—A letter written by King Ilmaire Lysleva to Prince Audric Courverie, dated February 1, Year 999 of the Second Age
They waited in the snow for nearly an hour before Ludivine arrived.
Queen Obritsa’s threads remained steady, a thin oval of light hovering a few inches above the snowy forest floor. They had decided not to make camp and instead to wait for Ludivine. Once she had joined them, they would start at once for Celdaria.
Rielle sat on a fallen tree, hunched in her blood-stiffened furs. She nibbled on a strip of dried venison Evyline had withdrawn from the pack Obritsa had given them, though she had no real appetite—especially not for meat.
But Evyline had insisted, standing over Rielle with her arms crossed and an impressive glower souring her face, until Rielle had finally complied.
Now they waited in silence.
Rielle watched Audric’s progress through the trees. He paced, gloved hands clasped behind his back. Rielle wanted desperately to speak to him, to ask him what he had seen as she attempted to heal the dead villager. But the expression on his face was one of ferocious worry—a worry she knew she had caused.
So she nibbled her meat, striving to keep her mind clear and calm. She would not think about the villager, of the ghastly knobs of flesh knitting her hands to his chest. She would not think of how he had unraveled at her touch, the caved-open pulpy mess of him in the snow at her feet.
Nor of how it must have appeared to Audric, the horror he must have felt as he watched the man collapse at her touch.
Would he flinch from her the next time she tried to touch him?
Her stomach clenched at the back of her throat. She closed her eyes, breathing thinly in and out through her nose.
Then, a soft fall into the snow.
Rielle opened her eyes to see Ludivine righting herself, shaking snow from her furs beneath the low branches of a pine. Behind her, the flickering threads collapsed inward before disappearing.
Ludivine hurried to Rielle and helped her rise. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m cold and tired.”
And Audric has hardly looked at me once since we left the temple.
Ludivine smiled tightly, touching Rielle’s face. “I’m sorry to have kept you all waiting.”
And I’m sorry, she added, her interior voice trembling with emotion, to have awoken you in the first place. We should have let them burn. I knew it was a trap, that the villagers were bait, and yet I allowed you to—
“Evyline, please give us a moment,” said Audric. Then, after the Sun Guard had moved away, he came up beside them. “Please include me in whatever you’re saying,” he said quietly. “What’s happened concerns all of us.”
Rielle forced herself to hold his gaze. It would have been better, she thought, if he had showed anger, or fear, or even revulsion. But this quiet patience, the same familiar steadiness she was accustomed to, made her want to melt into the ground with shame.
“Of course,” Ludivine said, squeezing Audric’s hand. “I was apologizing to Rielle for having awoken you. I knew it was bait, and yet I led her to him all the same.”
“And why did you?” he asked.
Ludivine hesitated. Rielle felt a ripple in her mind but could not interpret it.
“Because I pitied the villagers,” Ludivine replied. “I could not bear the sight of them tormenting one another at his command.”
“And you thought it worth the risk to save them? Even if it endangered Rielle?”
Ludivine regarded him thoughtfully. “Don’t you think it was worth the risk?”
Audric was quiet for a time. Then he seemed to sink beneath the question’s weight. “I cannot say. And this is what I feared when all of this began. I should not hesitate before sending Rielle into harm’s way, especially if it means saving innocent lives, and yet I can’t bear the thought of doing so. Especially when doing so leads to Corien.”
“I was never in danger.” Rielle carefully linked her fingers with his. “He would not have hurt me.”
“I’m not worried that he would have hurt you,” Audric said. “I’m worried he would have tried to poison you against me further.”
She frowned. “Is my mind so weak, in your eyes?”
“No, and you know that’s not what I meant.”
“It seems to me that it’s exactly what you meant.”
Rielle, Ludivine cautioned, you are being disingenuous in your argument.
But Rielle plunged ahead, drawing away from them both. “If you thought me strong enough to resist his advances, you would not worry for me.”
“My love, you are strong,” Audric said, “but there is only so much human strength can do against a being as powerful as he is.”
“Ah, but you forget, I am no mere human.” Her voice broke a little, remembering the horror of the villager’s dissolution beneath her, but she kept her head high. “Or did you not see what I accomplished in Polestal? Is that the work of a creature you think could so easily fall prey to even an angel’s will?”
A thick silence descended upon them, echoing the quiet snowfall that had begun as they spoke. Audric studied her, his expression half-hidden beneath the hood of his cloak.
A few paces away, Evyline cleared her throat. “I wonder, my lord prince, if we should begin making our way toward Nazastal. Queen Obritsa encouraged us to make haste.”
“Indeed we should, Evyline, thank you,” said Audric, turning away from Rielle to adjust his furs. “Lead, and we shall follow.”
They proceeded west through the snow, Rielle’s heart a blazing nest of contradictions too scrambled to unravel. The snow melted away at each step of her boots, leaving a steaming, half-frozen path behind her.
You’re alarming your guard, Ludivine said after a moment. Fara, in particular, is worried you might combust.
Then she would do well to leave a wide berth between us, wouldn’t she? Rielle said sharply, concentrating on the sizzling snap of her footfalls, and not on the awful, heavy silence of Audric at her side.
• • •
They stopped only for a short night in the town of Nazastal, long enough to acquire horses for the next leg of the journey and rest their aching muscles at the rather ramshackle inn—the proprietor of which nearly fainted when he realized that Prince Audric the Lightbringer had just walked through his doors.
The night at the inn passed quietly, and when they left at dawn, the snow had stopped. By midmorning, the expanse of fresh white cast harsh blades of sunlight back up at the sky, but even that did nothing for the bitter cold.
Rielle huddled in her furs, squinting bleakly at the brilliant white ground—until a shadow passed over her, drawing a familiar shape across the snow.
She threw back her hood and raised her arm to shield her face, and when that same shape swooped down between the narrow, shivering pines, she cried out, fumbling to dismount her own shabby horse.
Atheria.
Riva’s mount, at the head of their caravan, reared up and shied away from Atheria’s approach. The other horses followed suit, tossing their heads, rattled by the presence of a godsbeast.
But Rielle cared nothing for their alarm. The beasts could run away into the mountains and never return, for all she cared. It seemed suddenly unthinkable that she was only a few moments ago riding the back of so small and simple a creature.
She ran through the snow toward Atheria’s looming dark shape. The chavaile landed on a small swell in the forest floor, padded by several inches of snow. She shook her wings clean before folding them neatly against her body, and Rielle nearly ran at her, nearly threw her arms around her great gray neck.
But a few paces away, she stopped and held out her arms. “Can I, my sweet one?”
Atheria watched her, very still. Her tail flicked once, sharply.
“Careful, my lady,” Evyline said.
&n
bsp; “She won’t hurt me.” Rielle took the last few steps slowly. The very air around the godsbeast seemed clearer, honed by her existence. “Even though I hurt her, she won’t hurt me. Isn’t that right, Atheria?”
Two steps away, the puffs of air from Atheria’s nostrils warming her front, Rielle hesitated only once more.
Then the chavaile lowered her head with a tired, rumbling whicker. She nudged Rielle’s shoulder with her velvet muzzle, and the tiny, tender touch left Rielle in tears. She wrapped her arms as far around Atheria’s neck as she could and pressed her face against her dark mane.
“I’m sorry,” Rielle whispered. “Dear Atheria, I’m so sorry for doing that terrible thing to you. I lost my mind, standing there before the Gate. It frightened me. Do you understand that? Will you forgive me for it?”
Atheria shifted from left to right, then huffed out a sharp breath against her back.
Rielle laughed through her tears, tightening her arms around Atheria’s neck. The chavaile smelled of snow, musky and wild, and Rielle wondered where her beastly friend had gone these past long weeks, and if she would ever know.
“Well, then,” came Audric’s voice after a moment, warm and delighted. “There you are, Atheria. You’ve come back to us after all.”
Atheria pushed her head into Audric’s palm and closed her eyes. Her long, thick lashes brushed against Rielle’s cheek like the fall of soft rain.
Over the slope of Atheria’s nose, Rielle met Audric’s gaze. “Can we go home now?”
He smiled at her, and though she knew the worry would return to his face once this small joy had faded, she was glad to see it gone for now.
“If Atheria will carry us there,” he replied, stroking the chavaile’s forehead, “we’ll fly home at once.”
For answer, Atheria extended her wings to the sky.
• • •
The flight home took only days, rather than weeks, and once back in me de la Terre, before visiting Tal or reporting to the Archon, Rielle left Marzana’s shield in her room, under Evyline’s guard. She donned a plain gray hood and slipped out into the city by the half-light of nightfall.
Trying for discretion, unfortunately, was not a thing achievable with Atheria nearby, her long wings dragging against the clean cobbled streets and children chasing after her at a respectful distance. As Sun Queen, Rielle should perhaps have spoken to the children and given them some sort of blessing, sent them running back to their parents with words of wisdom on their tongues.
But she was tired, sore from days aboard even gentle Atheria’s broad back. Now that they had arrived home, an awful dread returned to her, a restlessness that settled thickly against her bones. Echoes of the villager’s malformed flesh knit themselves across her knuckles and along her palms. She had not heard from Corien since that night in the snow. Each time she remembered how his body, hard and eager, had pressed against her, how his mouth had burned against her skin, she felt the loss of him anew.
I see you, he had said. And I am not afraid.
And she believed him. More completely than she was sure of anything else, she believed him—and was glad for it.
She knocked sharply on the door to Garver Randell’s shop, ignoring the whispers and murmurs of the citizens gathered at the front gate. When the door opened, she hurried inside.
“Please close the door, Simon,” she said, retreating into the shop’s shadows. “And lock it, if you would be so kind.”
“Yes, my lady.” The boy hesitated, peering outside. “Should I allow the chavaile to come inside?”
“You absolutely should not,” said Garver Randell, entering from the back room with his arms full of rags. “You should, instead, come fold these rags and stir our supper, before it burns against the sides of the pot, and I’m forced to send you once again to Odo’s for sandwiches.”
Simon grinned. “I love their sandwiches.”
“Yes, but my purse does not.”
“Atheria won’t destroy anything,” Rielle said. “She’s graceful, despite her size.”
“I’m not worried about that as much as I am about her taking a shit on my floors.” Garver dumped the rags on the table in the far corner, then turned with a raised eyebrow. “Godsbeasts shit too, don’t they?”
Rielle laughed, but that felt dangerous, triggering a tingling heat behind her eyes. She swallowed the sound almost at once. “Everything shits,” she replied.
“Ah, the wisdom of the Sun Queen. That’s one for the prayer books.” Then he squinted, pointing one bandaged finger at her. “You look terrible. Are you ill?”
“You’ve hurt your finger. What happened?”
“Bah.” He waved his hand at her. “Don’t waste my time.”
“How dare you speak to me that way.”
“I treat everyone the same in my shop. Everyone bleeds and everyone dies. Sun Queens and beggars alike.”
Rielle drew an unsteady breath. “I’ve run out of maidsright herbs,” she said, which was the truth, and then burst into tears.
Garver’s eyebrows shot up. “Sweet saints, what did I say?”
“Nothing,” Rielle sobbed. “You didn’t do anything. It’s just that I’ve come home from weeks away, and it was terrible in Kirvaya, and wonderful too. I’m so tired I can hardly stand.”
“Then sit, for God’s sake,” muttered Garver, cleaning off a plain wooden bench for her.
She did, gratefully, wiping her face with the hem of her cloak.
“What happened in Kirvaya, my lady?” came Simon’s soft voice. He perched on the bench beside her.
“I can’t tell you. And the people I can talk to about it, I don’t want to be around at the moment. I think that’s why I came to you. So I could sit for a while in a place where I can forget, for even a short time, that I’m…whatever it is that I am.” She looked up at Garver helplessly. “Does that make sense?”
Garver scratched the back of his head, then flung a hand at Simon. “Make sure Lady Rielle has what she needs, while I fold these rags. And if I discover that this is some elaborate plot between you to get Simon out of his chores, I must tell you that my revenge will be unpredictable and immense.”
“Here, my lady,” said Simon quietly, offering her a clean cloth for her face. “You can eat supper with us, if you want to.”
“Oh, can she?” Garver grumbled from the fire. “I suppose you’re now the master of this shop, then.”
“That would be a comfort, if you have enough for me,” Rielle admitted. Then, noticing how Simon kept glancing toward the shop windows, through which Atheria was staring, her breath puffing against the glass, she added, “And I’d be grateful if Atheria could join us.”
Simon straightened, his blue eyes lighting up.
Garver snorted. “What, we’ll ask her to sit herself down at our supper table?”
“She looks rather lonely out there, is all,” said Rielle. “It seems cruel to leave a creature of God outside in the dark.”
She shot a sly glance at Simon, who was stifling a smile. When Garver turned to glare at them, they were all innocence. Outside, Atheria let out a pitiful, lonesome cry.
Garver’s mouth thinned. “Fine, fine. But it’ll be you, Simon, scrubbing the shit off my floor, and not me.”
Simon jumped up, ran for the door, and flung it open. Though Atheria hardly fit through the frame, she seemed entirely untroubled by this fact and lowered herself promptly onto the floor by the fire, her bulk taking up most of their dining space.
Garver stared at her, frozen midfold.
Rielle pulled Simon along by the arm, situated herself on the rug beside Atheria’s belly, patted the floor so Simon would do the same, and blinked guilelessly up at Garver.
“You see?” she said. “Isn’t this much cozier?”
Garver’s indignation was so complete that he seemed to have lost all capabilit
y of speech.
Rielle turned to Simon with a grin, her tears drying on her cheeks. And as she answered his endless string of questions about the godsbeast, she existed only in that moment, in that humble, tidy shop, with smells of supper filling the air. Thoughts of Kirvaya simmered quietly, harmlessly, at the edges of her thoughts.
And the need for a fresh supply of maidsright herbs fell out of her mind entirely.
32
Eliana
“You’ll no doubt scold me roundly for this in your next letter, but as you know, I’ve long been immune to your ire. Simon has requested I begin teaching him foundational threading practices, and I’ve agreed, though I’ve forbidden him to practice without my supervision. You’ll say he’s too young. And I’ll say in response that we were too young for many things, and yet somehow we survived them all. Anyway, the boy has a remarkable talent, and I’d rather he start using it now. His hunger is insatiable. He’s like you in that way. You’re both gluttons for knowledge and too stubborn for your own good.”
—A letter from Garver Randell to Annick Caillabotte, dated October 4, Year 997 of the Second Age
Rozen had once told Eliana that, for the first few months of Eliana’s life, neither Rozen nor Ioseph had been able to sleep through the night.
“We could hardly believe you were real,” Rozen had said, smiling at the memory. This had been eight years ago, when Eliana was ten, and Ioseph was home from the war for a brief spell. He had sat on one cushion, on the floor by the fire, and Rozen on another, with Eliana squished between them and Remy asleep beside her, his four-year-old limbs sprawled across their laps.
“We thought we would wake up in the morning, and you would be gone,” Ioseph had told her, with a gentle brush of his knuckles against her cheek. “Our daughter. A miraculous thing, you were. A gift from God.”
Eliana had wrinkled her nose, indignant. “God isn’t where babies come from. Mama told me.”
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