Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  Power coursed through her, an ageless current that turned her blood blazing hot and shook her bones. She gripped the fabric of the empirium, marveling at how thick it was here at the Gate, how tightly bound, how desperate for release. It rippled like the flank of some great beast. She pushed away from her body, and with each gained inch, lightning burst from the Gate, striking her again and again—her brow, her chest, her hips. Her belly, where her child grew.

  Unexpected, the desperate fear that lashed her heart.

  Do not let her die, she told the empirium as the Gate burned her, and she thought she felt within its thunderous hunger a reassurance, sent from nowhere and everywhere:

  she will rise

  A girl, then, as she had guessed. Rielle smiled as she opened the Gate wide, rending asunder all that the saints had spilled so much blood to achieve. She pushed and tore until she stood in the Gate’s mouth, her rigid arms outstretched and her head flung back to the skies. Furious tides of power ripped through her every seam and remade them with stitches of gold.

  A howl rose above her, as if all the winds had gathered in celebration.

  Rielle barely managed to open her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. But even blurred, the escaping angels were glorious—a swift cascade of shadow, the echoes of jointed black wings.

  They poured from the Gate’s light, a river unleashed. Some touched her as they flew, with their minds and their supple cool nothingness. A barrage of frenzied gratitude, of triumphant rage, and Rielle shook as they coursed past her. Images pelted her: The flutter of glossy wings, flares of light joining them to bodies sleek and gleaming as seals. Hair that flowed like silver streams. Towering cities capped with spiraling turrets.

  How long she stood there, Rielle could not measure. When at last she fell to her hands and knees, she lay weeping, smiling through her tears. Her body vibrated with a thousand bruises; her skin hissed with fire. And yet she was alive, and her hands were bare, and there was the proof of what she was: to do this monstrous thing, she had needed only her own self.

  Corien was frantic when he came for her. Though she felt his pride in her, his dazzling joy at the sight of his freed people, she heard that little hitch in his heart, the fear that betrayed him.

  My love, my beauty, he crooned, sending comfort to her. His thoughts cooled her, a false poultice for her burns. He sent her an image: his flesh-and-blood self, his beautiful stolen body, blazing toward her across the Northern Sea on a black ship. He was coming to bring her home.

  You did too much, he told her. Look at you, my glorious one. I’m almost there.

  I am more even than this, she replied, surprised by how her thoughts had deepened and coarsened, accommodating a different voice. She felt Corien startle and wondered through her euphoric haze of pain if on some future day, she would stop speaking altogether. If someday when she opened her mouth, the empirium alone would speak, her own voice consumed and silenced.

  23

  Eliana

  “Saint Ghovan the Fearless forged his casting on the high cliffs of western Ventera during a furious storm. The ocean was a far, wild thing, endless and terrible, and the forging fires were so great they burned his hands, but he held onto the pain, for it reminded him of the thing he was beginning to understand he must do. He had seen the darkness in his father’s eyes, the secrets in his father’s palace, and so he began to craft secrets of his own.”

  —The Book of the Saints

  Eliana dropped to the floor, drenched in sweat.

  She lay flat on the carpet and gulped down ragged breaths. Her head pounded along the searing paths where Corien had just been, a swift, booming drum of pain.

  He crouched beside her and smoothed the wet hair back from her face.

  “Let’s try again,” he told her kindly. “You were going to kill yourself. Then you stopped. Why?”

  It was difficult to find her voice. “I couldn’t leave Remy. He wouldn’t understand.”

  “Liar. He would have. He’s not so changed that he no longer understands sacrifice for the greater good.” Corien’s voice twisted with mockery. “Tell me the truth.”

  Eliana closed her eyes. Her body shook, seized by feverish chills. “I can’t,” she whispered, which was the truth. Whenever she tried to think about what had happened, a confusion of shadows blocked her way. She reached for her thoughts, ready to arrange them so Corien could see, for if she had to face another day of this—his mind raging through hers, his black gaze relentless as she thrashed in pain on the floor—she would die.

  If only he would let her.

  But as always, the memories slipped from her grasp.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said again, and forced open her eyes to glare at him. A spark of defiance snapped inside her. She pressed her cold castings against the floor and relished the bite of their chains. “And even if I could, I wouldn’t. You can tear at me all you want. You’ll never find what you seek, and you’ll never see my mother again. She’s dead. I’m all you’ve got now, and I’ll fight you until one day you lose your temper and kill me. Then you’ll be alone forever.”

  She smiled, exhausted laughter bubbling in her throat. “An eternity trapped behind black eyes in a gray world full of broken magic you can’t touch, eating food you can’t taste and drinking wine that turns to ash on your tongue. Wondering every morning if this will be the day that finally tears you out of the body you stole and leaves you stranded, unable to take another. I don’t envy you. Poor thing.”

  Corien watched her for a long moment. The silence filled Eliana with a slowly climbing dread.

  “Please don’t,” she whispered, full of regret. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “You did, you awful bitch,” Corien said. “I hope it was satisfying.”

  Then he came for her again, his will hard and cold as a knife kept sharp for the hunt. It sliced through her skull and everything that lived there. It peeled her back, layer by layer, until she forgot her determination to fight and went rigid with animal screams.

  • • •

  At night, Eliana wept or lay in knots of pain. She sometimes slept, but sleep often brought visions from Corien, indescribable nightmares that left her convinced she had died, that the agony of her mind had at last killed her. Then she would realize she was still alive and feel frantic with despair.

  But her guard watched her closely, and Jessamyn—red-eyed, her skin strangely wan, as if she too were finding sleep elusive—no longer carried her knives. They were all careful to present her with nothing she could make into a weapon. She ate every meal with her hands.

  Occasionally, a faint whisper of thought brushed against her, and she remembered that a voice had spoken to her kindly, that a gentle mind had stayed her hand that day.

  She dismissed it as delusion.

  There was nothing kind or gentle left in her world.

  • • •

  Awaken, said the voice in Eliana’s dreams, but slowly.

  She walked along a flat gray beach, scattering sheets of sea foam. Carefully she edged into the water until it closed over her head.

  Her eyes opened.

  She was in her rooms in Corien’s palace, but there was a new stillness to them, a thick hush, and with it came a single tentative memory.

  Afraid to even think the word in case he should hear, she sent out the question nevertheless: Prophet?

  I am here, answered the voice, the very same one as before. We must move quietly, Eliana. I cannot be with you for long. Not yet.

  Eliana lay like a stone in her bed; the damp sheets clung to her. The morning sun drenched the room, suffusing it with heat, but if she moved, he would find her.

  Where have you been? Living in Corien’s palace, his presence never far from her and her days filled with the tireless wrath of his mind, she now understood well the focus required for mind-speak. You stopped me from kill
ing myself. You said we had things to do. Then you left me.

  I know. The Prophet’s voice was neither masculine nor feminine. Soft but steady, it came to Eliana through layers of heavy silt. She sensed the Prophet was trying to hide. I am sorry for that. I had to stay away until his anger faded. I knew he would be looking for me after what happened that day.

  Corien’s name rose to the top of Eliana’s thoughts on a dull wave of fear.

  Careful, the Prophet cautioned. Do not think too closely of him when we speak. You may alert him to my presence if you do. If you must think of him at all, allow your thoughts to slide over the idea of him like water over rocks.

  But it was too late for sliding water. A drum of panic beat against Eliana’s ears, and all she could think of was his name. Corien. His thoughts squeezing like hard fingers inside her skull. Corien. His presence invading her dreams with flashing teeth and hands slick as snakes. Corien.

  He’s coming. The Prophet’s voice was already fading. I’m sorry. I will return, little one.

  Eliana felt the Prophet leave like a needle sliding free of its cushion. When Corien came, it wasn’t to hurt her. Silently, he crawled into her bed, wrapped her in his arms as a lover might, curled his body around hers.

  He held her for hours, crooning angelic lullabies against her neck. She resisted the urge to break away from him and fought the pull of sleep, thinking instead of a soft-water river flowing quietly across a bed of smooth gray stones. Soon, fuzzy and limp, she hardly noticed the black eyes burrowing into her skull from behind, like nesting beetles plump with eggs.

  • • •

  Awaken, but slowly.

  Eliana opened her eyes to see her rooms washed silver with moonlight.

  Will you show me your face, angel? It had been twelve days since she had last heard from the Prophet. She had made sure to keep count, a thing she had long ago given up, for each day had seemed an impossible burden.

  Now, each moment buzzed with anticipation as she waited for the Prophet to return, and the endless days felt lighter.

  Not yet, said the Prophet, voice full of regret. Let’s have a conversation, you and I. How long can we talk before he stirs, I wonder?

  What would you like to talk about? Eliana glanced at the adatrox flanking her door. Jessamyn was not there, but she would come in the morning. How each day I live on is a torment? How worn thin I have become in body and mind? How far my power feels from me now?

  I already know all of these things, said the Prophet gently. But if it would help you to tell me, please do.

  Eliana breathed in silence for several minutes. She imagined her little river running soft across its stones.

  Every day I imagine ending my life. She let the thought flow along the river’s calm current. You should have let me. You claim to be a friend of humans, but in fact you’ve doomed us all.

  It feels cruel to beg your patience, but I beg it nevertheless. The Prophet sent a feeling upstream, where it lapped against Eliana’s toes. It was too subtle to read clearly, but it warmed Eliana, and she imagined hiding forever inside it.

  What am I waiting for? What will we do?

  Unfortunately, we must move slowly. We must glide through the water between us and guard against any ripples that might wake the beast lying in the depths. Do you understand?

  Eliana settled carefully against her pillows, pretending sleep. And then? We move slowly, you said. Toward what?

  A beat of silence, and then the Prophet’s thoughts darted swift as silver minnows into the cracks of Eliana’s mind.

  A second chance.

  A shiver slipped down Eliana’s body. I don’t know what you mean.

  Tell me about home, the Prophet suggested. About Orline.

  I cannot. It hurts me. Too much death, too much sadness.

  But what about the good things? Tell me about Remy. About Harkan. Past the grief, there is light still, even if only in memory. Tell me about that light.

  Eliana waited several minutes before she could form a steady thought.

  When Remy was very small, she began, he was terrified of storms. I would wake to find him shivering beside me in my bed. Sometimes not even stories were enough, not even songs. One night we made a tent out of my quilt, strung it across a corner of the room with lengths of twine. Inside it, we piled blankets and pillows, his books, the shells Harkan had gathered for me when his father took him to the sea. It was a fortress, and inside it, no storm could touch us.

  As Eliana spoke, she settled into the embrace of the Prophet’s presence. So unlike Corien’s—firm, but never invasive. A froth brewing gently at the edges of her mind.

  Very good, said the Prophet, once Eliana fell into silence. Fifteen minutes. He is coming, but this was an excellent beginning. I will return, Eliana, when it’s safe. Trust me.

  How can I? Eliana whispered.

  But the Prophet had already gone.

  • • •

  The days between the Prophet’s visits stretched on like dark roads with no end. For weeks, they met in secret, and the carefully hidden memories of their conversations gave Eliana something to hold on to as Corien wrenched apart her thoughts, searching for a thing he could not find, trying to force from her a power she refused to touch.

  Forty-five minutes. An hour. Two hours, they managed, and then three, with no interference from Corien and her guards noticing nothing, until finally, one day, the Prophet said, Good. Now we move.

  • • •

  The first time, Eliana crept from one side of her room to the other, then bathed on her own for the first time since arriving in Elysium. She opened the doors to her rooms, her heart pounding, and peered out into the broad shadowed corridor that ran left to right. Arched white rafters soared over gleaming marble floors lined with pale carpets.

  During all of this, the adatrox remained motionless and quiet. Even Jessamyn seemed oblivious. Eliana stepped outside her rooms, barefoot, and waved her hand before Jessamyn’s face. Nothing.

  The Prophet guided her to an unused sitting room not far from hers, draped in fineries and hung with gold-framed paintings of angelic glory.

  Inside it, shielded by the Prophet’s calm presence, her heart a frantic bird in her chest, Eliana reached for her power with deliberate intent—not letting it erupt due to anger, not allowing her fear to overtake her reason and force out her power without her permission. It was the first time she had done so since arriving in Elysium, and her mind felt clumsy as it stretched and fumbled. She concentrated on the familiar lines of her castings, slender and cool around her hands and wrists. She pushed her thoughts out along the stone floor and into the air.

  A simple goal: move the air, command it to knock over the golden candlestick standing proud on its table.

  Simple, and yet she could not do it. The air remained still. Her power was used to hiding and felt reluctant to emerge from that deep place into which she had shoved it. A faint hum at the back of her mind, a slow tingle along the lines of her palms—nothing more. She looked over her shoulder, mouth dry with fear, expecting Corien to come slamming through the door, but the room remained only their own.

  Good, said the Prophet. Now try again. Never step out of that little river. Keep your feet cool and grounded, even as your hands begin to blaze. He cannot find you here, little one, not in these waters.

  Eliana obeyed, but it was the same. Clumsy and distant, her power. Her hands itched, and there was no way to scratch them.

  Quickly, now. Back to your rooms. The Prophet’s voice was urgent, but never frightened. As if they could see a hopeful future Eliana could not.

  She obeyed, slipping back down the hallway and into her bed. Her blood punched through her veins even as she focused hard on the calm flow of her river. It was a more challenging exercise than anything she had ever done as the Dread—to balance the Eliana who was a prisoner steeped in pain
and despair and the new Eliana, who was beginning to dip her fingers into the pool of her power once more. Its texture and rhythm—how she had missed it.

  How terrified she was to awaken it again.

  A film of sweat painted her skin as she settled back in her bed. What did my guards see while I was gone?

  Your rooms as they should be, the Prophet replied. You, sleeping fitfully in your bed, as they would expect. Now, though, I must go. Sleep, Eliana. You will need it.

  Wait. What are we working toward? What is it we’re going to do? Tell me.

  Not yet, the Prophet replied after a moment. It’s not safe yet. You’re not strong enough. But you will be.

  • • •

  Occasionally, Corien would visit the Sunderlands, where mammoth mechanized pieces of weaponry called vaecordia kept the cruciata at bay.

  Sometimes the palace would erupt in raucous revels that lasted for days. Corien would drag Eliana to them, ply her with food and drink, dance with her beneath a ceiling glittering with buzzing chandeliers until she collapsed dizzily into his arms. He drugged everything she consumed, she knew, hoping some combination of ingredients would draw out her power.

  But they never did.

  With each new failure, he would rage, and those were the worst days, when he would strap her to a chair and pummel her mind with his or chase her through the palace with horrific illusions that left her feeling mad and violent, her vision black, her ears buzzing as if clogged with angry bees. What she did in those moments, she never knew. She would wake later in her rooms with her throat raw, blood caked under her fingernails, and vague memories of someone begging her for mercy. She would stumble to her bathing room and scrub herself with scalding water as her guards watched, ever vigilant. And Jessamyn too, sharp-eyed and strangely restless in a way Eliana had never seen from her.

  Sometimes luck would bend in her favor, and the revels would take place without her, or Corien would shut himself up in his rooms, reaching out to generals across the world or gorging himself in the mezzanine of his concert hall as the harried orchestra played furiously below.