Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  Evyline lurched forward. “My king, no!”

  But Atheria had already pushed off into the wild air, and soon the terrace was far behind them. The chavaile dove through the rain and wind, dodging chunks of debris—uprooted trees, shattered wooden shutters, shards of roof tiles, black sprays of dirt and rock. As they flew, Audric surveyed the devastation below. Churning water surged through the flooded streets, carrying wreckage and drowned animals. The citizens of Quelbani climbed frantically for higher ground.

  Atheria brought them to a broad stretch of road that had become the new shoreline, littered with seaweed, shells, and beached fish. Queen Bazati and Queen Fozeyah directed squadrons of elementals. Earthshakers struggled to stabilize the sodden ground. Windsingers, arms in the air, wrangled what wind they could.

  And Princess Kamayin, her gown plastered to her body, the castings around her wrists flashing like trapped stars, shouted orders to a band of waterworkers gathered in a triangle. Their efforts subdued a crashing wave, shoving it back toward the sea—but more waves were just behind it, relentless and raging, and though Kamayin’s elementals fought valiantly, a helpless panic was writ plain on their faces.

  They knew this was not a storm of the natural world.

  They knew they might not survive it.

  Audric guided Atheria down to land beside the queens, then leapt to the ground and drew Illumenor. The sun was distant, diminished by the storm and the late hour, but Audric nevertheless felt light everywhere around him. The infinite, familiar warmth of it, forever bright beyond the clouds, tugged at his heart like the rhythm of a long-beloved song.

  As he focused on the connection between him and the light, on the power speeding faster and faster through his body, Illumenor began to glow. And when it had reached a brilliant shine, Audric released the tension in his body, directed his power outward, and cast broad rays of sunlight in a circle, himself the blazing heart.

  He held the light in place, his mind gripping the vibrating reins of his power. The heat turned the rain to steam before it could hit the ground, and while standing within the bounds of Audric’s light, the elementals nearest him could wipe their faces and catch their breaths.

  As he held his power steady, Audric glanced to his left and noticed Sanya, the soldier who had confronted him in the training yard. She was not, it seemed, an elemental. Instead, she was working with other soldiers to build high piles of debris and canvas bags filled with sand.

  “Sanya!” he called out. “Bring me chains, rope—anything that can hold against the wind. The strongest things you can find!”

  Sanya, her face screwed up against the lashing rain, leapt to obey, calling others to help her.

  Kamayin rushed over, the castings around her wrists still faintly aglow, her soaked brown skin gleaming in Audric’s casted light. Beyond her, the queens continued shouting commands.

  “What are you planning?” Kamayin cried.

  Audric yelled to be heard. “I think I can break apart the storm.”

  Kamayin’s gaze flitted over his sword, his arms. “You’re strong enough for that?”

  An image flashed into his mind—Rielle riding Atheria out to meet the tidal wave that threatened Borsvall’s shores. How brilliantly she had burned against that dark wall of water, a beacon of hope for everyone who saw her.

  He held the image close, aching with love. “I can do it. Lu, help them as you can. Focus their minds, boost their confidence.”

  He expected her to protest, but she simply nodded, her pale eyes grave, locks of gold hair gone dark against her cheeks.

  A burst of screams made Kamayin turn and cry out in despair.

  Audric glanced back in time to see a massive wave bearing down on a section of beach some thousand yards away. The wave crested with a roar and then crashed down hard, flattening everything in its path.

  “Here!” Sanya rushed over along with another soldier. Between them, they carried a length of huge, sand-crusted chain and a coil of sodden rope.

  Audric called out to everyone gathered, “I’m going to release the light! Prepare yourselves!”

  Elementals and soldiers alike turned back toward the storm, their expressions resolute. The windsingers raised their arms, and Audric felt the air tighten as they focused their power.

  Then he released his hold on his own. Illumenor darkened, as did the beach. The rain crashed back down, and the soldiers resumed constructing their wall.

  Audric climbed onto Atheria, shouting over the rain and wind, “The chain! Tie it around us! Tight, but not enough to hurt her!”

  Sanya and the other soldier, Kamayin, and Ludivine all hurried forward, helping Audric wrap the lengths of chain around his legs and waist and around Atheria’s stomach until he was anchored snugly in place between her trembling wings.

  Then, reading his intentions, Atheria knelt, looked over at Sanya, and snorted.

  Sanya hesitated, clutching the coil of rope in her hands. “My lord…the storm will blow your godsbeast from the sky.”

  Audric raised his hands, Illumenor gripped between them. “As tight as you can, Sanya. Tighter than you think you should.”

  Sanya shot him a single worried look, then hurried to obey, wrapping the rope several times around his hands and Illumenor’s hilt, so tightly his hands bloomed with pain.

  More screams rose from behind him, at the city’s edge, but he did not turn back to look.

  Ludivine sent him a sharp hot wave of encouragement. Go, my darling.

  Audric closed his eyes, sending Atheria a silent apology.

  “With the dawn I rise,” he prayed. “With the day I blaze.”

  Then he roared, “Fly!” and Atheria pushed hard off the sand and into the air—where the wind immediately knocked them violently to the side. Atheria recovered fast, her wings beating furiously.

  The storm was immeasurable, colossal. Wind howled and wailed, pounding against them as the waves below battered the shore. Atheria fought hard to stay aloft, bowing her head against the wind. Feathers were ripped from her wings and went spinning off into the clouds. Her body quaked beneath him, and he knew a lesser creature would already have been decimated.

  Ahead of them towered a black wall of clouds, lit with lightning.

  Past that, said Ludivine in his mind, lies the eye of the storm. It is calmer than the rest.

  Audric closed his eyes, forcing past the fear racking his body to focus his thoughts and envision the task ahead. It was a wild theory, one that was very possibly wrong: that a burst of raw power, if it was strong enough, if it struck true, could shift the empirium itself and break apart the storm at its foundations.

  Such an act could also kill him. If he threw every scrap of his power at the storm, what would be left of him without it?

  But he could not dwell on thoughts of death. Instead, Audric imagined himself and Atheria flying through that thick wall of clouds, then bursting into light and safety on the other side.

  And the vision of Rielle stayed with him like a swell of warmth in his heart—she and Atheria, a small starburst of light fighting that raging wall of water in the Northern Sea.

  Audric forced open his eyes and saw nothing but furious black clouds. A blast of wind slammed into Atheria, knocking their course askew and sending Audric’s stomach down to his toes. But then Atheria pushed herself back up, battling the wind’s relentless fists.

  A bolt of lightning erupted so close that Audric’s head rang with the crackling heat of it. His teeth ached, and his mouth and nose filled with a sour, hot smell that reminded him of the acrid stench that had scorched the air when Rielle had tried and failed to mend the Gate.

  His body buzzed with energy that was not his own. It came from the storm, this Gate-made hurricane. It raged against his skin, it burned his lungs, and he began to fear that he had made a terrible mistake, that whatever he could do would not possibl
y be enough in the face of such godly power. The Gate was made in a time of bloodshed and desperation. This storm’s very nature, its lineage, was that of fury.

  Shakily, he reached out with his mind. Lu?

  I’m here, came her steady voice. And so are you, Lightbringer. Show yourself.

  Audric closed his eyes once more, sucked in a breath, and thrust his hands into the air, Illumenor clutched tightly between them.

  Immediately, the wind caught the broad blade and sent them spinning until Atheria righted them and pushed forward with a piercing cry.

  Audric, his head reeling as if he had been struck, faced the spitting clouds and began to pray. With the dawn I rise.

  Memories flooded him: himself as a child, training in the royal gardens with Magister Guillory, every fern and pine of that shadowed green world ornamented with sunbursts he had pulled down from the sky.

  With the day I blaze.

  His eight-year-old hands, pudgy and sweaty but nevertheless steady in the air, keeping those countless lights suspended and slowly turning. Nearby, watching proudly, his mother and father, arm in arm.

  And now, even caught in the thrashing storm, Audric felt the sunlight rising around him, responding to the call of his power. Illumenor blazed in his hands, so bright he could no longer see past it. Its brilliance was his entire world, and it burned its shape into his eyes.

  Then a concentrated gust of wind burst to life behind them, pushing them forward into the black wall of clouds.

  With the dawn I rise.

  He realized, as the Sun Rite raced through his thoughts, that the push of wind had been too precise, too focused, to be natural. And the feeling of it—teeming with hope and gratitude, vibrating with power—confirmed his guess.

  The windsingers down below had sent this wind to him. Together, they had mustered up enough power to help him and Atheria make this last desperate push.

  With the day I blaze, Audric thought, his hands tingling with power, and when he and Atheria burst through the wall of clouds and into the storm’s eye, his relief was so immense that he cried out, and his power erupted with joy. Energy coursed through him, so violent and vivid that he felt certain it would tear him in two. He imagined the full breadth of the storm, sprawling black and angry over the sea, and the infinite layers of the empirium that wove through it like panes of golden glass. They touched the clouds and the lightning, the blade in his hands, the power in his veins. Broad spears of light exploded from Illumenor, and the world blazed white and hot.

  In the ringing silence that followed, his vision slowly returned to him, though his head pounded with pain that blacked out half the world. Dimly, he realized that Atheria was flying desperately back to shore. He looked around, blinking darkness from his eyes. The storm had lost cohesion, its clouds scattered and quickly disintegrating. Calm winds rushed past him, cooling his scorched cheeks as Atheria bolted over the water.

  He felt a dull ache pounding up his arms and looked down at his hands.

  Illumenor’s hilt glistened with blood. His palms screamed with a blistering agony so ferocious it stabbed his teeth.

  Ludivine reached for him, the gentle wash of her tenderness muting all sensation. Soon, he could feel no pain.

  You can let go, Audric, she told him. They’re safe.

  He did, letting his arms drop. Swaying on Atheria’s back, woozy, he watched firewheels of color spin before his eyes. He wondered if he was dying, if he would ever see Rielle again, and what she would think when she learned what he had done. Then he collapsed against Atheria’s neck.

  • • •

  Gently, at the sound of a familiar voice calling his name, Audric began to stir, and he only let himself rise to wakefulness because the voice was Rielle’s.

  He followed it skyward, pushing through the painful weight that pressed against him, this pressure that wanted to bury him. An immensity of exhaustion.

  Then he saw her—his love, his Rielle, dressed in white, her hair loose and her face shining with love. She reached for him; she bid him climb.

  But when Audric opened his eyes, her name on his lips, the vision vanished. It was only Ludivine looking down at him. She sat beside him on the bed, her eyes shining with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had to wake you. I couldn’t wait any longer to see your eyes again.”

  Audric turned away from her. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Ludivine came around the bed to sit beside him. Gently cradling one of his bandaged hands, she raised his wrist to her lips and kissed it.

  “You did it,” she whispered. “The storm broke. Your power shattered it. You unmade it, Lightbringer. The sea is calm. You saved the city.”

  Audric breathed until his grief loosened its black hold. A question came to him, even as his heart still ached.

  Ludivine smiled softly, reading his question. “Yes. Yes, Audric. They all saw you do it. They watched Atheria fly. It was like nothing they had ever seen. They stood on the beach, and the elementals felt it the moment your power erupted. The shock of it sang through their bodies and sent their own power blazing. They told the soldiers, and the soldiers told the people, and now the city speaks of you and the saints in the same breath.” She touched his face, and he was so tired that he forgot to be angry with her and pressed his cheek into her palm.

  Ludivine trembled as she kissed his brow. “Now, come. They’re waiting for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone.”

  A small hope sparked inside him, drawing him to his feet. He allowed Ludivine to help him dress. All the while, he gazed at his hands, then sent her a silent inquiry.

  “They will heal,” she replied gently. “The queen’s personal physicians treated you. They are enormously skilled, and say the empirium seems to be aiding their own treatment. They say that within a week you will be able to take off the bandages. Within two, you will hold Illumenor once more.”

  He nodded, wobbly and cotton-mouthed. He leaned hard against Ludivine as they proceeded downstairs, Evyline and the Sun Guard just behind them. When they reached the Senate hall, Audric pulled gently away from Ludivine, ready to walk on his own.

  But then the doors opened, and Audric stared, his pulse rising fast, for not only had the entire Senate gathered—all two hundred members, robed in the colors of their districts—but so had their aides, their advisers, the Magisterial Council. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians. As he passed General Rakallo, she placed her hand on her chest and bowed low. They were all bowing. They sank to their knees, touched their lips, chests, and foreheads in prayer.

  On the room’s central dais, the queens rose from their seats. Princess Kamayin, beaming, came forward and pinned to Audric’s lapel a blue iris—one of the most prized flowers in Mazabat and the symbol of the crown.

  The high speaker of the Senate stepped forward with a scroll in her hands, and Audric listened in weary shock as her voice rang through the hall.

  “On the matter of the petition of King Audric Courverie of the nation of Celdaria,” said the speaker, “who has requested military aid to invade that country’s capital and oust the usurper, Merovec Sauvillier, with the far-reaching objective of establishing a base of defense against potential angelic invaders, the Senate has decided to reconsider our previous decision. We have taken into consideration the counsel of our queens, the holy magisters, and the Mazabatian people, whose voices have bestowed upon us our seats of power.”

  The high speaker glanced up at Audric, her face unreadable. “We have also considered recent events, including the hurricane that nearly destroyed our capital and the actions of the Celdarian king in that moment of crisis—actions that could have cost him his life.”

  She paused. “Our final vote is unanimous. We hereby move that the Celdarian petition be revisited and accepted and that the crown approve the king’s request for military aid�
��first for the purpose of reclaiming the Celdarian throne, but more importantly, to provide assistance in the war against the angel Corien and any conflicts that may follow thereafter.”

  Then the high speaker presented her scroll to the queens, rolling it out flat on a stand of polished wood, and at last gave Audric a small smile.

  “If you concur with this motion to approve the Celdarian petition, my queens,” said the speaker, “your signatures will confirm our vote.”

  Queen Bazati stepped forward, her head held high, and signed the paper with a flourish. Then Queen Fozeyah added her own name with a broad smile.

  Kamayin rushed to Audric and threw her arms around him, and he watched over her shoulder, his head roaring with disbelief, as everyone in the hall rose to their feet and erupted into thunderous applause.

  21

  Jessamyn

  “To the white towers of Elysium—to these I pledge my every bone. To the glory that once was and the glory that will be—to this I offer my every sinew. To Him, the Light Undying, I devote every inch of my flesh.”

  —From the initiation rites of novitiates to the order of Invictus

  Jessamyn ducked Nevia’s fighting staff as it cut through the air, then shot back up and met the staff with her own.

  Fighting was good. Fighting helped her forget the horrible thing she had done.

  For nearly an hour straight, she had been fighting with Nevia in one of the Lyceum’s sparring yards. She refused to stop, not even to wipe her face, which was lucky, because Nevia had a reputation for ruthlessness and would not have agreed to rest.

  That ruthlessness was why Jessamyn had left Remy in her room in the middle of his lesson, marched into the barracks, and tossed a staff to Nevia, which had made the older woman grin in her wolfish way.

  Now they fought, the yard’s doors and windows lined with onlookers. Recruits with their own staffs at the ready, eager to jump in should Jessamyn relent. But Jessamyn could not possibly relent.