Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  But then Evyline, at the head of their procession, opened the hidden door carved into the mountain, and they emerged into the overgrown gardens behind Baingarde.

  Audric stood aside at the tunnel’s mouth, allowing the others passage, and gazed at the familiar green world around him. So far from the castle, the gardens sprawled untamed. A profusion of ferns and tangled moonflower vines grew thick around the hidden door. A carpet of pine needles softened the ground, and overhead the trees grew tall and close.

  The scent was so familiar that Audric felt lightheaded—the thick green spice of the shivering trees, the sweetness of old leaves rotting in the dirt. Past the wild growth near the door, far out in the jade gloom, a sorrow tree stood, its thin branches heavy with bright green buds and tiny pink blossoms. The first blooms of spring.

  Audric could not tear his eyes from them. He had kissed Rielle for the first time beneath one of those trees. He knew he shouldn’t think of it, and yet he could not help doing so. The warmth of Rielle in his arms, the softness of her mouth. The eager noises she had breathed against his ear, her trembling hands in his hair. The sweet ache of happiness at finally allowing themselves to kiss.

  Sloane touched his shoulder. He waited until his eyes were dry, then turned away from the sorrow tree. Kamayin was muttering instructions to her elementals, their castings faintly aglow. Evyline and the Sun Guard stood in a circle, all of them reciting the seven elemental rites.

  Audric could hardly bear to look at them, these people who had decided they would fight at his side. They were so soft in the dim garden light, so breakable. If he had never loved Rielle, would they be standing there? Would a usurper sit on his throne? Would his father be dead and his mother a shell of her former self?

  It would have been easier, he knew, if he had never loved her.

  And yet, given the choice, he would do it again, even knowing what was to come. He would lose her a thousand times over if it meant he would first have the chance to love her.

  They crossed the gardens to the catacombs, where another network of tunnels led into Baingarde itself. They connected to the mountain tunnels at several underground junctures; there had been no need to come to the surface. But Audric had wanted to see the gardens, even though he had known it would hurt him.

  Near the catacombs, the seeing pools gleamed flat and black, like polished stones set into the ground. Memories of himself, Rielle, and Ludivine, young and uncaring, flitted across the pools like shadows.

  Sloane kept near him as they hurried through the trees. Her short black hair shone blue in the pale moonlight. The polished obsidian orb of her scepter buzzed with ready power, and the shadows clung to her lovingly, like children to their parents’ legs.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she murmured. “Remembering the last time we were here? It was such a wild night, so long ago, and so rife with terror. I hardly remember what Baingarde looks like.”

  “I remember it,” Audric said at once. “I see it in my dreams. I taste the cinnamon cakes I used to steal from the kitchens for Rielle. I can smell the old leather of my books. I can feel the cold hoof of Saint Katell’s stone mare in the Hall of the Saints. I used to sit on it and pray when I was a child, when I couldn’t sleep. I could tell you every stair that creaks in the servants’ wing. There is a tapestry on the second floor, near my father’s old study. It depicts Saint Nerida standing in the middle of a crashing sea, the waves splitting apart on either side of her. There is a golden thread on her trident that’s come loose. Right on the shaft, below the middle prong.”

  They had reached the catacombs. Sloane watched him steadily, saying nothing. The others waited in the shadows, weapons at the ready, scanning the trees for enemies.

  “I remember everything,” Audric whispered.

  A call shattered the night’s quiet: three long blasts bellowing from the old watchtower at the city’s perimeter. Audric had only ever heard the sound when Miren and her acolytes from the Forge had visited the horns to make repairs and refresh the magic woven into their metal.

  The sound of that horn meant that enemies had been sighted.

  Another horn answered, this one higher and brassier. Kamayin, grinning, lifted her chin; her soldiers stood taller. It was the Queen’s Horn of the Mazabatian army, announcing their arrival. Queen Bazati would be with them, and General Rakallo. One thousand Mazabatian troops. More would come, once they had retaken the city. The real battle was yet to come.

  Audric turned to face his own little army. The faintest sliver of light escaped the top of Illumenor’s sheath, lighting the faces gathered around him with an eerie glow.

  “May the Queen’s light guide us,” he said without shame, for Rielle may have left them, but the prayers spoken in her name had lost none of their power.

  And there was still another queen to be found, if the prophecy was true. She carries a girl, Ludivine had told him weeks ago, and whenever he thought of it, his heart ached with love. Was it his child’s light they now followed? Or was it simply the light that came of believing there was reason to keep going?

  Audric caught Kamayin’s eye. She nodded once, her castings humming gold at her wrists. Then he found Evyline, towering above them all. The lines around her mouth looked deeper than Audric had ever seen them, the gray of her hair that much closer to white.

  How the last few months had aged them all. How stretched thin with grief they had become.

  “May the Queen’s light guide us,” Evyline answered, and the Sun Guard echoed her prayer.

  There was nothing else to say. Audric hurried into the cool darkness of the catacombs, the air heavy with the weight of lives lived and lost, and led his fierce little army into the tunnels that would take him home at last.

  • • •

  Baingarde buzzed with chaos.

  Servants gathered weapons and supplies, fled to their rooms, took up posts at the windows to watch the battle unfolding outside. Soldiers of House Sauvillier ran from storeroom to storeroom, then out into the castle yards.

  Audric, Kamayin, Evyline, and Sloane each led a team of fighters up through the castle from its cavernous foundations. Audric had drawn diagrams of Baingarde, gone over the maps again and again until everyone from the boats that had crossed the Sea of Silarra knew the number of rooms, the stairwells to avoid, where guards would most likely be posted. Anyone they encountered, they were to incapacitate—no killing, if they could manage it—and to avoid detection, they were to use elemental magic only when necessary. The common soldiers sworn to serve Merovec Sauvillier, Audric had told them, were not to blame for the crimes of their lord.

  Audric approached Baingarde’s soaring entrance hall, his team of six at his heels. They crouched in the shadows of the second-floor mezzanine. A polished wooden arcade ran the length of each corridor of the mezzanine, and heavy green drapes curtained private sitting rooms. Three enormous staircases joined the mezzanine to the hall below, where the polished marble floor gleamed.

  Audric watched the massive front doors open, thick wood reinforced with stone. A stream of Sauvillier soldiers rushed out into the night, their commander barking orders. Even once they had closed the doors behind them, Audric could hear the sounds of battle in the city. He glanced out the windows that spanned the length of the front wall, saw the streets of his city sloping down to the wide, saint-made lake and the broad grassy Flats beyond.

  The Flats were alight with magic—angry bursts of fire, soaring streaks of sunlight. The Mazabatian army was a great dark river pouring through the wide pass between Mount Taléa and Mount Sorenne. Scattered shapes spilled across the Flats to meet them.

  Audric watched grimly. With so many of Merovec’s soldiers still making their way back from the coast, those left in the capital would be overwhelmed by the brutal efficiency of Queen Bazati’s one thousand troops. Miren’s reports had estimated that only a few hundred Sauvillier soldiers had re
mained at their posts in the capital, and those would be listless and agitated, undisciplined, as all Merovec’s soldiers had become.

  They would not stand for long against the Mazabatians. It was a fantastic diversion to direct attention away from the castle and a startling demonstration for the citizens of me de la Terre of how inadequately Merovec had prepared the city for angelic invasion.

  But Audric still had to move quickly.

  From under the hood of his cloak, he watched the shadows, his fighters tense behind him. At the far end of the entrance hall, the great polished doors of the Hall of the Saints stood closed. A dozen guards flanked the doors. Two dozen more were stationed around the entrance hall.

  Audric frowned, recalling Miren’s encoded instructions. He will be in the Hall of the Saints, she had written. I will get him there and keep him there.

  But with so many soldiers surrounding the doors? Miren had assured him they would be lightly guarded, and the sight of three dozen watchful fighters left Audric feeling uneasy. Had Miren’s messages been intercepted? Had their spies betrayed them?

  Nerves buzzed under his skin; he itched to move. A light flashed softly across the mezzanine—three times in rapid succession—marking the arrival of Sloane’s group. Another set of flashes, then a third—Evyline’s and Kamayin’s groups. The guards below looked up, drawing their blades.

  Audric hissed a command to his fighters, and they rushed down the stairs, the other three groups doing the same across the room. Audric did not draw Illumenor. Merovec’s guards may have suspected he was somewhere in this fight, but he would keep them wondering for as long as he could.

  As they charged the Sauvillier soldiers, he braced himself for the slam and burn of magic—but none came.

  He watched in shock as his people easily dispatched three dozen soldiers. There were no elementals among them, he realized. Miren’s letters had told him of Merovec’s new fear of magic, how he suspected all elementals to be secret allies of Rielle. But to protect himself with guards who stood no chance against attackers who would of course fight with magic seemed a foolishness too astonishing to believe.

  Kamayin and her elementals blasted the soldiers with wind and water—moisture drawn from the air, wind held waiting in their palms. Sloane’s scepter slashed blue light, summoning shadow-wolves that sent the soldiers cowering. Evyline and the Sun Guard blazed a path toward the Hall of the Saints. They were a fierce storm, pouring all their fury and grief into the blows of their swords. Evyline let out a ferocious guttural yell and cut down the last of Merovec’s guards.

  She turned and found Audric across the hall. Bodies littered the floor. Some of the soldiers groaned, clutching their wounds. But most were still.

  Breathing heavily, Evyline bowed her head. “I tried my best to spare them, my king, but when someone runs at you with a sword, you do what you must.” She paused. “When they saw what Merovec was doing, they could have fled. They could have defied him.”

  Audric stepped over a body at his feet.

  “Not all of them could have,” he said quietly. “He could have held their families prisoner. He could have threatened them with torture. I don’t blame them, and I grieve each of their deaths.”

  Then, his people behind him, their castings and swords raised and ready, Audric pushed open the doors and entered the Hall of the Saints.

  Inside the massive room, shadows reigned. The only light came from the prayer torches affixed to the base of each enormous stone saint. Queen Genoveve’s and King Bastien’s empty thrones sat on the dais at the far end of the room. Above them curved a wide loft in which rows of polished wooden chairs awaited the Grand Magisters, the royal councils and advisers, and invited nobility. Beyond the loft, elaborate stained glass depicted the saints in peacetime, the Angelic Wars far behind them. And towering between the loft and the thrones was the statue of Saint Katell on her white mare, her head crowned with a polished halo of gold.

  Here, Audric’s father had questioned Rielle after the Boon Chase. Here, the Archon had crowned her Sun Queen, and Ludivine had come back from the dead. The weight of the room’s past pressed against Audric’s skin.

  He glanced around quickly as he strode past the watching saints. A dozen Sauvillier archers stood in the loft, their arrows trained on him. Around the room, swords raised and arrows nocked, were more soldiers, each of them tracking his people as they followed him inside.

  And standing on the dais was Merovec Sauvillier himself, resplendent in the mail and armor of his house—a sash of russet, silver tassels, a fine tabard of thick wool dyed midnight blue. His blond hair fell in waves to his shoulders, and his eyes were as sweet a blue as Ludivine’s. Save for his jaw, which was firm and square where Ludivine’s was soft, the resemblance was uncanny.

  In his arms, he held Queen Genoveve. Her back was to his front, a thin silver blade at her throat.

  “Come closer, and I will cut her throat,” Merovec called out, his voice booming in the empty room.

  Audric stopped, gesturing for the others behind him to do the same. It should have terrified him to see his mother held so cruelly. Instead, a calm fell over him, leaving his mind sharp and clear.

  “You’re already a traitor and a criminal, Merovec,” Audric said. “You would add murder of your own aunt to that list?”

  “My traitor aunt.” Merovec wrenched Genoveve’s head closer to his own, his hand wrapped in her hair. “She insisted I stay here rather than go out with my soldiers to meet the Mazabatian army. First Bastien is killed, then her son disappears, and her niece. She said she couldn’t bear to lose me too.” He hissed against her ear, “Do you think I am unaware of where you’ve been sneaking off to of late, dearest aunt?”

  Genoveve did not flinch in Merovec’s grip. Her graying auburn hair gleamed copper in the torchlight. Her eyes were twin coins of steel.

  “I think you are unaware of many things,” she replied evenly.

  “Red Crown, they call themselves. House Courverie loyalists.” Merovec spat on the floor. “My own people, plotting behind my back as I work to keep them safe, as I undo the evil their own prince allowed into their country.”

  Audric locked eyes with his mother, took a single step forward. In the shadows atop the loft, the archers shifted but did not loose their arrows.

  “And what have you done to keep them safe?” he asked. “I saw no bolstered defenses at the city borders, no additional watchtowers constructed in the mountains. I have heard of no education given to the people about angels or how to strengthen their minds. Nor do I hear talk of Merovec Sauvillier forging alliances with Borsvall or Kirvaya.”

  “Borsvall and Kirvaya.” Merovec’s handsome face twisted. “One without a king, and the other without a queen. Both of them fled into the night, leaving their countries in chaos. I want nothing to do with them.”

  Audric took another step. “I heard what you did to Ilmaire Lysleva. He was a guest in your own home, and you beat him, imprisoned him.” Another step, each one measured and careful. “I would say you should be ashamed, but I know you have no capacity for it.”

  Merovec barked out a laugh. “Ilmaire? He was weak. A sop of a king who wanted us to open our arms to Rielle, let her do as she wishes. Forcing Rielle to choose between good or bad, light or blood, is folly, he said. It will be our undoing. I see why you like him. He’s as big a fool as you are. He didn’t want the crown, anyway. I did him a favor.”

  “And now you hide in my castle and terrorize my people.” Audric kept moving forward, another step with every sentence. The archers would not hurt him, not without Merovec’s command. “You interrogate them and invade their homes. You question their faith and tear apart families.”

  “I cannot be sure which of them you and your murderous bride managed to corrupt before she left you.” Merovec tilted his head. A sharp grin widened his mouth. “Tell me, do you pleasure yourself while imagining her moa
ning in the arms of her new lover?”

  But Audric was impervious to him, his mind a spotless shield. “Fear has consumed you, Merovec, and you have turned me de la Terre into a nest for it. A place of suspicion and distrust. You have done nothing to prepare our people for what’s to come.”

  Merovec looked around the room. His blade cut into Genoveve’s throat. A thin trickle of blood dripped down her white neck, but she did not cry out; her face didn’t even flicker with pain, and Audric’s heart swelled with love for her.

  “Where is my sister?” Merovec snapped.

  Audric had reached the sun engraved in the polished stone floor, where Rielle had stood during her deposition, only a few paces from the dais. He stood in the sun’s heart, Illumenor humming at his side.

  “She isn’t here,” he replied.

  “Of course she is.” Merovec’s smile turned bitter. “I know what she is now. The angelic wretch in my sister’s body. Ludivine!” He roared her name, pressed his knife harder against Genoveve’s throat. “Ludivine, or whatever your filthy true name is, show your face!”

  “She’s gone, Merovec. Not two days past, she disappeared into the night. I’ve no sense of what’s happened to her.”

  “You lie. How else could you sneak into Baingarde unseen?”

  “Because it’s my home.” Audric took another step forward. “I was born here, I was raised here, and it was here that my father taught me how to rule a country, just as his mother taught him and her father taught her. I know secrets about Baingarde that you will never know, and I know my people too.”

  “You’re holding her hostage somewhere. You think you’ll be able to trade her life for your mother’s.”

  Genoveve stared at Audric, her expression turned inward. Nothing showed on her face—no pain, no fear. Nothing but a hard light in her eyes that reminded Audric of the woman she had once been before Bastien’s death had ravaged her.

  “It’s not possible to hold Ludivine hostage. To avoid capture, she would enter my mind and dissuade me from binding her.” Audric glanced at the stained-glass windows beyond the statue of Saint Katell. He needed to stall a bit longer. “I’m sure you wonder when it happened. Do you remember when Lu caught a terrible fever when she was sixteen? She was gravely ill for weeks.”