at him. The small smile he gave her was so tender that it filled her body with light.
“I lived through it,” he said, wiping her cheeks, “by thinking of you.”
His words spread slowly across her skin, trailing a tingling warmth behind them. “But you didn’t know me until a few months ago.”
“No, but the hope of you…that I knew for years. The hope that I would find you, that I hadn’t lost you after all.” And then a darkness fell over his face. He released her, his expression closing. “Sometimes I can hardly bear to look at you.”
“Because I remind you of my mother?”
“Because every day I wake fearing I’ll fail you, and every night I fall asleep wishing…” He dragged a hand across his face, turned toward the window. “Forgive me, Eliana.”
Cautiously, she moved closer to him and took his hands in hers. He raised them to his lips and kissed them—her fingers, her wrists, the metal lines of her castings. Her body thrummed to match his every movement, his every breath.
“Forgive you for what?” she asked. And when he didn’t answer, she brought his hands to her lips. “What do you fall asleep wishing?”
He murmured her name, and she gently gripped his collar, stretching up to kiss the underside of his jaw.
“Will you properly kiss me at last?” she whispered against his skin. “I’ve only wanted you to for months.”
“When you didn’t want to fight me, that is,” he said, a smile in his voice.
She tugged at his shirt, her blood blazing with need. “Simon. Either kiss me or leave me here to hate you.”
At once he bent to kiss the drying tears from her cheeks, the corners of her mouth, her brow, her temples, and then, when she made a soft, angry noise and tightened her fists in his shirt, he slid his hands into her hair and found her mouth with his own.
His kiss sent heat firing through her body, and she rose swiftly to meet it, hooking her arms around his neck. His kisses were long and slow, his arms strong around her, and then, cradling her head in one large hand, he opened her mouth with his tongue. She whimpered, the heat between her legs aching with such sudden desperation that she feared her knees would buckle. She had lain with many men and women—both in her work as the Dread and simply because she loved it—and had spent countless nights in Harkan’s bed. This was not new to her.
And yet in Simon’s arms she felt as shaky and wild as if she had never been touched in her life.
“Is this all right?” he murmured against her throat, stamping her neck with his tongue.
She laughed, breathless. “If you stop, I really will hate you forever.”
“I need you to say it, Eliana.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “Tell me to stay.”
“Stay,” she whispered. She could not bear the intensity of his gaze. She ducked away, nuzzling his stubbled cheek. “Stay, and take me to bed.”
He laughed quietly into her hair—a shredded sound, so raw that she had to squeeze her eyes shut against a fresh rush of tears. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. She understood his relief, and felt it herself—a rightness at his touch, a sense of coming home at last. It was as if all the layers of protection she had constructed within herself—against the world, against her power, against the horrible truth of her family—had folded under and vanished.
He hoisted her up easily against him, and when their hips met, she cried out, tightening her arms around his neck. He carried her to her bed and sat on the edge of it. She settled in his lap, cupping his face in her hands. She kissed him until she had to pull away, both of them breathing hard, for her head was buzzing with want, and even with Simon’s hands firm on her hips, holding her against him, she wondered if she might float away.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered against his mouth before kissing his bottom lip, tugging it gently between her teeth. She couldn’t stay away from him for long; with each kiss she felt more frantic for him, as if at any moment he might disappear.
“Don’t understand what?” he said, his voice ragged.
Shivering, she locked eyes with him and began to circle her hips against his. He cried out sharply and moved one of his hands to her neck, holding her tightly to him.
“Eliana,” he said, nibbling at her breastbone, pushing aside her collar with his mouth. “What don’t you understand? Much more of this, and I won’t be able to think well enough to care.”
She held his head to her breasts, keening a little when he began to kiss her there, his mouth hot and his every movement assured.
“Why this feels so right. I’ve never felt… Not like this.” She tried to explain further but couldn’t find the words.
“We survived the end of the world, you and I,” he said softly, echoing his words from the ice of Karajak Bay. He touched the strands of hair that had fallen loose from her braid. “That’s why, love. I feel it too. You and I, we’re all that’s left of home.”
The sadness in his voice robbed her of all remaining sense. Her throat aching, she bent low to kiss him. It was a clumsy kiss, hard and thin as she held back her tears, and soon she had to hide her face in his neck and cling to him, her arms tight around his shoulders.
He held her for a moment, murmuring low, sweet words into her hair, and then he rose to stand with her beside the bed. He began to unbutton her shirt, his eyes holding a question.
She answered by helping him, her fingers trembling first on her buttons and then his own. Soon they had both undressed, leaving only her castings in place around her hands. The abused lines of his body brought tears to her eyes. He was strong and lean, magnificent even for the tapestry of pain cut across his skin, and he stood before her completely unabashed. She touched his torso, his flat belly, his broad chest, and began kissing his scars, determined to soothe every last one of them.
But he stilled her with one hoarse utterance of her name and then whispered, “Please, can I touch you? I’ve dreamt of this, Eliana. Worshipping you, for hours and hours.”
She smiled up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Hours? My, aren’t we ambitious?”
“And even that wouldn’t be enough for me,” he said, helping her gently down, back into the bed’s warm nest of blankets. His gaze roamed over her, greedy and bright, followed by the reverent skim of his palms across every dip and curve. She squirmed under his featherlight touch, heat flooding her, and when
he moved down to her belly and kissed her just below her navel, her skin taut and trembling under his mouth, he laughed softly.
“You’re even lovelier than I imagined,” he murmured. Then he laced his fingers with hers, pinning her hands to the bed, and moved down to settle between her legs.
She cried out, her hips arching up against his mouth as he kissed her, again and again, until she was a girl of liquid fire, squirming and mindless, pleading with him for more. Just when she felt herself ready to shatter, he pulled away to kiss her thighs, her belly.
“Damn you,” she panted, looking down at him, but the sight of him smiling up at her from between her legs made her reach for him, her head spinning. “Please, Simon. You darling, beautiful man.”
“Don’t worry, love,” he told her, his voice entirely, smugly pleased. “I’m not finished.”
And then he returned to her, kissing and stroking her until she was twisting beneath him, grasping wildly at the blankets, at his hands firm on her hips. She wound her fingers in his hair, moving hard against his mouth until, at last, with a sharp, high cry, the heat that had been slowly building inside her crested, drawing her down into a warm sea, golden-dark and thrumming.
She shook beneath him, time gone slow and supple, and then fell limp against the bed, every inch of her body flushed and tingling.
When she opened her eyes at last, she saw him settling beside her and smiled at him, delirious. She turned into his chest, catching her breath. He held her to him, stroking her hair, and then, when her wild heartbeat had slowed, she scooted up for a kiss, ready to tease him—something about how he would be insufferable now, how he would gloat about his skill with his tongue for the rest of her days—but she stopped when she saw the look on his face. How gently he watched her, how his eyes were warm in a way she knew instinctively no one else would ever see.
“Simon, please tell me you want more,” she said, touching his cheek. “Tell me I can have you.”
He kissed her hand. “I want as much as you’ll give me. I want you for as long as we have left.”
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