—Encoded letter from Miren Ballastier to the exiled king Audric Courverie, dated November 19, Year 999 of the Second Age
At home, when Audric had been unable to sleep, he had never minded.
He had his books for solace, the royal archives to disappear into, the gardens and catacombs to wander. As a child, he’d had his cousin Ludivine and his best friend, Rielle, who had never minded being woken up for a nighttime expedition down to the kitchens for sweets or joining him in exploring an unfamiliar wing of the castle. Baingarde was massive, an ancient and rambling construction, the secrets of which Audric had spent his entire life unraveling—just in time, he reflected wryly, to be driven away from it.
And then, of course, in recent months, sometimes he had been unable to sleep simply due to the sheer joy of knowing Rielle was there beside him in his bed. He would close his eyes and imagine their lives together, a golden future stretching on for decades.
At night, with Rielle beside him, he found it easier to ignore the dangerous reality of their changing world.
But here in Quelbani, in the queens’ palace, there was no solace to be found, and Rielle was so far away that the distance between them felt incomprehensible.
He tried reaching for her. Once, on that awful day when the fanatical members of the House of the Second Sun had taken their own lives on Baingarde’s steps, Ludivine had connected the thoughts of all three of them at once. At the time, Audric had thought it a careless mistake made by Ludivine in a moment of panic and horror.
Now, he could be sure of nothing.
But perhaps something of that three-person mental link remained. Some ragged, hair-thin thread he could access if he was lucky.
As if he had ever been lucky.
Another wave of weariness swept through him. He stopped restlessly pacing through his rooms to stand at one of the windows. Closing his eyes, he thought of Celdaria: the twelve snowcapped mountains encircling me de la Terre; the verdant farmlands in central Celdaria; the glittering canal cities hemming the southern coast.
Rielle? He felt tentative, embarrassed, as he reached out into the breezy Mazabatian night with his thoughts. Are you there?
He waited tensely for several minutes. He sent pleas out into the night, apologies, declarations of love.
Where are you?
Are you safe?
Rielle, I’m so sorry.
I love you, my darling, and I always will.
My light and my life, please come back to me.
But no answer came, and he gave up at once with a frantic sort of desperation, his mind a storm of barely suppressed screams.
He turned away from the window, dragging his hand through his curls, and then, the futility of his attempt slamming into him with dizzying force, he burst out onto the terrace, frantic for fresh air.
Some fifteen feet away, Atheria lay in her bed. Audric had asked his Mazabatian attendants to bring her cushions, as Rielle had done at home. It was a ridiculous sight—the massive, muscled godsbeast sitting primly on her pile of tasseled velvet, her enormous wings folded around her body like a feathered shell—and made him feel so homesick for his bedroom, and Rielle in it, and Atheria just outside, and his people sleeping in their beds in the city below, that his tired eyes filled with tears. He stood beside Atheria and leaned heavily on the stone railing.
“She may not even be in Celdaria by now,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the north. “She could be anywhere. I might have been sending my thoughts to the wrong place. I can’t send my thoughts, not like she can—not like they can—and I’m stupid for trying.”
Atheria pressed her nose against his hip, her nostrils flaring.
“I should ask Lu to help me, but I don’t want to ask her for anything.”
With a soft, curious trill, Atheria rested her muzzle on the railing beside his elbow, as if sensing she should comfort him but not particularly wanting to leave her pillows.
“But,” Audric continued with a weary sigh, “that feels like a sort of stubbornness I should work through and not allow to control me.” He glanced at Atheria. “Isn’t that right?”
The chavaile, momentarily distracted, snorted at a white moth that had alighted on her leg.
“Right. Thank you. An excellent talk.”
Irritable, and irritated with himself for feeling irritable, he resumed pacing, this time on the terrace. His exhaustion was so complete that he felt not quite intact within his own body, dizzy and parched. He hadn’t truly slept since arriving in Quelbani four days ago, and he had hardly eaten. His dreams were shapeless and menacing, and every time he woke, it was with Rielle’s name on his lips.
A horn announced the arrival of a boat in the nearby harbor. He squinted, following the line of the lantern-lit shore, and at last saw a ship out on the dark water—squat and plain, lit by the rising dawn. There was activity on the beach. Rushing figures, casted lanterns sputtering to life.
A joyful thought came from Ludivine: It’s Sloane, and Evyline, and the Sun Guard. They’re all alive and safe.
Audric stood motionless at the railing, watching the ship bearing his fellow Celdarian exiles glide toward the shore. Exiles loyal to him, who had risked their lives and abandoned their country to help him. He knew what they would want—to help him take back his throne, to help him find Rielle.
Audric could not imagine those things ever happening. His mind felt clumsy with despair; he couldn’t clear his thoughts and didn’t want to try. He was convinced the fuzzy, twisting grip of grief would never release him and had come to feel glad for it, for if the grief left him, he feared some sort of anchor would be dislodged. He would dissolve without it, simply float away and no longer exist—which wasn’t the most terrible thing he could imagine.
The most terrible thing had already happened.
He walked calmly to the doors of his apartment and ensured that they were locked.
Please make sure they are well fed, he said, not directing the thoughts toward Ludivine but knowing she could hear them nevertheless, his cunning, beloved little liar. And that they are given comfortable places to sleep and tended to by healers, if required.
What’s happened? She was alarmed by something in his voice.
I’ve lost the woman I love and the home I love, he thought, and I fear that before this is all over, I will have to choose between them.
Ludivine was silent for a long time. Are you going to hurt yourself?
He laughed aloud, bitterly. Wouldn’t you be the first to know?
The truth was, he thought he might hurt himself eventually, but at the moment, even thinking about doing so required more effort than he could muster. He made his way to the bed, stripped off his tunic, his trousers. He stood staring at the tall, claw-footed mirror until he could no longer stand the sight of himself—his lean brown limbs and mussed dark curls, the shadows under his eyes, his chapped lips. He saw himself as Corien must see him, as Merovec and the Mazabatian queens must see him—ineffectual. Small. Craven. Dim and shabby beside his matchless Rielle. A mere human, soft and gullible. Someone had taken his throne, and he had run away and let him have it.
The Lightbringer, they called him. But in his tear-bright eyes, he saw nothing of light, nothing of the king he had once dreamed of becoming. He thought of Illumenor lying dark and quiet beside his bed and considered tossing it into the sea. His vision a glittering sheen, his throat a hot column of tears, he climbed into bed and closed his eyes. He didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but the stillness, at least, was peaceful. His limbs felt heavy with it.
If he could stay like that forever, he decided, even if it meant never leaving this bed, never seeing Rielle again, never setting foot on Celdarian soil again, he would be glad, for it would probably save everyone a great deal of trouble in the end.
Why fight any of this? He sent the thought to Ludivine, neither expecting nor
wanting an answer, and let his sorrow come for him like rising black water.
• • •
Audric awoke only two short hours later when a wave of ice-cold water came splashing down onto his face.
Lurching upright with a gasp, he blinked awake and tried to make sense of what was happening. He had barely wiped his eyes when it happened again—a cold pane of water crashing down upon him.
Drenched, he tried to scramble out of bed, fumbling for Illumenor. But the linens were soaked and tangled about his legs, and he flailed as he stumbled to his feet, catching himself against the bedpost with a hissed curse.
He whirled, abruptly furious. It was full morning; sunlight was streaming through the windows, and his body sparked with it. Anger drew heat and light to his palms, which itched to hold his sword.
“Cover yourself,” snapped a familiar voice. “The princess is here, and she’s getting an eyeful.”
Audric wiped the wet hair out of his face, blinked, and saw two people standing a few paces away. One was Sloane Belounnon, Grand Magister of the House of Night—Tal’s sister, a prodigiously talented shadowcaster, and obviously annoyed. She still wore the fine black-and-blue suit she had worn to the wedding many days ago, though the fabric was now smudged with travel grime, as was her pale face. Her sleek, shoulder-length black hair was bundled messily at her nape.
Beside her, grinning, the castings around her wrists buzzing with recent use, was Princess Kamayin Asdalla—her skin a rich, deep brown, her hair kept short in tight, black curls. Underneath her crisp white jacket, a delicate golden chain cinched her iridescent gown at the waist.
She waved cheekily at him. “Good morning.”
Audric clutched the sodden linens to his hips. He only briefly thought about trying for some kind of dignified greeting. “What was that for?”
“Because you knew we had arrived and yet didn’t come down to greet us,” Sloane said briskly. “The entire Sun Guard has been out of their minds for the entire journey, wanting us to go faster, because in the absence of the Sun Queen, they want to protect you, the Lightbringer. And if you could have seen the look on Evyline’s face when she was informed that no, King Audric would not be coming down to greet her because he was still in bed and did not want to be disturbed…I could slap you. That woman has come to love you and Rielle so deeply, it’s as if you’re her own children, and she has left her family and her friends and her life behind in me de la Terre to come help you—they all have—and this is how you thank them for their sacrifice?”
For a moment, Audric couldn’t speak. She was right, of course, and it shamed him so completely that he shrank into himself. His numbness resettled around him after being temporarily shaken by the rude awakening, and he found that he didn’t care if Princess Kamayin saw him naked. He dropped the linens and retrieved his trousers, his rumpled tunic.
“Well?” Sloane’s voice bristled with impatience. She had always been the sharper one, and Tal the softer. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
He shrugged, weary but resolved. “I can’t see them.”
“You can’t see them,” she repeated flatly. “And what is that supposed to mean? How dare you spew that shit at me.”
Kamayin’s eyebrows shot up. “If anyone talked like that to my mothers, they’d spend the rest of their life in a dungeon.”
“Sloane’s known me since I was born,” Audric mumbled, tugging on his tunic. “She talks to me like that all the time.”
“Only when you deserve it.” Sloane folded her arms over her chest. “What do you mean, you can’t see them?”
“I mean…” He trailed off. How could he possibly explain that if he saw Evyline, and Fara, Ivaine, Maylis—Rielle’s devoted guards—it would be like losing her all over again? How could he describe the dark tide rising higher and higher inside him, blacking out all thought and feeling, leaving him numb, erased, irrelevant? Or his anger at Ludivine for her manipulations, his anger at Rielle for leaving him, his anger at himself for pushing her away?
And more than anything, his anger at Corien, which remained a distant thing, so titanic and boiling that his mind couldn’t fully grasp it and instead focused on the more immediate things, the smaller furies, the paler fears.
He looked at Sloane, helpless. “I can’t see them,” he said again in a whisper, and something changed on Sloane’s face. A softening. Slight, but real.
She nodded slowly, gave him a tight smile. “You should go back to sleep.” She came to him, straightened the collar of his tunic, glanced up at his dripping hair, and declared, with a kinder smile, “And you look terrible, it must be said. I’ll come again this afternoon to help you prepare for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We’re meeting with the queens—you, me, Ludivine, the Sun Guard, the royal advisers, and the Mazabatian high magisters. A war council.”
“And me,” said Kamayin, turning her wrists as her castings hummed. The spilled water evaporated; soon the bed was dry. “I’ll be there too.”
“I’m not meeting with anyone,” Audric said automatically. The very idea of facing all those watching eyes made him want to sleep forever.
“Fine, then. I suppose Merovec will remain on your throne, Corien will destroy us all, and meanwhile, you’ll be here, hiding in your bed, letting Miren’s reports go unread while she and everyone else at home live every day in confusion and fear.”
With that, Sloane marched out of the room, and when Kamayin quietly followed suit, a strange urge to be near another person flared inside Audric’s chest. He thought of calling for Ludivine and immediately decided against it.
“Wait, please,” he said.
Kamayin turned, watching him curiously.
“I am…” He paused, struggling to speak. He couldn’t bear to stand any longer and so sat on the rug, leaning back against the bed. “Could you sit with me for a while? If you have duties that need attending, I understand.”
“I’m a princess,” she said, not unkindly, “not a physician or one of your servants. Besides, we hardly know each other.”
“I know.”
“Wouldn’t you rather Lady Ludivine sat with you?”
He couldn’t keep the darkness from his voice. “No. I don’t want to see her just now.”
Kamayin nodded. “I always worry she’s poking around in my head.”
“A reasonable fear.”
“But you still love her.”
“Of course.”
Kamayin blew out a breath. Then she sat down next to him and hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s really terrible, what’s happening. What may happen. To all of us, I mean.”
Audric leaned his head back against the bedpost. “Yes.”
“I’ve been reading all about the Angelic Wars with my friend, Zuka. To prepare, you know. I don’t skip past the grisly bits. I read everything. I’m a bit obsessive about it. I’ve never seen a war.”
“I’m sorry that you may have to.”
Kamayin was quiet for a moment. Then, more softly, she said, “It’s also terrible, what’s happened to you. If I were you, my love gone and my home taken from me, I’d not get out of bed for an entire year. At the very least. My mothers’ advisers would have to drag me out, kicking and screaming.”
“And if they casted water at you while you slept?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she said matter-of-factly. “They would be too afraid to throw anything at me, and rightly so.”
Audric smiled a little and said nothing. He didn’t feel words were required of him. It was a relief, sitting quietly beside someone who seemed content to do all the talking. Someone who understood the reason for his grief but did not feel it herself, or ask him to explain it.
He slept, and when he awoke, stiff on the floor, it was dark, and Kamayin was gone, but she had left him a neat stack of books on the bedside table, a
nd a note: From my own personal library. Novels with happy endings. If you bend or tear even a single page, we shall no longer be friends.
He retrieved the topmost book—The Hawk and the Dove. Then he crawled into bed and held the book to his chest for a long time, breathing in the scent of paper and ink, and thought of home.
• • •
He did not go to the meeting the next morning, despite Sloane’s threats.
Her justified fury made him all the more disgusted with himself. The angrier he became at his own inability to face what must come next, the further he sank into a toxic whirl of despair. He recognized his self-pity and still could not extricate himself from it. He knew a walk in the fresh air would benefit him but refused to leave the unwashed cocoon of his blankets. He began to wonder if someday Sloane might actually drag him from the bed kicking and screaming, but he imagined he had a while before she attempted that.
It was much easier to turn away from the look of disappointment on her face and pretend she wasn’t there, so that was exactly what he did.
• • •
Four nights after Sloane and the Sun Guard’s arrival, Audric awoke from a gluey, uncomfortable sleep to a strange series of shuffling sounds.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes and saw Atheria’s head resting on the mattress near his outstretched arm. She had settled herself on the floor by his bed and was staring at him with her enormous dark eyes.
“Sleeping in here with me now, are you?” he asked quietly.
She blew a hot breath on his fingers. He loved her snorts, her chirps in the morning as she watched the sky and imitated birdcalls. He knew she could bite clean through his arm if she wanted to with those sharp predator’s teeth, but in the quiet darkness, she was gentle beside him, a warm, familiar weight.
That night, he dreamed of riding Atheria. They flew east, toward the sunrise; he was tired and heartsick, but his sword arm was strong.
• • •
Audric did not attend the war council’s second meeting either. He knew when it was happening; Sloane visited every day to remind him of the date. She admonished and wheedled him by turns. Only once did she resort to begging.
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