“Though I may no longer look like an angel, and though my mind is not what it once was, I can still use it. And right now I am using it to make the vermin of Fidelia forget you are here.”
Eliana’s heart pounded hard in her ears. “You mean…you’re hiding me.”
“As best I can, yes.” Zahra hesitated. “Though once Semyaza finds us, that will change. Wraiths are not strong enough to deceive other wraiths.”
“Semyaza?”
“He serves this faction of Fidelia. He helps them hunt, disguises them, and distracts their prey. It was him you sensed in Sanctuary.” Zahra turned up her nose. “You’ll find, Eliana, that not all wraiths are as enlightened as I am.”
“What does he want? Why is he helping them?”
“Semyaza hopes that if he serves the Empire loyally, then once the Emperor has found the Sun Queen and bound her to him, Semyaza will be resurrected. He will have earned a body at last.”
Eliana shook her head, stepping away from Zahra. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Resurrected?”
“It would be easier to show you, Eliana. If you’ll permit me to take hold of your mind?” She tilted her head toward the door. “We have just enough time for it.”
“Take hold of my mind. Like the Emperor did?”
“What?” The drifting tendrils of Zahra’s hair and robes went rigid. “You have spoken with the Emperor?”
“At an outpost several days ago, I was…I was with Lord Morbrae. He looked at me, and something changed. I saw the Emperor. I was in Celdaria somehow. I couldn’t see anything very well, but I could see enough. And the Emperor, he found me standing there, and he…he knew me. I don’t know if he was happy or furious to see me. And I don’t know which is worse.”
Zahra closed her eyes. “Simon did not send word of this. Oh, he has seen you. He knows, then, that you are alive.”
“Why does the Emperor care who I am or that I’m alive?”
The wraith’s huge, dark eyes were terribly sad.
“May I show you, Eliana?” Zahra whispered. “Forgive me, but it will be easier for me than words.” She shook her head, sank to the floor. “This is a shock. This is an awful blow.”
Eliana crouched before her. “You swear to me that my mother isn’t here?”
Zahra peeked out from behind her hair. “Yes. Simon’s instructions were to send word if any of us found her. But I have not.”
“Wait.” Eliana’s body drew tight as a bowstring. “He knew that Fidelia took her?”
Zahra nodded miserably. “We were all told to look out for her.”
So. Simon had known. He had known who had taken her mother—and, Eliana suspected, he had known Fidelia was behind the other abductions too.
And he had not done a thing about it. He had led her across the country on this wild quest without so much as a whisper of the truth.
She gripped her knees, hard, and stared at the stained stone floor of her cell.
I will kill him for this.
“You may show me what you want to show me,” she said, her voice trembling with barely contained fury, “as long as you then help me find Navi before we leave this place. Do we have a bargain?”
Zahra nodded. “Yes, Eliana. I pledge this to you.”
Eliana gave her a grim nod. “Then do it. Quickly.”
Without warning, Zahra collapsed into a twisting cloud of light and shadow. Her new shape resembled great, jagged black wings.
Then she rushed at Eliana and disappeared.
And Eliana opened her eyes—and she saw.
• • •
Unlike when she had seen the Emperor, this vision was all too clear.
There was no fog blocking her sight. She felt the steaming hard ground beneath her feet. The air was close, rippling with heat; her nostrils burned from the ash darkening the air.
Movement at the corner of her eye made her turn. A woman stood watching her, tall and ebony-skinned, wearing a suit of tarnished platinum armor. Her thick white hair fell in braids past her hips, and gold paint rimmed her dark eyes. Massive wings of shifting light and shadow spanned out from her back.
“Zahra?” Eliana whispered.
Even Zahra’s small nod was magnificent. “As I was during the Angelic Wars. Before the Gate. Before the long curse of the Deep and the loss of my body.” Then she pointed. “Look, Eliana.”
Eliana squinted across the fire-ribboned plain, and images rushed at her like the horrors of a nightmare:
A woman stood on a distant flat plinth. She raised her arms and carved a blinding door from the sky.
A castle flashed white, then fell, and from the abyss around it rushed a wave of ruin. There was a cry of pain and fear, a chorus of thousands—millions—and then silence.
The screams of a woman in a bloodied bed.
A baby, held tightly in the arms of a boy. Eliana peered over the boy’s shoulder, and she knew as she stared at the infant that the face looking back up at her was her own. Then she turned to see the boy, and—
A vastness of black, filled with screams too alien to belong to either human or animal. There was a light on the horizon and a figure standing beside it. Eliana cried out, crushed by the lonely weight of this place, and ran toward the light—
She was back on the firelit plain, watching a woman kneel beside a dismembered, blood-soaked corpse. The woman’s back was to Eliana. She wore a suit of black armor and a crimson cloak. The woman moved pale hands over the corpse, knitting across skull and collarbone, down chest and across severed hips. The air around the corpse shimmered, shifting, and then the woman sat back, calm, and the corpse jerked, gasped, and staggered to his feet. He was no longer a corpse. His skin was whole and new, his limbs intact. He took a few unsteady steps before falling to his knees. He looked down at his body and then threw out his arms and shouted to the skies—with joy, with relief, with fury.
The woman rose, smooth and silent, to her feet.
“You’re working faster now,” said the man beside her, whom Eliana had not noticed before. “Well done.” He drew the woman into an embrace, and Eliana stood frozen in horror as their faces came into view.
The woman was dark-haired and unspeakably beautiful, with a face so pale and faultless it could have been carved from porcelain—save for the shadows stretching dark beneath her green eyes and the small, hungry smile curling her mouth.
Eliana brought shaking fingers to her own lips.
My mouth, she thought and then touched the brittle ends of her own tangled dark hair. My hair.
And the man standing beside this woman—blue-eyed instead of black but with the same lovely pale face and untroubled poise that graced the painted portraits in Lord Arkelion’s palace. Black hair, mud-caked cloak, a bloodstained sword at his belt. He guided the woman’s mouth to his, and she clung to him as if their kiss was the only reason she remained standing.
The Emperor.
Eliana frantically backed away, tripped over another corpse, fell to the ground hard.
The world shifted, darkened.
She blinked.
She had returned to her cell, and Zahra hovered quietly in front of her—a mere distortion of the air once more, ephemeral and wingless.
“Please breathe, Eliana,” Zahra urged gently. “I know it is a great deal to understand.”
Eliana gasped for breath, tears streaming down her face. Her skull felt too heavy for her body. Her skin still felt flushed from the battlefield’s flames.
“That was him,” she croaked. “That was the Emperor. But…”
“That was the Emperor before he called himself the Emperor. When his name was simply Corien. He was the first of us to escape. And I am sorry that he was.”
Remy was right. The thought kept circling through Eliana’s mind. They’re angels. The Emperor, his generals, Lord Arkelion, Lo
rd Morbrae. Remy was right.
“And the woman,” she whispered. “I know her face.”
“I would imagine so.” Zahra touched Eliana’s hands, and Eliana felt nothing. “For it is your own, is it not?”
“Partly. More beautiful. More…”
“More unkind.” Zahra offered a small smile. “You have a kind face, Eliana, though you try to make it not so.”
Eliana crossed her arms and shut her eyes. “That’s why he recognized me. The Emperor. Corien.”
Zahra was silent.
“What were they doing?” Eliana asked. “That body.”
“What he failed to accomplish with your mother before her Fall ruined all their work,” Zahra said, “and what he hopes to finish with you. Resurrection. Our return—and our revenge.”
“Our. The angels?”
“Yes, Eliana.”
When Eliana opened her eyes once more, her body felt caught on a high, hot wind—floating, untethered.
“I hope you are lying to me,” she said at last. “Please tell me you’re a hallucination. I won’t be angry, I swear it.”
Zahra bowed her head. “I wish I could.”
“I am the daughter of the Blood Queen.” Her voice came out hollow, heavy. “Daughter of the Kingsbane.”
“You are.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is understandable. It does not, however, change the truth.”
Eliana stared at the floor through a furious fog of tears. “How did I get here, then? If I was born back then, to her, and now I’m here… How?”
“That, I’m afraid, is not my story to tell.”
Eliana laughed wearily. “Of course.”
“Eliana, I’m not being coy—”
Eliana waved Zahra silent. She waited until her tears had dried, until she felt she could stand, until she could almost believe the story she told herself—that this was indeed a hallucination, some horrible dream brought on by whatever Fidelia had used to knock her unconscious.
Zahra said quietly at the door, “It’s time to leave.”
Eliana rose to her feet, wiped her face on her sleeve, and said to Zahra, “Then get me out of here. I have things to do.”
39
Rielle
“I worry about Tal. I’ve always worried about him for reasons I couldn’t name, and now I understand why: because he has lived a lie for years, for the sake of this girl, and now is suffering for it. I would never say this to him, but I write it here or else it will burst from my tongue: I hate her for doing this to him. Yes, she was only a child when it all began. But after that, as she grew and learned? What then? What stayed her tongue? Fear? Or malice?”
—Journal of Miren Ballastier, Grand Magister of the Forge
June 8, Year 998 of the Second Age
When the doors to the Council Hall opened, Rielle rose from her chair and steeled herself.
She did not expect her father to enter and hurry straight toward her, his face pale.
Rielle’s guards formed a tight circle around her.
“Sorry, Lord Commander,” said Evyline, her hands hovering above the hilt of her sword. “I can’t let you past.”
“Let him past,” ordered King Bastien, the Archon and the Magisterial Council filing in behind him.
As soon as the guards stepped aside, Rielle’s father hurried over and gathered her close.
“Oh, my darling girl,” he whispered against the top of her head.
Rielle’s shock was so great that tears sprang to her eyes before she could draw a full breath. “Papa?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Rielle’s thoughts had scattered at the touch of her father’s hands. How long had it been since he had held her like this? Years.
She clutched his jacket, burying her face in the scratchy, stiff fabric. All at once, she was four years old again, and her mother was still alive, and nothing had happened except a few unexplained odd incidents: candles extinguishing themselves, an overflowing sink, a crack appearing in the kitchen floor beneath Rielle’s small, tantrum-throwing body.
All at once, she was four years old again, and her father still loved her.
“Papa,” she whispered, “I was so frightened.”
“I know.” He wiped her tears with callused fingers. The implacable Lord Commander of the Celdarian army was gone, and in his place was a mere aging father. “He won’t hurt you again.”
King Bastien, standing before the council table, cleared his throat. “Lady Rielle.”
She turned to face the king, but her father remained at her side, and despite everything, a part of Rielle’s heart she had thought long dead swelled with joy.
“Yes, my king.” She curtsied. “I must apologize for my treatment of Lord Dervin.”
“No, indeed you must not.” The king’s face was grave. “Lord Dervin has been found guilty of attempted assassination and is being sent home to Belbrion, under house arrest for the remainder of his days. He and his accomplices will never again set foot in this castle.”
Rielle immediately looked past the king to Queen Genoveve, rigid in her chair, and then to Ludivine, who sat in the corner with her hands held tightly in her lap. Audric stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
When Ludivine’s red-rimmed eyes met her own, Rielle had to look away.
“I…I don’t know what to say, my king,” she said quietly. “I cannot be glad for it, and yet I must thank you.”
But you are glad for it, Corien murmured. In fact, you wish you’d kept going, don’t you? You wish you’d squeezed your fist closed, popped his head right off.
I don’t.
His voice was low and angry: Don’t lie to me, Rielle.
She flinched at the sound; it came like a sharp slap.
King Bastien’s smile was tight but genuine. “I am glad you are safe, Lady Rielle,” he said, taking his chair. “Now, the Archon has an additional piece of news for you.”
The Archon rose from his seat. Rielle looked at once to Tal, who was trying unsuccessfully to hide his smile.
Beside him, Sloane scowled and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Lady Rielle,” the Archon began, “it is the unanimous decision of the Magisterial Council, including myself, that, given recent events, we shall forgo the remaining two trials and now begin the canonization process.”
Rielle stared at him, silence gathering around her in thick spools until she at last managed to say, “But…what does that mean?”
“This means, Lady Rielle, that you have demonstrated tremendous control and power throughout your trials thus far—”
“And that,” interrupted Grand Magister Duval with a broad grin, “by surviving a fall off a mountain and arriving back home not only alive but with a flying godsbeast, you have more than fulfilled the requirements of the wind trial.”
The Archon sniffed. “In short, Lady Rielle, in the eyes of the Church, you are indeed and inarguably the Sun Queen as foretold by the angel Aryava, and therefore will be accorded all protections and privileges that are due you as a symbol of the Church and the protector of Celdaria.”
As Rielle listened to him speak, her heart pounded harder and faster until it felt ready to burst from her chest.
No more trials.
No more training.
No more dark rooms or hiding herself away.
All of this, and a kingdom full of people—a world full of people—cheering her on.
But would that be enough? Were five trials—four if she counted shadow and sun as one—and a fall off a mountain sufficient to claim her crown?
Some people would be satisfied with that, but not all.
Some would insist she fight the only remaining element she had not faced.
Fire.
She glanced at Tal, saw him wat
ching her carefully. A thrill of her oldest, deepest terror raced across her skin.
Tal nodded, his mouth in a grim line but his gaze soft.
“…of course,” the Archon was saying, “I must still discuss what has happened with the other churches of the world. But stories of your trials have already spread so far and so quickly that I doubt I will have trouble convincing them of what and who you are. You will visit them, if you must, to prove yourself. Or they will come here, and we will show them that any doubts they may have are baseless.”
Beside Rielle, her father bristled. “Must she be paraded around like a prize horse?”
But Rielle hardly heard them.
She could hear only her mother:
Rielle, darling, please help your father put the fire out.
Rielle, it’s time for bed.
Rielle, I’m not going to ask you again!
She opened her eyes. Breathing in, she smelled the smoke of her parents’ house crumbling to ashes, heard the horrible choked sounds of her father sobbing over his wife’s body.
Corien’s words were gentle: You are not your mother. The flames, if you face them, will not hurt you.
Rielle’s breath snagged on tears she would not allow to fall. Hurting myself is not what I’m afraid of.
The Archon was addressing Rielle’s father. “I cannot say what the other churches will require of her. But rest assured, Lord Commander, that whatever they request will have to go through me before it so much as touches your daughter’s hem.”
“This also means, Lady Rielle,” said King Bastien, “that once you are anointed Sun Queen, you will take on not only the privileges of the position but also the responsibilities. You understand what this means.”
Rielle shook her head. “No. I don’t agree to this.”
“I beg your pardon?” asked the king.
“I’ll accept your generous offer regarding the wind trial, my king,” she said. “I survived my fall; I’ve suffered the wind’s wrath. Fine. But”—she looked to Tal, imploring—“I must complete the fire trial.”
The Archon frowned. “But, Lady Rielle, we have decided that is not necessary.”
“Forgive me, Your Holiness,” interrupted Tal, “but Lady Rielle is right.” He gave her a small smile, then addressed the king. “Some in the world will be satisfied with four trials and a fall off a mountain. But not all. Some will insist Rielle fight the only element she has not yet faced. And that is fire.”
Furyborn Page 33
