Furyborn

by Claire Legrand

  Eliana stormed over, grabbed his shirt in her fist, and slammed him to the floor.

  “I’m afraid, Rahzavel,” she replied, straddling his chest and wedging Arabeth’s jagged blade against his throat, “that this is the end of your story.”

  Then she slashed open his throat, rose calmly to her feet, and left him choking where he’d fallen. Zahra drifted up from his body and clapped her hands together as if wiping them clean. A few seconds later all was silent—until two explosions shook the world.

  The ship shuddered and moaned. From outside came the shouts of adatrox, the frantic clap of boots against the decks.

  Eliana froze. “What was that?”

  Zahra cocked her head, listening. Then her face darkened, an inkblot dropped into gray waters.

  “It has begun,” she whispered. “The fleet has engaged Astavar.”

  Eliana ran to Simon, started cutting at the ropes that bound him.

  “I told you to leave,” Simon rasped as she worked. “You didn’t listen to me.”

  “Does that surprise you?” She came around to cut the last two ropes. When he fell free, she tried to hold him up, bear his weight as best she could, but she was exhausted, and it had been too long since a proper meal. Her knees buckled; she sank with him to the floor, swearing under her breath.

  “All right,” she said, trying to slide out from under him, but his body was a deadweight, pinning her to the floor. “Come on, get up. We have to get off this boat and make it to shore while everyone’s shooting at each other. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  He didn’t answer her. He was laughing—looking up at her from his spot on her lap and laughing at her.

  “Oh, Eliana.” Dull tears slid out of his eyes. “If only you knew. There are so many stories I need to tell you.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but can we do it later?” She shoved at him again, but he was shaking with laughter now and wouldn’t budge.

  “I’ve seen this before.” Zahra pointed at his eyes. “During the invasion. Poison gas.”

  “You’re saying he’s blind?”

  “For now. Sometimes the eyes repair themselves. Other times…”

  “Wonderful. That makes everything easier. Simon?” She slapped him lightly on the cheek. “If you don’t move, I’m going to get angry.”

  “Do it,” Simon whispered. “Get angry for me. Sweet, sweet Eliana.” He raised a trembling hand to her face, smoothed his thumb across her cheek. “It’s just what I want.”

  “I’m hardly sweet,” she protested with a slightly nervous laugh. They ought to be moving, but she could not tear herself away from him.

  “I can’t see you very well,” he said. “A blur of color, shadows for eyes, but I know your face even so. I’d know it anywhere.”

  “You’re speaking nonsense. Do you know that?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” Simon whispered urgently. “I would never. Never. Not about you. He could have cut on me until the end of time. He could have whispered in my ears until he killed me from the inside out.” He laughed again, but it sounded horribly sad. “It wouldn’t matter. I’d never tell him about you.”

  She watched him struggle to his knees, dig for something in his trouser pocket.

  “Where is it?” he whispered.

  The ship shuddered once more. Rapid gunfire sounded from above; a horrible scraping sound shrieked along the hull.

  “Simon, we have to go.”

  “Where is it?” He yelled the question, a sob tearing his voice in two. “I lost it; I lost you!”

  Then, with a small cry, he pulled a filthy rag from his pocket and held it out for Eliana to see.

  “This,” he murmured, “belongs to you.”

  She stared at the rag, at a loss. Was his mind breaking at last?

  Hovering at Eliana’s elbow, Zahra shook her head. “I cannot see inside him. His thoughts are tangled with storms.”

  “I tried to hold on to you.” Simon fumbled to fold the rag into her fingers. Then he lifted their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “But I couldn’t. The thread was too strong for me. I was too young for it. And then your mother…”

  “My mother.” The Blood Queen. If she believed that. Did she believe it? Tears gathered in her eyes. They didn’t have time for this, but if she moved away, the moment would snap, and she might never find it again. “Simon, what are you saying?”

  “We are the only two left, Eliana. You and me. The only two who lived there.”

  She ducked down to look at his face. “Where did we live? Tell me.”

  “Celdaria.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “I tried to hold on to you, but time tore you away from me. We were only supposed to go to Borsvall. They were going to hide us from him.”

  All the air left her lungs. Her mind raced. “From who? Corien?”

  “He’ll never touch you. I lost you once, but I won’t ever again.”

  She kept her hands folded around the little scrap of rag. Out of all things, she couldn’t move past one tiny question: “But, what is this?”

  He looked down at the rag cupped in her palms and smiled.

  “Your blanket.” The sorrow in his voice pierced her heart. “She wrapped you up in it, and when the thread ripped you out of my arms, it tore. I’ve kept this piece with me because it reminds me…of everything. Of home. We were so small, Eliana. And then I brought us here, and ruined everything. I failed you. I failed everyone!”

  An explosion detonated; the ship rocked, heaving them both to the side.

  “Eliana,” Zahra said tightly.

  “I know.” Eliana cupped Simon’s face, looked into his ruined eyes. “We’re going to run now, and I can’t carry you. You have to help me. Just like you did before, in—” Her voice caught. Her necklace felt too sharp and cold beneath her shirt. “In Celdaria. Right?”

  He nodded, then heaved himself to his feet. She propped him up against her side, slung her arm around his shoulder. Zahra leading the way, they limped out into the corridor and up the narrow stairs. Another explosion sounded, knocking them against the wall. Eliana hissed at the slam of Simon’s hard weight.

  “Just give me a moment,” he said, his face tight with pain, “and then I’ll walk on my own.”

  “I’m sorry, I know you’re hurt.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, Eliana. Not ever.”

  When they stepped outside onto the main deck, Eliana stopped cold.

  A broad bay flanked with tall, jagged rocks and scattered with small icebergs stretched before them. Two lines of ships faced each other across a narrow expanse of black water choked with flaming wreckage. Beyond the water, crowded with soldiers, a white beach hugged a cluster of night-shrouded hills.

  Astavar.

  She stepped out from under Simon’s arm, made sure he could stand. “Zahra? Can you hide us?”

  Zahra shook her head, mouth in a frustrated line. Her form faded, then flickered back whole. “I don’t think so, my queen.”

  Eliana exhaled. “Perfect.”

  “Stay close to me, step where I fly. I’ll find the best path I can for you.”

  “We survived the end of the world, you and I,” Simon murmured, squeezing Eliana’s fingers. His breath puffed in the air. “We’ll survive this too.”

  A chill seized her at his words. Then she tightened her grip on his hand, and they ran.

  49

  Rielle

  “Onto this bleak and unknown path

  Born from loss and paved with wrath

  Cast down your heart and light the way

  From darkest night to brightest day”

  —“The Song of Saint Katell” unknown composer

  Rielle stepped inside the Hall of Saints, her heart racing.

  This was wrong.

  To be in this room, wea
ring a glittering gown, with Bastien’s body not yet interred in the catacombs, with the kingdom grieving their dead and the loss of their king—it felt thoughtless, even cruel, for this to be the day that the Archon crowned her Sun Queen.

  It would have felt cruel even if she hadn’t been the one to kill them all.

  But the Archon had insisted upon it.

  “Saint Katell’s writings require that the Sun Queen, when she comes, be crowned on a solstice,” he had explained to her the day after the fire trial massacre, her ears still ringing with the sounds of death. “We timed your trials for precisely this reason. You know this, Lady Rielle.”

  She’d closed her eyes. A mistake. Every time she did so, she saw Ludivine falling to her death. After days of searching the maze’s smoking rubble, they hadn’t even been able to find her body.

  “Yes, I know,” Rielle managed, her voice thick, “but perhaps, given recent events, the Church could—”

  “No.” The Archon searched her face. She wondered what he would find. Did he look into her eyes and see what her father had always seen? The soul of a murderer?

  “Now more than ever, Lady Rielle,” the Archon had said, “our people need hope. We cannot wait until the winter solstice to crown you. Celdarians need their Sun Queen to help them through the days to come.”

  And what hope, she wanted to ask, can they possibly find in a killer such as me?

  In the Hall of Saints, Rielle closed her eyes to fight back tears. Were it not for her, Corien would not have invaded the fire trial. The Sauvillier soldiers he’d entrapped would be at home in the north, and those innocents who had died in the hillside skirmish would be alive.

  Ludivine. Papa. King Bastien. Lord Dervin.

  The names cycled constantly through her mind, nicking away at the crumbling shell of her heart.

  Ludivine.

  The final count, according to the Lord of Letters’s report, was fifty-eight dead. Their blood now coated her hands, and she could not reveal the truth about why. Not yet. Not ever. Maybe, if Ludivine were still alive, Rielle would have dared confess to her.

  Ludivine, she thought, despairing, I’m so sorry.

  She opened her eyes to the waiting crowd, managed a solemn smile. The entirety of King Bastien’s court and the city’s elite had gathered inside the hall. Outside Baingarde, a throng of citizens waited in the stone yard at the castle’s entrance. At midday, after the Archon’s blessing, the solstice bells would ring.

  Rielle looked ahead at the gold-plated altar, shining under the light of a thousand candles. The Archon waited for her in his formal robes. Behind him, in the rafters, stood a choir of temple acolytes singing “The Song of Saint Katell.”

  She took a deep breath and began the long walk toward him, leaving her guards standing at the doors.

  Weeks ago, she had made this same journey, frightened and uncertain beneath the stern eyes of the saints. On that day the hall had been mostly empty, and her walk had been lined with guards prepared to kill her.

  But today the crowded room watched her progress with shining eyes. Reverent whispers rippled through them as she passed.

  Ludivine had, apparently, commissioned the gown without Rielle’s knowledge. Ludivine’s red-eyed servants had brought it to Rielle three days before for final adjustments. She had taken one look at the gown and barely managed to send the servants away in time before losing her composure.

  It was a vision in pale Astavari lace. The wide neckline left her shoulders bare. Long, airy sleeves fell to the floor, trailing beside the train of her skirt. A shimmering iridescent lining clung to her torso, shining through the lace’s fine weave. The effect made her look as though she had been dipped in liquid sunlight. Ludivine’s servants had begged permission to weave fine golden ribbons through the dark fall of her hair and paint glittering amber swirls around her eyes.

  “Lady Ludivine would want us to take care of you,” the eldest of them had said, her mouth trembling, “and make you resplendent as the sun, my lady. And so we shall.”

  But, walking through the hall, Rielle cared nothing for the gown, nor the murmurs of appreciation from the people she passed. Her fingers itched to clutch the necklace at her throat.

  Instead, she found Audric sitting beside his father’s empty throne, and took comfort from the weary warmth of his eyes.

  He’d given the necklace to her that morning, knocking at her door when she was still bleary-eyed from yet another sleepless night.

  “For you,” he had said simply and folded the necklace into her hand. He’d kissed her knuckles and the inside of her wrist, closed his eyes, and let his mouth linger against her skin.

  Standing a few feet away with her gaze resolutely on the wall, Evyline had cleared her throat.

  “Audric,” Rielle had said, her voice breaking, “must I do this thing? With our fathers not even given proper rites—”

  “Today, the sun will shine long and bright.” He’d touched her face, his own worn with grief. “But not as bright as you. Please, Rielle. Our people need to see you.”

  Now, a smooth white-gold sun sat on a delicate chain between her collarbones. Its broad rays fanned out in gilded leaves thin as butterfly wings, and when Rielle knelt before the Archon, the light fell upon it and sent a sunburst flying across the ceiling.

  The Archon placed a hand heavy with rings on her bowed head.

  “The Gate will fall,” he began, the familiar words of Aryava’s prophecy bringing a hush to the room. The choir’s voices softened. “The angels will return and bring ruin to the world. You will know this time by the rise of two human Queens—one of blood, and one of light. One with the power to save the world. One with the power to destroy it. Two Queens will rise. They will carry the power of the Seven. They will carry your fate in their hands. Two Queens will rise.”

  One of blood.

  One of light.

  Rielle stared at her clasped hands, longed to scrub them clean. Her clammy skin itched. She had a vision of herself peeling it away to reveal the roiling black truth of what lay beneath.

  The Archon stepped back from her. “Lady Rielle Dardenne, you have passed the trials set before you by the Church and withstood great danger in doing so. This kingdom has watched you carefully over the past few weeks, and your power is unlike anything we have seen. Tell us, then, Lady Rielle: Which Queen are you?”

  One of blood.

  One of blood.

  Rielle met the Archon’s eyes. “I am the Queen of Light, Your Holiness. And I will serve Celdaria proudly until the end of my days.”

  The Archon smiled and extended his hand. “Then rise, Lady Rielle, and let us begin—”

  A cry from the back of the hall interrupted him, followed by another, then a third. A clamor of astonishment and fear filled the room.

  The Archon’s face paled, his eyes fixed on something behind Rielle. He took a step back, reaching for his chair.

  Audric shot to his feet, his hand around his mother’s. Queen Genoveve’s soft cry came out shattered.

  Rielle turned, dread plugging her lungs. Was it Corien? Had he come ready to shout the truth of what she was for all to hear?

  It was not Corien.

  Ludivine, barefoot, hair a tumble of gold, stepped out of the crowd.

  She clutched a tattered cloak at her throat and hips; beneath it she wore nothing. Her skin was ashen, but whole. She was alive… She was alive.

  Rielle made a choked sound, swaying where she stood.

  Ludivine climbed the altar steps, caught Rielle’s hands with one of her own. Her touch was warm, familiar. She turned to face the room.

  Out loud, Ludivine’s shaking voice rose above the crowd’s stunned voices. “I know this is startling, even frightening. Please forgive me.”

  Inside Rielle’s mind, Ludivine whispered, I’m so sorry you had to find out like this. Please,
trust me. We must be careful.

  Rielle’s shock crashed painfully through her body as if she’d been struck across her shoulders. Ludivine’s iron grip kept her standing.

  “I don’t know how to explain it to you,” Ludivine continued. “The last things I remember are a fog. Lady Rielle fighting a group of metalmasters. Rogues from House Sauvillier. My own father’s house.” Ludivine’s voice trailed off, heavy with sadness.

  We must convince them, all of them.

  “Lu?” Rielle whispered, shaking.

  It’s all right. Please, my darling, don’t fear me.

  “I remember a weapon striking me in the stomach,” Ludivine went on. “I remember…I remember falling.”

  Suddenly Audric was there beside them. He unclasped his long dress cloak and wrapped it around Ludivine’s shoulders. Rielle was glad for the solid warmth of his body, anchoring her to her own breath, her own wildly pounding heart. This was not, then, a dream.

  Not a dream. Ludivine’s thoughts came gently. It is the truth, at last. But they cannot know it. None of them.

  “You all thought I had died,” said Ludivine, reaching for Audric’s hand. Gingerly, he took it. “I thought I had too. But then I felt a power rise up beneath the earth and breathe life back into me. I felt a familiar touch, and I looked round for Lady Rielle, but she wasn’t there. Her power, however…that was all around me. It lingered from her trial. It gave me back my body—and my life.”

  Trust me.

  Rielle’s thoughts raced. Trust her? Trust who? What was this creature? This was not Ludivine; this was an impostor.

  You’re wrong. It is me, truly. Please. If you ever loved me, you’ll trust me. Just for a little while. Then I’ll explain everything.

  Rielle could hardly breathe. Her tears gathered fast. I didn’t bring you back. I don’t understand.

  But you will. Soon. I promise.

  “We have always known that the Sun Queen, when she came, would protect our kingdom from those who wish harm upon us.” Ludivine’s voice shook with emotion. “But now she is here, and her power is even greater than we have believed. She not only carries the power of the Seven, as the prophecy foretold.”