Then, lumbering hoofbeats approached.
She looked up. The chavaile had crept close. Bigger even than her father’s largest warhorses, with an elegant arched neck, a long unkempt black mane, and bright, intelligent eyes, it behaved like a horse—and yet it did not. Its nostrils flared as it sniffed the air around her; its ears pricked forward curiously.
But then it cocked its head to the side, as a human might when trying to understand something new. There was an ancient weight to its presence that Rielle had felt surrounding no other living creature.
“Hello.” She reached out feebly with one shaking arm. “You’ve always been my favorite.”
A sharp blast of mountain wind slammed into her. She collapsed, shivering.
Beyond her closed eyelids, the light shifted. Then, at the sound of movement, she opened her eyes and watched blearily as the chavaile lowered itself to the ground between her body and the open sky. It extended one of its enormous feathered wings—it must have been at least twenty feet long—and gently scooped her close to its body.
Wedged between a shell of gray, black-tipped feathers and the warm swell of the chavaile’s belly, Rielle breathed. The beast’s coat was impossibly soft, speckled gray as a storming sky.
“Are you real?” she whispered, placing her hand against its stomach. “Where did you come from?”
In response, the chavaile settled its wing more securely around Rielle’s body, then tucked its head underneath its wing. Rielle felt the hot press of its muzzle against her back, followed by a warm breath of air as it let out a contented grunt.
It was a strange nest, but too cozy to resist; Rielle fell into a fitful half sleep. Her shapeless dreams burned black.
• • •
When she woke, her mind was clear and the chavaile was watching her.
So. She hadn’t been hallucinating.
She remained still, comfortable and warm beneath the canopy of its wing, and stared up at it.
“I thought all the godsbeasts were dead,” she said at last. Hesitant, she placed her hand on the chavaile’s muzzle. “Why did you save me?”
Its nostrils flared hot between her fingers. She stroked the long, flat plane of its face, the swirling tufts of hair between its wide black eyes.
“I wonder if you have a name.”
The chavaile whickered softly and pushed its nose into Rielle’s palm.
“Well,” she said, beaming, “then I’ll have to give you one.”
And that was when she remembered:
That thin voice, right before she’d fallen. No, not fallen. Right before she’d been pushed.
She remembered it now, and she knew to whom it belonged.
“Will you take me home?” she asked. “I need to kill a man.”
The chavaile watched her, motionless.
“It’s all right,” she added quickly. “He deserves it. He tried to kill me.”
The chavaile grunted and rose to its feet. The chill hit Rielle hard, but she ignored it, climbed up a boulder with teeth chattering, and slipped onto the chavaile’s back.
The chavaile looked back at her, ears pricked.
“Well?” Rielle wound her fingers through its wild black mane. “How do I get you to go?”
At once the beast launched into a gallop, snapped open its wings, and leapt off the mountain into the sky.
• • •
They approached Baingarde fast from the north, soaring low over the treetops covering Mount Cibelline, and then circled around the castle to the broad stone yard in front. It was full of people: Rielle’s father and the city guard, her own guard, pages and stable hands hurrying horses to their riders. Her father shouted instructions; a team of four mounted soldiers took off for the yard’s southern gates.
He was organizing search parties, she realized with a swell of satisfaction.
There was Audric, swinging up onto his stallion, and there was Ludivine, reaching up to touch his arm, and there—
Ah. There he was, the sniveling little shit.
The rage that had been boiling in Rielle’s heart erupted.
She tugged gently on the chavaile’s mane and shifted her weight, turning the beast left and down. Its wings flattened against its sides as it dove. She lowered her body against its neck, closed her eyes. The wind raced past her, and she tugged the power from it like plucking a fiddle’s strings. When the chavaile landed, the crowd scrambling to part around it with cries of horror, Rielle did not wait for the beast to stop before jumping to the ground.
She stormed across the yard, thrust her palm in front of her. The wind snapped rigid in her hand like an executioner’s noose. Her prey watched her approach in disbelief, cowering and white-faced. She flicked her wrist. The noose of wind caught the man around his neck. Still a good twenty feet away from him, she slammed shut the massive twin doors of Baingarde’s front entrance, then pinned Lord Dervin Sauvillier against the closed doors—and squeezed.
He gasped for breath, clawing at the invisible hand closing around his throat. Rielle watched him with a hard grin, raising her hand higher. Lord Dervin’s body slid up the doors until he hung some ten feet off the ground, feet kicking wildly.
“Lady Rielle,” he croaked, his face reddening, “what—why—?”
“Shut your mouth, you filthy coward,” Rielle snapped. “You know why.”
Audric ran to her. “Rielle, what are you doing?”
“Stop!” Ludivine threw herself in front of the doors, reaching in vain for her father’s feet. “Rielle, you’ll kill him!”
“He tried to kill me.” Rielle squeezed her fingers closer together. Lord Dervin squirmed, gagging. “He drugged me, brought me up into the mountains, threw me off a cliff. I’m merely returning the favor.”
Dimly, she heard soft cries of shock among the gathered crowd.
Ludivine turned, mouth open in disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“Tell her, Lord Dervin.”
When the man did not reply, Rielle took two furious steps forward and clenched her hand into nearly a complete fist. “Tell your daughter the truth,” she shouted, “or I will execute you for your crime right here, right now!”
Eyes bulging, face gone a deep, vivid purple, Lord Dervin at last gasped out, “It’s true. I tried to kill her.”
Ludivine’s hands flew to her mouth. Dismayed exclamations rippled through the crowd.
And still Rielle did not move. Her lungs were afire, the hand that held the noose shook white-hot, and a fringe of bright gold swirled around the edge of her vision.
Kill him, screamed her heart.
Kill him, roared her furious blood.
Kill him, whispered Corien.
Audric stepped between her and the doors, took her empty hand in his.
“Rielle, look at me.” His voice was quiet but firm. “I need you to look, please.”
Rielle shook her head and snarled, “He tried to kill me.”
“I know. And believe me, he will be punished for it. I will see to it myself.”
She blinked at that. Her vision cleared; her blood cooled. Reluctantly she tore her wild eyes from her would-be murderer and looked to Audric instead.
“Please, darling.” Audric gave her a tight smile. “Listen to my voice, and let him go. If you kill him right here, in front of everyone…”
Rielle knew he was right. Abruptly she turned away, letting her hand fall. Lord Dervin slid to the ground with a choked cry.
“Call for the healers!” Ludivine cried, gathering her father up in her arms as best she could.
“For…you,” Lord Dervin said, his voice a wheezing rasp. He touched her face. “I did it…for you. Ludivine.”
Her skin humming with furious energy, Rielle turned away to scan the gaping crowd. When she found who she was looking for, watching her in amazement from the ce
nter of the yard, she approached him at once.
“Your Holiness.” She bowed, then spoke loudly enough that everyone gathered could hear. “I wonder if you might accompany me to the Firmament? I would like to pray to Saint Ghovan, and to the wind for sparing my life, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have for company.”
The chavaile joined her, tossing its head.
The Archon could not stop staring up at the creature, his face gone deathly pale. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “All the godsbeasts are dead. Lady Rielle, how did you do this?”
It was a question she had herself been wondering. “I was going to die,” she answered honestly, “and I asked the empirium to save me. I had been drugged and could not use my power, so…”
“So the empirium…sent you this?” The Archon gestured helplessly at the chavaile. It snorted and bumped Rielle’s shoulder with its nose.
For the first time since Rielle had known him, the Archon seemed rather at a loss.
“Shall we?” She offered him her arm. “To the Firmament?”
Without a word, the Archon took it, and as they proceeded across the crowded yard, he said quietly, “Be careful, Lady Rielle. This is no longer a matter of trials and costumes.” He glanced back at the chavaile, which followed them at a distance. The awestruck crowd crept as close as they dared. Some ran away in a panic, shouting warnings. “The empirium has helped you today, but it may not always do so. It is my duty to test you. I do not wish to see you consumed.”
“Don’t you?”
The Archon did not respond to the tease in her voice, and when Rielle glanced over at him, she saw a new expression on his face, drawn and thoughtful, that sent a thrill through her body. She couldn’t decipher the sensation.
Fear?
Corien’s voice came crooning: Or appetite?
38
Eliana
“Not all angels are alike, and not all worship at the Emperor’s feet. There are those who have taken pity on us and believe the Emperor’s actions to be cruel and unjust. They remain bodiless and are considered traitors to their kind, all in order to ally with humans—descendants of those long-ago saints who once drove the angels into the Deep.”
—The Word of the Prophet
Eliana sank to the floor with a tiny dark laugh and rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes.
“I don’t have time to sit around listening to…whatever this is. And whatever you are.” Eliana struggled to her feet and moved to the door. She was hallucinating. She was talking to a hallucination.
“My name is Zahra,” said the wraith.
“Right.”
“Rozen is not here.”
Eliana turned. A slow, panicked feeling unfurled in her chest. She kept her face blank. “Who’s Rozen?”
“The woman you think is your mother but truly is not.”
“Do you know a way out of here?” Hallucination or not, if she could use it to escape, she would.
“Yes.”
“Then either show it to me or fuck right off, would you please?”
Zahra raised one floating eyebrow. “This is not how I had imagined you would be.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Eliana resumed pounding on the door with angry clenched fists.
The wraith appeared between her body and the door. Eliana’s fists flew through the wraith’s torso. Her balance tilted, her vision phased in and out of focus. She backed quickly away.
“What is that? Every time you come near me—”
“You feel ill.” Zahra nodded sadly. “It is a common human affliction when in the company of wraiths. You’ll get used to it, over time. Others have. Though you seem to be affected far more than most. Unsurprising, given your ancestry. Your sensitivity to changes in the empirium is undoubtedly tremendous.”
Eliana glared at the floor. “Get me out of here.”
“Wait a moment.”
“Get me out—”
The wraith rose to her full height once more, her black eyes flashing. “We can’t leave yet. We must wait first until the shift change is complete, and second for you to calm down, so I can be assured you won’t do something rash and endanger yourself.” Zahra exhaled sharply, considering her. “Simon’s message was accurate. When you’re angry, you very much resemble your mother. How unsettling.”
Eliana shook her head. “This is quite an elaborate delusion.”
Zahra raised one amused eyebrow. “I assure you, your mind is quite sound.”
“You know Simon, do you?”
“I do. Though, only through messages passed through the underground. I serve the Prophet, and so does he.”
“The Prophet this, the Prophet that,” Eliana muttered, rubbing her temples. “Who is this man, and why does everyone fawn over him so? What does he want, anyway? There has to be more to him than simply some noble selfless desire to save the world from tyranny. And how long has he been around? Is there one Prophet or many?”
“You certainly have many questions. I don’t blame you.” Zahra drifted to the door, cocked her head. Listening? “But perhaps we’ll wait until a bit later for a Red Crown history lesson.”
“You’re Red Crown?”
“Obviously. As I said, I serve the Prophet.”
Eliana longed to punch something. “What are we waiting for exactly? I promise I won’t act rashly. Is that what you want to hear, my imaginary little friend? All my rashness has fled, I swear it.”
Zahra’s black mouth thinned. “No matter how long I spend among humans, I sometimes forget that I must actually put voice to my thoughts for you to understand.”
“As opposed to?”
“When I speak to my own kin,” Zahra explained, “I have no need for words.”
“Wait, you…” Could Remy have been right? Were the old stories true after all? “You mean mind-speak.”
Zahra inclined her head.
Eliana’s blood ran cold. Suddenly the idea of conversing with her own hallucination no longer amused her. “You’re an angel.”
“Once, I was. But no longer.”
“Well,” said Eliana, retrieving her tray from the floor, “if I hadn’t already decided to mistrust you, I certainly do now.”
“I understand that compulsion. Our two races have not always been friendly.”
“What is it you want with me?”
“To take you home,” Zahra said patiently, “as I told you before.”
“To Orline? Why?”
“Not Orline. Celdaria. We cannot go immediately there, of course, but—”
“I’ve never even been to Celdaria,” Eliana snapped, though her stomach tightened unpleasantly at the name of the far eastern kingdom. Her vision of the Emperor returned to her, as though it had been carved into her mind and coated with dust, and now a sharp wind had uncovered it.
“You have, once,” Zahra argued. “My queen, you were born there.”
“Ah, I see. Of course I was.”
Zahra frowned. “You’re mocking me.”
“Tell me what you want me to know, and I’ll say yes to it all, and I’ll believe what you want, as long as you get me out of this cell and help me find Navi.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“But you just said—”
“Princess Navana is not our priority. Nor, I must add, is Rozen Ferracora. You, Eliana, are all that matters—to Red Crown, to the Prophet, to all enemies of the Empire.”
“If you don’t help me rescue Navi and then help me search for my mother, I will make every last second of your life a miserable and agonized one.”
“I doubt that,” said Zahra, “as you will die long before I will.”
Eliana froze. “Is that a threat?”
“It is a fact. You are a human. I was once an angel, and now I am forever trapped as thi
s.” She reached down with long-fingered hands, picked wistfully at her robes. “I will live long past the age when the last human walks the earth. And yet, if given the chance to step backward in time, I would make the same choice.”
Eliana narrowed her eyes. “What choice is that?”
“I would choose to stay in this form—stripped of all physicality—rather than be resurrected. What so many of my kin have done is abhorrent.”
At Eliana’s blank expression, Zahra sighed. “Am I to assume from the look on your face that you, the Sun Queen, are unfamiliar with the stories of how the world once was?”
“I know the stories,” Eliana bit out impatiently. “My brother won’t shut up about them.”
Zahra’s expression softened into something like pity. “Simon sent word about him as well. Remy, yes?”
Tears rose hot and sudden in Eliana’s eyes. “Don’t you dare say his name.”
Zahra reached for her, then closed her hand and floated back. “I wish I could touch you and give you comfort, my queen. That is the thing I miss most of all about my body.”
Eliana looked to the ceiling, willing her eyes dry. “You may call me Eliana. Nothing else.”
“As you wish, Eliana. But whatever name I use, it does not change the truth. You are my queen, and I serve you with great joy.”
“Then,” Eliana said through her teeth, “get me out of here.”
“I have always intended to do so,” Zahra said patiently, gesturing at the door. “The shift change is underway. In five minutes, once the new guards have settled into their posts, it will be safe to move. Believe me, my queen, I would not keep you here longer than absolutely necessary.”
“I will start pounding on this door and ruin our supposed escape if you don’t open it this instant.”
“And here I thought all your rashness had fled.”
“I’m not joking, whoever you are.”
“Zahra.”
“Yes, right.”
“Anyway, feel free to pound on the door all you like,” said Zahra, folding her vaporous arms smugly across her chest. “No one will hear you.”
Eliana narrowed her eyes. “And why wouldn’t they?”
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