And he didn’t want to.
He spoke to Ludivine only once, after she convinced him to stop in a small wood near the southern shores of Celdaria. They had to fly carefully, and only at night. Audric had allowed Ludivine to dictate the terms of their travel, too weary and heartsick to protest. It was soothing to be directed and carried. Directed by an angel, carried by a godsbeast.
Again, he laughed. Each time he did, Ludivine’s concern butted gently against him like that of a fussing mother. Several times, he considered turning around, shoving her off Atheria, and watching her plunge through the clouds to the ground. The only thing that stopped him was the hope that she might be useful in finding Rielle and convincing her to come home.
A callous, selfish thought, perhaps. He hoped Ludivine could sense it. He hoped it sat as heavily on her heart as his last memories of Rielle sat on his. He hoped it suffocated her.
Atheria alighted soundlessly in a grove of oaks and shook out her wings. Audric felt her great black eyes watching him as he stood between two gnarled trunks and looked north, toward home.
Ludivine touched his arm. “You didn’t abandon them.”
“I did,” he said flatly. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
“If you had stayed, Merovec would have killed you.”
His grip on Illumenor’s hilt tightened. “I can protect myself.”
“Of course, but that is something we could not have risked.”
He rounded on her. “Why? Because with me dead, you would have had to work harder to bring Rielle home?”
Ludivine’s pale gaze was steady. “It would have broken my heart to lose you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It is nevertheless true.”
“Surely you don’t expect me to believe that anything you say is true.”
She watched him quietly for a moment, perhaps hoping that her steady silence would wear him down, that he would apologize for his unkindness, that he would draw her into his arms and kiss her brow as he had always done.
But instead, he watched her with the patience of a mountain until she was the one to look away and sink heavily onto the grass.
“I have made a grave error somewhere,” she muttered, “but I cannot see it.”
“Your error was in thinking you could control us like pieces in a strategy game,” Audric snapped. “You thought you could scheme with Rielle, keep her all to yourself, and still protect her from him somehow. You convinced her to hide the truth from me, and you ushered her through the trials, and you encouraged her to practice the art of resurrection, which is exactly what he wants of her, and you did all of this without consulting anyone.”
As he spoke, he grew angrier. His fury did not erupt, but rather overflowed steadily. The world was a whirl of dim light and roaring sound, but he stayed put where he stood and breathed through the heat of his anger.
His fight with Rielle was too fresh for him to make the same mistake twice and push away his strongest ally in the war for Rielle’s allegiance.
If it could even still be won.
And the fact that he had to think of such things—Rielle’s allegiance, as if she owed that to him or anyone—disgusted him so thoroughly that he realized with a swift, quiet turn of understanding that he hated himself utterly.
He stared down at Ludivine, steeling his heart against the sight of her sitting there with slumped shoulders, staring bleakly at nothing, a lock of mussed golden hair come loose from its crown of braids.
“All those months ago, when the Borsvall soldiers ambushed me during the Boon Chase,” Audric said, “and Rielle lost control of her power while saving me—you could have stopped her then, isn’t that right? You could have entered her mind and subdued her, kept her power secret. She would not have been found out. No trials, no Sun Queen.”
“I could not allow you to die,” Ludivine said hollowly.
He waited a beat, then crouched before her. “Because you love me?”
“Because Rielle loves you.”
The words gutted him. Did she still? He might never know. “Because you wanted her to love me. You wanted us to love one another, and wed, and you wanted us to have children, maybe, for each of these things would have bound her more securely to me, to the crown. To you.”
Ludivine flinched. “Because if you had died, it would have broken her heart.”
“And in her heartbroken state, she might have done something rash. Fallen into the arms of one ready to soothe her grief. As she has now done, despite all your efforts.”
“I didn’t—”
“Perhaps you could even have stopped the assassins themselves in their tracks.” He realized it for the first time, baffled that it had never occurred to him before. Had she prevented him from deducing the truth? “But you didn’t stop them, because you wanted Rielle’s power to erupt. You wanted her to start exploring it. Why?”
Helplessly, Ludivine opened her mouth and shut it again, her pale, slender hands clenched on her thighs. “It’s not as simple as that, Audric—”
“And if you had told me the truth about my father’s death,” he interrupted, “I could have helped her. I could have helped you. We could have been a united front, you and I. All her fears, all the guilt she carried after what happened at the fire trial. Those last minutes with her father. The nightmares that no doubt plagued her—her own, and Corien’s too. I could have helped her bear every one of those burdens. But you denied me that choice. And you denied her the comfort I would have given her, the peace I could have helped her find.”
Ludivine’s eyes shone with tears. “I did what I thought was best.”
“You’re a fool,” he said harshly. “Selfish and prideful. If not for you, she might still be with us.”
Atheria knelt at his approach. He mounted her without saying another word and waited for Ludivine to climb up behind him. She settled herself between the godsbeast’s massive black-tipped wings and took a shuddering breath.
“I won’t apologize,” Ludivine whispered once they were in the air. The wind nearly swallowed her words.
“Nor should you ever again try to convince me that you did it all for love,” Audric said. “If I hear that once more, I’ll be through with you. I’m nearly there already.”
Atheria took them swiftly across the sky. Each feathered pulse of her wings was a low, soft drumbeat that shook Audric’s chest.
He did not speak to Ludivine again.
• • •
The coast of Mazabat appeared first as a white sliver on the horizon, an unsteady smile capping the glittering winter sea.
As they approached, Audric saw the grim truth of what Mazabat had endured since Rielle’s visit months before: an endless barrage of storms, all of them rippling out from the weakening Gate. Eroded beaches strewn with debris stretched from horizon to horizon. Beyond the coast, miles of forest had been leveled by wind, and the city of Quelbani looked half-made with many of its towers toppled and even the larger temples stripped of their roofs and windows.
Examining the ruined landscape, his heart sinking, Audric didn’t notice the people lining the outermost crest of beach until the sky exploded into flame.
Atheria swerved, her wings pounding the air sharply to redirect their course, and let out a fierce scream of anger.
Audric wound his hands into her mane and squinted through the brilliance. A field of fiery starbursts hovered along the shore as far as he could see in either direction. There were so many, and they were so close together, shifting restlessly like trapped fireflies, that they formed a net, effectively blocking Atheria’s approach.
Only a single narrow aisle of empty air was left untouched—a corridor guiding them to shore.
“They’re controlling our descent,” observed Ludivine.
“I don’t blame them,” he replied, and stroked the arch
of Atheria’s neck. “Go on.”
She snorted, her long ears flattening back against her skull. He could feel her muscles trembling with the effort of hovering there, as if treading water.
Closing his eyes, Audric concentrated on the sunlight caressing his scalp, the back of his neck, his fingers clutching Atheria’s mane. He leaned down, pressed his cheek against the chavaile’s velvet neck.
“I trust you, Atheria,” he told her quietly. He held his palms flat against her coat, imagining that he could send all the channels of power weaving through his body—even those he could not sense—into Atheria’s own. He was no angel, nor was he Rielle, who seemed to converse with Atheria as easily as she would with any person.
But then, Atheria was no horse. She was a godsbeast, superior to them all, closer to the empirium than anyone or anything except, perhaps, for Rielle. He hoped she could somehow understand him, feel reassured by his trust in her.
“If danger awaits us on the shore,” he continued, “then you may certainly turn away at once and carry us to safety.” Feeling foolish, he added, “Do you understand?”
Atheria’s ears swiveled, forward and back, as if listening to a world of sound his own ears could not detect, and then, after another moment of hesitation, she plunged down toward the sea, following the path the Mazabatians’ fire had made for them.
For the first time since his wedding night, Audric felt something other than despair—a small spark of joy, weak and flickering, quickly snuffed out.
• • •
They waited on the beach—an orderly arrangement of royal soldiers some two hundred strong. Fifty were firebrands, their arms trembling with exertion as together they held fast the net of fire stretching along the coastline.
As soon as Atheria’s hooves touched the sand, the firebrands lowered their castings and staggered. Some collapsed. Audric was not surprised; such a display of unwavering power was not easily managed even by the most skilled elementals—not anymore, in this quiet age. Healers in white robes rushed forward to tend to the firebrands, and as Audric watched them, he thought of Rielle, of the brilliant web of power she had created to stop the tidal wave from destroying the Borsvallic capital of Styrdalleen.
Hers had been a shield even more massive and dazzling than this display created by fifty firebrands combined—and after, she had not collapsed. She had been tired, yes, but she had stood strong and tall, and her eyes had glittered, and she had moved toward him with a supple, languid grace as the people of Styrdalleen cried out in adulation.
Audric tried to push these thoughts of Rielle aside and failed. She would forever be a refrain cycling under the surface of his every thought, his every word. He could see her so clearly—smell her, feel her—that for a moment he could not move, the colossal weight of his anguish pulling at him like a dark tide.
Atheria shifted, whickering softly.
Audric forced himself to dismount and held up his hands. Hundreds of eyes followed him; raised bows and nocked arrows and brandished castings tracked his every movement. The air shimmered with contained elemental power, as if the beach were a heat mirage.
“Will your firebrands be well?” Audric called out.
A nearby soldier, her lapel decorated with an array of jewel-colored medals, her dark curly hair clipped short and neat, stepped out of the ranks. Audric guessed she was a commander.
“Drop your casting, Lightbringer,” she ordered. “And please be reminded that you are vastly outnumbered here and that the rules of extradition do not apply to deposed kings. It is only due to the generosity of Queen Bazati and Queen Fozeyah that you have been allowed entry to our country.”
He obeyed, lowering Illumenor to the ground. “I understand. And I must express my deepest sadness about the damage these recent months have brought to your beautiful city.”
The commander said nothing. Her proud eyes cut to Ludivine. “Lady Sauvillier. It is your brother who now sits on the Celdarian throne.”
“As surely as no elemental power runs in my veins,” Ludivine replied, stepping forward with her palms raised, “so does my loyalty lie only with my true king, Audric Courverie.”
“That will do,” said a deep, rich voice, and then the wall of soldiers parted to reveal a brown-skinned woman in a gown of vivid azure. Her long black hair cascaded down her back in coarse ringlets. Sweeps of amber and cerulean highlighted her grave brown eyes, and around her neck she wore a heavy triangular pendant on a golden chain.
“Queen Bazati.” Audric knelt in the sand. “I thank you for allowing Lady Ludivine and myself to land on your shores, and I would like to make a formal request for asylum. Though I know the news from Celdaria is alarming, I hope you will remember the centuries of friendship our two nations have enjoyed—”
“Oh, get up.” Queen Bazati of the royal house of Asdalla helped him rise, then drew him into a fierce embrace. “You ate at my family’s table when you were hardly higher than my knee. Once, if you’ll recall, you threw up on my temple gown right in the middle of prayers after you stole a whole sack of sweets from my kitchen.”
He managed a small smile as she pulled away from him. “Then I suppose my request for asylum is granted? I promise not to get sick on any of your gowns.”
The queen did not return his smile. Instead, she searched his face for a long moment, then shook her head. “What happened, Audric?”
The compassion in her voice opened a chasm between his ribs, and for the first time since he had awoken alone in the gardens—Rielle gone, and the captain of his guard bearing down on him with disgust and hatred flaring bright in his eyes—Audric felt the hot press of tears.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Nothing good, Your Majesty.”
She nodded and hooked her arm through his. Her gaze flickered once to Ludivine, and Audric thought he read displeasure in her expression, as if she wished he had arrived in Mazabat alone.
A sentiment to which he could certainly relate.
“I’ll have rooms in the royal wing made up for you,” she said to him as they walked up the beach toward the shredded tree line and the white stone roads of Quelbani beyond. Citizens sorted through piles of rubble, and crews of builders worked on high scaffolding to repair stripped stone facades, but still the city shone as if no wind could hope to dull its light. As a boy, Audric had relished his family’s trips to the Mazabatian capital, for its reputation as a place of scholars, research, and the medicinal arts was unrivaled, its libraries the grandest in the world since the angelic libraries on the southern continent of Patria had been destroyed during the Angelic Wars.
But now, as the sounds of the bustling city met his ears, he found himself wishing, with a longing so simple and keen that it stole his breath, that he could turn around and go home.
Never had he imagined not having a home to return to.
• • •
The apartment the queens had prepared for him was airy and simply but luxuriously appointed—walls of whitewashed stone, trailing ferns of lilac and forest green hanging from the ceiling in brass pots, wind chimes singing merrily from the balconies.
He declined the queens’ invitation to supper as politely as possible and was glad when Ludivine retreated without a word to her own chambers down the corridor.
The sun was setting. Beyond his windows, which had been thrown open to admit the cool night air, the sky was dim with tangerine light, its clouds tinted lavender and rose.
He was alone.
He watched the sky for as long as he could remain standing, and then he began to shake from his tense shoulders down to his aching calves. The exhaustion and numbness of those long days traveling aboard Atheria were coming to claim him at last, but the sight of his bed was unbearable. Clean and neat and white, the headboard a masterwork of stained teak carvings and polished blue stone, it was lovely and inviting, but it was not his.
It
was a stranger’s bed, slept in by countless dignitaries over the years. His own bed was at home, in Baingarde, and had cocooned him as he moved with Rielle in the deep hours of the night, when everything else was still.
Outside, on one of the broad terraces, Atheria touched down with a cheerful little chirp, her mouth full of feathers. She had caught a hawk for supper.
It was the sight of her that undid him.
His grief slammed into him like the tidal wave he had watched Rielle subdue. He couldn’t tear the image of her from his mind—a glowing savior, a fire-limned queen riding her immortal steed to save the world.
“Oh, God,” he choked out, sinking to his knees, and then all at once, his fury, sorrow, and regret burst up his body, from belly to chest to throat, and he threw his head back and screamed, his arms rigid at his sides.
Quickly, his sobs rose up to claim his voice, and he wept there on the soft white rug, his hands buried in his dark curls. His chest was an agony of pain, as if a blade had cleaved it in two.
He would not have minded if that happened. He could not imagine waking up the next day, and the next, and the next, in this place that was not his home, his throne taken from him and his own, his love, his Rielle gone from him, driven away by his own anger, his stupid, vicious jealousy, his wounded pride.
He did not hear the door open, nor did he hear Ludivine pad barefooted across the floor. He did not realize hours had passed, that the sky was dark, or that he was hungry, shivering on the floor. That he was so tired his bones ached, or that Atheria was pacing in a frenzy of worry on the terrace, chirping like an agitated bird.
But when Ludivine sat beside him and opened her arms, he turned into her, seeking comfort as blindly as a child. She did not send him any reassurances with her mind, and for that he was grateful.
He held on to her, his sobs raw and heaving. He felt Ludivine’s lips in his hair.
“I’m so sorry, Audric,” she whispered against his temple, her words thick with tears. She stroked his damp curls, said his name again and again.
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