Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  She clutched it closed at her throat, and only then did she realize that her fingertips were coated with a thin sheen of blood.

  Watching the darkness glide away from them as her friends rowed hard in the opposite direction, Navi began to weep.

  Malik watched her gravely from his boat. “What was it? What did you see?”

  Navi could not begin to describe it. Her head ached as the images buried themselves in her mind. She felt them crowding the walls of her skull, too big for her, too ageless.

  A fleeting thought came to her: If this was even a pale echo of what Eliana felt, living with such power, then it was astonishing she had not yet shattered.

  “It was the Deep,” Navi whispered. “I know it was, though I cannot explain how. The things I saw, how they pulled at me…” She shook her head. “That shape, that thing, it is a tear between here and there. Something has opened, and I don’t know why, but beyond it, past that seam, is everything we have ever feared.”

  Ruusa stared, her freckled face gone horribly pale. As he rowed, Hob’s mouth was set in a grim line.

  “Eliana often spoke to me of the Gate,” Navi continued, locking eyes with Malik. “You know of it too. Father and Papa—they told you, just as they told me. Most people in our world think it only a rumor. They look at their black-eyed attackers and convince themselves there are no angels still living. But we know better.”

  Malik looked grim. “And you think that…that thing is another Gate?”

  “I think it could be someday. I think the quake we felt was something much bigger than simply a shift in the earth. I think it was a shift in the empirium, that Eliana is still alive and fighting.” Navi stared at the distant black eye, hovering half-hidden in the trees. Fear tickled her throat.

  “And I think,” she said quietly, “that if we mean to help her before it’s too late, we must hurry.”

  10

  Rielle

  “Dearest sister, you may have heard that I am dead, and while it’s true that Merovec Sauvillier nearly beat the life out of me, he didn’t finish the job, though I wish he had. Two friends rescued me. No, I can’t tell you their names, though you would like them both. I’m no longer Merovec’s prisoner. I wanted to tell you that, at least. But I cannot come home. I’ve heard what happened in me de la Terre. I know Audric and Rielle are gone. I could not warn them in time. I failed them, just as I failed to save Father. I never wanted his crown. That was always your secret wish. You’ll be better for our people than I could ever hope to be. Find Audric. Help him as you can. They will call me the Craven King, for abandoning you. They’ll call me the Abdicator. Well, let them. Lying near death, I realized home had never felt like home to me. Now I choose to live, and find a place where I actually fit, for however long we’ve all got left in this darkening world. I’ll miss you, but I’m not sorry to be gone.”

  —Encoded letter from King Ilmaire Lysleva to his sister, Ingrid, dated November, Year 999 of the Second Age

  Corien found Obritsa almost at once, pinning her and her guard in place with his mind. But in the brief moments after her escape, she had traveled more than a hundred miles.

  They would have to retrieve her on foot.

  For three days, Corien raged in silence as they traveled the scrubby, mountainous landscape of Vindica, its cliffs and canyons, its plains cut by thin rivers. His pace was ruthless. He hardly spoke to Rielle; when he did, it was in clipped commands.

  Come here.

  Walk faster.

  Kiss me.

  He kept his promise; he no longer cloaked her thoughts. When he pulled her against his body in the dark, Rielle grabbed his collar and met his mouth with hers.

  When she obeyed him, it was because she wanted to obey.

  Then, on the fourth day, they found Obritsa.

  Rielle knew it as soon as she opened her eyes from a restless two-hour sleep. They had stopped racing through the night only when Rielle, exhausted, had stumbled over a crack in the ground and nearly tumbled off a cliff-side path. Now, curled up on the floor of a shallow mountain cave, she opened her eyes just as Corien stopped pacing.

  “Get up.” He was wild, his hair hanging in greasy strands. He yanked Rielle to her feet. “They’re close.”

  “Unhand me.” She ripped her arm from his grip. “I can walk on my own.”

  “Then keep up. And watch where you step.” His pale eyes glittered in the moonlight, and he wore a hard smile. “I have her. She can’t move. I have both of them.”

  Rielle struggled to match his stride, her side cramping. He was hiding his intentions from her, and the expression on his face alarmed her.

  They found Artem first in a cluster of wind-twisted trees. On his stomach, limbs askew. Alive, Rielle assumed, but certainly not moving. The pack holding the castings had fallen and split. Marzana’s shield glinted silver; Grimvald’s hammer hummed quietly in the dirt.

  Past him was Obritsa. Corien had hold of her with his mind, and yet she was still crawling away slowly, as if moving through tar. Tears streamed down her face from the effort. Her face was gaunt, her lips cracked. Rielle realized, startled, that the girl must have been trapped in this clearing for days, crawling and desperate, trying to escape Corien’s hold.

  He stalked toward Obritsa, grabbed her tangled white hair, yanked her to her feet. She did not cry out. Instead, she kneed him in the groin, twisted out of his grip. That startled him; Rielle could feel his surprise. She watched in astonishment as the girl whipped a crude knife out of her boot—a jagged piece of stone sharpened into a blade. Obritsa swiped at Corien as he lunged. Her knife sliced across his chest. He roared in fury, backhanded her. She crashed to the ground. Her knife flew into the trees, and she scrambled for it.

  Corien found her first.

  She collapsed with a scream. Her small body twisted in the dirt like a beached fish.

  “You thought you could run from me,” Corien said, crouching over her. “You thought you could beat me.”

  “I did,” Obritsa gasped out. “For three days I beat you.”

  Corien’s face twisted with fury. “I don’t need to touch you to hurt you, but it does intensify the feeling.” He lowered his hand to her face, pressing her cheek into the dirt. “Don’t you agree?”

  Obritsa’s shrieks were animal, unintelligible. A low moan sounded from Rielle’s left—Artem, still immobile on the ground, a soft groan of distress the only thing he could manage as Obritsa writhed.

  The sound was so pathetic that it embarrassed Rielle. And if Corien kept going, he would kill the girl. They would be stranded here—wherever here was—and would have to covertly secure transportation through coercion, manipulation, and murder. Doable, but messy.

  Rielle was too tired for messy, and the sight of Obritsa’s legs kicking, her fingernails scraping the ground as she tried to push away from Corien, turned Rielle’s stomach. A desperate feeling touched her—a sense of being pinned down, of being caged—and she realized Obritsa’s fear was spilling out of Corien’s thoughts and into her own.

  The Kirvayan queen was a tiresome brat, but this was not the way to punish her.

  Rielle stepped forward. “Release her.”

  “Oh, but she ran away,” Corien said sweetly. “She must be punished.”

  “You’ll punish the life out of her, and then we won’t have a marque to help us. Release her, now.”

  “Like a naughty dog, she ran off and made us chase after her.” Corien clucked his tongue. Obritsa’s back arched, her scream cracking with sobs.

  “And it’s your fault she was able to run away,” Rielle pointed out.

  Obritsa’s screams subsided to awful choked whimpers.

  “Release her,” Rielle commanded.

  Corien growled an angelic curse but did not relent.

  “Fine,” she said sharply. “You idiot.”

  A flic
k of her wrist, and Corien flew back through the trees. He hit one spine-first, then dropped into a bed of tangled undergrowth.

  Lightheaded, Rielle stood over Obritsa as the girl was sick in the dirt. Artem, his breathing labored, pushed himself onto his hands and knees.

  “Korozhka,” he wheezed, then spoke to the girl in Kirvayan as he crawled toward her. Rielle knew enough of the language to translate: My queen, my dearest heart, I’m here. If you live, then I live. If you die, then I am no longer.

  At the naked tenderness in his voice, an unwelcome pang shook Rielle. A door inside her unlocked and gave way, and a flood of images claimed her vision.

  She saw herself in Baingarde, sleeping peacefully in her bed with Audric on her left and Ludivine on her right. Limbs sprawled across pillows. Audric snoring. Ludivine’s eyelids restless with dreams. They were young. It was a thing they often did in childhood—sneaking into each other’s rooms, reading books and playing games, eating cakes stolen from the kitchens until they fell asleep in a pile like a pack of tired puppies. It was before Ludivine died, before an angel took her place. Before the trials. Before Corien.

  Rielle froze, seeing but not seeing Artem and Obritsa’s embrace—Artem smoothing Obritsa’s dirt-streaked hair, Obritsa whispering fiercely, tearfully, against his collar.

  Rielle’s body was there in the wilds of Vindica, but suddenly her mind was at home in Celdaria.

  Another vision came. She was playing a game of snaps at a sticky table in Odo’s tavern. There was Audric, losing cheerfully, his curls damp from the heat and his smile broad. And there was Ludivine—an angel now, though they didn’t know it—leaning in close, pressing a kiss to Rielle’s cheek.

  Rielle shook herself, stepping away from Obritsa and Artem.

  Ludivine had found her at last.

  “Go away,” Rielle whispered. “I don’t want you here.”

  In answer, another image appeared: herself in Garver Randell’s shop, listening patiently as the boy Simon taught her the names of the bottled tonics arranged on his father’s shelves.

  And another: herself, barefoot, lounging on her terrace, nestled against Atheria’s belly with a book in hand.

  And another: herself in Audric’s bed. Bedsheets tangled around her legs, her skin flushed pink with Audric’s kisses, her fingers buried in his curls.

  “Stop!” Rielle spun around and searched the trees. “Get away from me! I don’t want you here! I left you!”

  Come home, came Ludivine’s voice, distant and distorted. Rielle could feel the miles between them, how difficult it was for Ludivine to form words. Please, Rielle. Come home to us. Come home to me.

  “Never,” Rielle said, the word a choked sob. She staggered away from the Ludivine who wasn’t there. She put up her hands to fend off the image of herself smiling dreamily up at Audric. Touching his face. Bringing him down for a kiss.

  “I’m never coming back,” Rielle whispered. She leaned hard against a tree, glaring into the darkness of this land she did not know.

  You ache for home.

  “I have no home,” Rielle snapped. “I am a monster. Don’t you remember? ‘You’re the monster Aryava foretold. A traitor and a liar.’”

  Audric was angry and afraid. He regrets saying those things. He doesn’t believe them. Ludivine’s thoughts were growing stronger, more frantic. Rielle, he loves you still. He wants to help you.

  Rielle’s tears spilled over. Her fingers dug into the tree’s rough bark. “I need no help. I’ve made my choice. Respect that and leave me.”

  A pause. I haven’t yet told him about the baby, Ludivine said quietly. It isn’t my place. I told you I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.

  The baby.

  A wave of shock swept over Rielle. The last of the memories Corien had hidden from her was suddenly washed clean, sparkling like a diamond in her mind.

  Unbidden, her left hand went to her belly. She had always had a bit of plumpness there, but now it was more pronounced. With sickening clarity she understood the sickness that had plagued her, the uncomfortable swollen feeling of her body.

  Oh, Rielle. Ludivine’s voice was gentle. Had you forgotten?

  A memory came to Rielle of the girl on the mountain, months ago—the young woman who claimed to be her daughter. They had fought. She had said her name was Eliana.

  Rielle turned away from the memory, shook her head to clear it. A lie, she reminded herself. Some trick of Corien’s. It meant nothing.

  Then, a crack in the brush. Shuffling movements.

  Rielle whirled around and whipped her arm through the air, knocking Artem and Obritsa flat. They lay stunned in the trees a dozen yards away. A short-lived attempt at escape.

  I’ve forgotten nothing, Rielle snapped. She no longer had the voice to speak aloud. I remember every lie you’ve ever told me, Lu, every lie you convinced me to tell. You didn’t tell us you were an angel until it aligned with the picture you wanted to paint for the Celdarian people—a picture of me as a savior and a resurrectionist. You didn’t tell me the truth about how the saints tricked the angels into the Deep because you didn’t want me to mistrust you or to fear that you were manipulating me into aiding some kind of vengeful scheme on behalf of your people.

  Rielle was dizzy with anger. She shoved every scrap of it toward the presence of Ludivine, which made her head throb, for she was assaulting her own mind. You told me to lie to Audric, and I did, and I hate you for it almost as much as I hate myself. You’re a snake and a coward. I hate you.

  A beat of silence. Then Ludivine spoke. You’re lying, darling.

  Rielle stormed through the trees and found Corien immobile and gasping where she had thrown him. Impatient, she swept her hand up his body. He barked out a curse as his spine snapped violently back into place.

  “Stop her, please,” Rielle choked out, kneeling beside him. “She’s in my head. I don’t want her there.”

  Rielle, no, wait—

  But then Ludivine was gone. In her place was a welcome warm cleanliness. A locked door. A mind swept clean.

  Rielle sank into Corien’s arms and fumed, shivering, letting him stroke her hair and croon angelic endearments to her. Ishkana, my beloved. Daeleya-lira, my heart, you are safe.

  Even as he soothed her, the grief sat hard in her throat, as if someone had screwed it into place. Yet she was giddy with relief and a vicious gladness.

  “I’m never going back,” she whispered. “I have no home.”

  “Your home is here, with me,” Corien said, his mouth against her hair. “Your home is wherever we are.”

  But there was an emptiness in her, one that Corien hadn’t yet been able to fill. With Ludivine’s echo fresh in her mind, memories of home clung fast—Audric’s warm laughter, Ludivine’s softness, the scents of cinnamon in the kitchen and mountain snow on Atheria’s wings. Ale and fried potatoes in Odo’s tavern. The sweet floral perfume of the whistblooms surrounding the Holdfast. Candle smoke and prayer incense, rich and heady, in Tal’s office.

  “The two of us together,” Corien insisted. “Together, Rielle. That’s all that matters.”

  But Rielle knew—and so did he, she could sense it—that as much as they both wanted that to be enough, it wasn’t.

  Not yet.

  First, she would have to let this strange new life, the loneliness of it, the sorrow still aching inside her, finish breaking her heart.

  And then she would have to rebuild it.

  • • •

  Five days later, they were on a stolen supply ship, sailing southeast across the Namurian Sea.

  Corien had convinced its crew to massacre each other, sparing only enough of them to dispose of the others’ bodies and keep the ship afloat afterward. They drifted through their duties with gray, unseeing eyes—tending the sails, manning the rudder, swabbing the decks clean of their shipmates’ blood.

>   Rielle huddled in the captain’s quarters, a scratchy wool blanket wrapped tightly around her. They were in pursuit of the nearest casting—the arrow of Saint Ghovan. For months, Corien had been tracking the Venteran Obex, the ancient guardians sworn to protect the casting. They had abandoned their customary post and were instead now traveling at an obscene pace across the world, never stopping for long, using marques to jump from place to place.

  Weeks earlier, their trail had ended abruptly on the southern continent of Patria, which had centuries before been the heart of the angelic empire. For weeks, the Obex had stayed in one place. Hiding. Waiting.

  Had the Obex exhausted their power and energy? Were they stranded, their employed marques depleted, and ready to make a desperate final stand in the ruins of Patria?

  “Or is it a trap of some kind?” Corien had mused two days earlier as he lay in the late captain’s bed with Rielle curled at his side. “Do they know I’m tracking them? Are they planning an ambush?”

  He had laughed at the idea, and Rielle, weary, seasick, had smiled weakly against his sleeve. The smooth sound of his laughter was a gorgeous rarity. She clung to it.

  “I do hope they’ll try an ambush,” he’d said, lazily stroking the curve of her back. “Wouldn’t that be amusing, my love?”

  In his voice, she had heard what he expected of her: If the Obex were indeed lying in wait, planning an ambush, he wanted Rielle to kill them before they had the chance to attack. Dissolve them. Scorch them.

  He wanted her to unmake them.

  And I will watch you, Corien had whispered in her mind. My glorious queen, burning our enemies where they stand. Taking what is ours. Beginning our great conquest.

  Now, on the floor, Rielle wrapped her long hair into a knot at the base of her neck and held it in her fist. She was too tired to think about unmaking anyone at the moment. Her pregnancy was a sickness; her joints ached, and her stomach churned.

  And her mind would not quiet. Even through the door Corien had pulled shut and locked twice now, Ludivine persisted. She whispered and wheedled. She sent endearments and thin threads of memory.