Kamayin’s wail of furious grief pierced the air. Audric heard Miren struggling against her bindings. Every piece of metal on the terrace quaked with anger.
“And these are my friends?” Rielle whispered. “These are the people who will welcome me home?” Her blazing eyes fixed on Audric. A terrible sadness passed over her face, so swiftly that he realized he had probably imagined it. Some delirious hope, as he lay crushed beneath her, that she would regret this when it was over.
She exhaled, a trembling hot breath. “You don’t know what it’s like to live like this,” she said, and he could not read her voice, could not tell if she meant it as a boast or a plea.
He gasped for breath. Her power would smother him. “Tell me, then! Stop this and tell me, tell everyone. Ask us for help. Let us help you!”
“It’s too late, Audric. It was too late years ago, the moment I was born with this in my blood. It was too late when Aryava uttered his last words.” Her eyes shone, but her words were cold as stones at the bottom of the sea. “We were fools not to see it.”
Where before her face had been soft, now a door closed over it, and Audric knew as he stared up at her that it would never open again.
She shoved hard, slamming him into the floor. Illumenor went skidding across the terrace. Somewhere in the sea of endless light, Corien was laughing.
Rielle no longer held a sword. It was her arm itself that burned, a brilliant red spear of light, and as it plunged for his heart, Audric held her beloved face in his gaze and whispered, “Rielle, I love you.”
45
Eliana
“I hear Aryava’s voice in my dreams—not the voice I knew and loved, but the voice from his last moments, when he sounded unlike himself, his words hoarse and distorted. ‘The world will fall,’ he proclaimed. ‘Two Queens will rise.’ And something cold and ancient looked out at me from his fading gaze—something that did not belong to him. In that moment, I was seen for what I had done, what we all had done. What we had to do, and would do again.”
—From the journals of Saint Katell, written in the years after the Angelic Wars, stolen from the First Great Library of Quelbani
Baingarde was full of light, thick pulsing veins of it that tangled like the roots of a gigantic tree. They drifted after Eliana as she raced up the castle’s sweeping grand stairs. They reached for her legs, her castings, the blade of Katell’s sword.
It was torment to run past them. They pulled at her like a song, promising her glory and infinite kindness if only she would stop and touch them. As they climbed, only Remy, swift and silent beside her, kept her moving forward. Pangs of longing bloomed in her chest even as her stomach lurched with fear.
At last, they reached a set of stained glass doors through which poured dazzling rivers of sizzling light. One of the doors had been left open.
Eliana stood a few paces away, staring at it. Her heart thudded in her ears. Her hands were slick with sweat. She heard voices raised in argument, the crackle of magic, and someone laughing. A familiar laugh that sent cold spilling down her body.
Remy, beside her, stared at the doors. Beyond them blazed an unthinkable brilliance, and in that glow, he seemed smaller than he ever had, his stolen sword a child’s toy.
“Is that him laughing?” Remy glanced at her, his face pale under its coat of ash. “Is it Corien?”
She was too terrified to nod. Weights slammed against stone—four, in quick succession. A woman cried out in wild grief, and then a man, shouting words she could not understand. Something about the man’s voice was familiar, though she had never before heard it, and suddenly the empirium was booming inside her, wordless and urgent, pushing her toward the doors.
She could have defied it. She could have run, gone back to Odo’s basement and hidden in the dark until the angels came for her.
Instead, she slowly approached the doors and looked out onto a terrace of stone and fire. Cords of light held four people to the castle wall and the terrace floor, their limbs askew like the wings of pinned insects. Eyes wide, voices hoarse from screaming, they watched a pale woman with wild dark hair, her skin painted gold with light, a sword of snapping red flames in her hands. A man fought her—brown skin, dark wet curls plastered to his forehead. His sword shone with the light of the sun, but it was nothing compared to the woman herself. She was glorious, incandescent, and his arms shook as she pressed him flat against the floor.
Eliana stared at the awful bright world beyond the doors, watching them fight as if through the haze of a dream. Names came to her, for of course it was them: Rielle, the Kingsbane, and Audric, the Lightbringer. She heard the grief in Rielle’s voice, the fury and fear. Audric’s desperation as the sparks of Rielle’s sword singed his face and arms. His body dripped with blood, sweat, and soot, and beneath Rielle’s gown of flowing crimson was a belly swollen with child.
Eliana touched her own stomach, as if that would somehow diminish the strangeness of watching these people who had made her.
But then Rielle’s sword changed, joining with her body until her right arm was a ribbon of red fire. She reared back to strike, aiming for Audric’s heart, and Eliana watched him close his eyes, saw his lips move around words she could not hear.
Panic burst open inside her. She raced onto the terrace, and the sea of golden branches crowding the floor parted to make way for her. Rielle’s arm flashed, but before it could fall, Eliana threw herself in front of Audric, summoned all her strength, and flung up Katell’s sword.
Rielle’s arm crashed against Eliana’s blade, and the two spears of light locked together. One red and blazing, the other pulsing gold as bright morning. Each blade crackled, throwing off showers of sparks.
Over the spear of her arm, Rielle’s eyes widened in shock. The pressure on Eliana’s sword lifted slightly, and her relief was so immense that she felt dizzy. She began at once to speak.
“Mother,” she said in the common tongue, trusting that Remy was nearby, “I have suffered much to find you. Please listen.”
She waited, hardly breathing, and then, over the roar of their weapons and the hot hum of light spilling over the terrace railing, Remy’s voice rang out, translating her words.
Rielle’s expression darkened. She looked to Remy, then back to Eliana, and spat something vicious, something Remy didn’t have time to translate. She shoved hard at Eliana’s sword. Power rushed up Rielle’s body in streams of light, gilding her red gown, and for a moment, Eliana feared her own knees would buckle.
But then she thought of Remy behind her, braving the end of the world at her side, and Simon, back in the future, and Navi and Patrik and Hob, and Ysabet, and Malik, and everyone else lying dead because they had chosen to fight for her.
She planted her feet firmly on the stone and drew power from it, from the air blazing hot against her skin, from the night sky burning with magic. Katell’s sword became a spear of pure light and power snapping within her palms. White and gold, like the burn of stars. Her castings blazed in her palms, feeding the new sword she had made. Her muscles burned, and her eyes watered from the fire’s heat, but she stood tall, holding fast against the might of her mother’s power.
Another wave of surprise crossed Rielle’s face. She looked in wonder at the sword, and Eliana felt a small surge of triumph.
If there had been any doubt in Rielle’s mind about Eliana’s true parentage, perhaps there was no longer.
A presence crept near the edge of her mind, simmering like hungry flames.
Eliana found him at once—Corien, but not the one she knew. Pale-eyed and flummoxed, but there was no madness in him, and even his mind, probing hers, felt more settled.
He stepped forward, mouth open to speak.
Rielle jerked her head at him. He went flying back against the railing and slumped to the ground. Not pinned there like the others, but simply thrown. A warning.
Eliana
seized the moment. It might be the only one she was given. “You are in pain,” she said. “I see it, and I understand it.”
Behind her, Remy began to translate. Eliana glanced back at him. He knelt beside Audric, helping him sit. The Lightbringer seemed shaken, his face burned by Rielle’s fire. He caught Eliana’s eyes, and in his gaze she saw her own, and on his face she saw pieces of hers. His hand was tight around Remy’s, and even on this horrible night of violence, Remy’s face was lit up with joy, for here he was, helping the Lightbringer lean against him, holding the hand of one of the great kings of old.
“The empirium speaks to you,” Eliana said, tearing her eyes from Remy to find Rielle once more. “It speaks to me too. It tells me to rise. It tells me it is mine and that I belong to it. But I belong only to myself. And it is the same for you.”
Rielle watched her, light licking up and down her body. She hardly looked human, her beauty mesmerizing and terrible: the sharp turn of her nose and jaw; the defiant curve of her chapped mouth; the shadows like chasms beneath her eyes; her skin flashing translucent. Beneath it roared rivers of power.
Eliana’s spine itched with sweat. She jerked her head toward Audric. “You do not want to do this. You love him. You love him so much that after you kill him, after I am born, you see clearly what you have done and take your own life. You destroy this city. You break the empirium. Elementals can no longer work magic, and the angels turn black-eyed in their human bodies, deprived of taste and smell and sight. A thousand years pass. The Undying Empire rises.”
Eliana looked at Corien only once. “He calls himself the Emperor. He and his soldiers conquer the world. They kill and pillage. They raze temples and murder kings. Monsters crawl out of the Deep and come for us.”
Then Eliana thought of Zahra, and for a moment, she could not speak. When she did, tears choked her voice.
“Some angels defy him,” she said, “but not enough.”
It was then that Rielle began to lower her weapon. The red fire faded, revealing her pale, unburnt arm. Eliana held her breath, counted to three, and extinguished her own sword. Smoke curled between them. Katell’s sword was a simple hilt and blade once more, glowing softly with light.
Eliana knelt, and Rielle followed, staring like an enraptured child listening to a bedtime tale.
“A resistance force called Red Crown fights the Empire, but they lose,” Eliana went on, Remy’s translation rolling in the lovely, lilting rhythm of Old Celdarian. “He captures me. For months, he tortures me. He tries to force me to use my power. I resist.”
The smallest of smiles lifted the corners of Rielle’s mouth. Her eyes flashed, and Eliana, startled, thought that little spark might have been pride.
“How did you escape him?” Rielle asked.
Her voice was surprisingly small and singular, nearly swallowed by the hum of power crowding the terrace. How young she was; how young they all were. Remy, his eyes shadowed with horrors. Little Simon, hurrying through the city with his father, mending the hurts of war.
“With the help of a friend,” Eliana said at last. She would not mention Ludivine. The very name felt dangerous. “Mother, please listen. Look at what you have done. See all that you are doing.”
Rielle’s gaze drifted to Audric. Eliana was glad she could not see his face. The hope that might live there, or the despair. She reached for Rielle’s hand, expecting the power between them to spark. But she felt only a hand, smooth and small, with bitten nails and a tiny callus on the right thumb.
“It is a great burden,” she said, “and a great gift to live with this power we have. It is impossible for others to understand. It is difficult to bear their fear and their adoration.”
Rielle laughed, a terribly sad sound. She touched Eliana’s cheek. “Little one,” she said, “I crave their adoration. I crave their fear.”
Eliana shivered. The Prophet’s endearment in her mother’s voice. “Is that what you crave most of all?”
A beat of silence stretched taut and thick. Then Rielle’s expression shifted, a crack in her bright armor.
“No,” she whispered.
“What do you want, then? More than anything?”
Rielle’s eyes glittered. “Rest.”
“And something else,” Eliana guessed.
Rielle nodded. A secret, dreamy smile flickered across her face. She looked inhuman, then, as if her flesh would soon fall away and leave behind a creature that knew only appetite.
“This,” Rielle said. She looked around at the light she had made, the brilliance of her wings in the night sky. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Beneath them, the castle moved with her, the stone contracting and expanding to match her rhythm.
Tears slipped down Rielle’s cheeks. Her voice was ragged with feeling. “I want more of this too.” And then she shook her head and touched her temple. A weary laugh escaped her. “I don’t know how to be what I am, split in two like this. A queen of light, and a queen of darkness. I am Aryava’s prophecy, only I am but one queen. One queen with the desires of two. I cannot bear it.”
Eliana touched her mother’s face, an instinct she didn’t think better of until it had already been done. How smooth Rielle’s skin was, warm and thin beneath her palm.
“You can,” she said firmly. “And you will. We all have light and darkness inside us. That is what it means to be human.”
Behind Eliana, Audric drew in a sharp breath. Rielle’s eyes flicked to him, then back to Eliana.
“And if I am more than human?” she asked.
“Then you must carry more of the light, and more of the darkness too, and so must I.” Eliana tried to smile. “That is our burden.”
Rielle’s mouth trembled. “I did not ask for this burden. I reject it. I hate it.” She looked at Eliana, imploring. “No matter where I go or what I do, I will never be free of it.”
And she was right, Eliana knew. A horrible hot grief tightened her throat. The power in their blood would always hunger for more. And to be hungry, to want to consume, to desire might and power, to crave becoming more than simply a creature of flesh and bone—these longings would make them enemies of some, hated and feared and misunderstood, reviled and revered in the same breath. And others, those clever enough to see the true reach of their pain, their fear, their wants and hopes, would exploit them without remorse.
Eliana did not look at Corien, but she used the image of him in her mind as a whetstone for her anger.
“You are free right now,” she said fiercely. “A choice lies before you, and only you can make it.”
She did not elaborate further. She did not need to. As Remy translated, Rielle listened carefully, and her face softened. Weary lines marked her mouth and eyes.
“For too long,” Eliana said, “we have been tools of those who love us and those who hate us. Those who think they know our minds, our hearts, our strength. The power that feeds us.”
She clasped Rielle’s hand, then leaned against her, brow to brow. Blood and sweat slicked their palms.
“Rise with me now,” Eliana whispered, “and help me show them how strong we truly are.”
Rielle’s eyes flickered gold, twin godly flames. “May the Queen’s light guide us,” she said hoarsely, with a tiny wry smile.
Eliana returned it. “We are the light. And our fire will wake up the world.”
“And then what?” Rielle’s gaze turned distant. She gestured vaguely at the battlefield, at the people she had pinned to the floor. She swallowed hard. “After all this, then what?”
“A life here,” Eliana said firmly. “A life alone, if you wish, exploring the empirium. A life without someone else’s desires whispering in your mind, robbing you of the ability to see clearly. The chance to find peace with yourself, with your power, with the world.”
“I have done things,” Rielle said, her voice low and thick, “that cannot be
forgotten. Wherever I walk, anger will follow. And if I had the choice of whether or not to do them again…” Her eyes gazed at something far away. “I do not know what I would choose.”
Eliana could not argue with that. “You’re right. You will always be remembered for those things. But you can be remembered for others too, if you choose to be.”
Eliana squeezed Rielle’s hands and dared to kiss her cheek, skin hot as fire and smooth as polished steel.
Rielle’s tired gaze hardened, and she lifted her chin, as if daring exhaustion to try and best her.
Despite the heat of war around them, Eliana gazed upon her mother’s ash-stained face and shivered, understanding that she knelt in the presence of every star that had ever burned—and that the same unthinkable power had built her own bones.
She met Rielle’s eyes. Their gazes locked. And then, as one, with the world’s ageless heartbeat drumming in their blood, Eliana and Rielle rose with blazing palms and turned to meet the fate they had chosen.
46
Rielle
“Suppose something had happened differently that night, when the Lightbringer fought the Blood Queen above a battlefield of elementals and angels. A word or gesture, slightly altered, or a step right instead of left. The fate of the world, held inside a single, fragile moment.”
—The Night That Felled the World: What We Know of the Battle of me de la Terre by Axel of the Silver Shore, radical Astavari scholar, printed in Year 941 of the Third Age
Rielle’s eyes flew at once to Corien. He was a still black shape in her crackling forest of light, and before she could think of what to do with him, what to say to him, he was upon her.
Pain exploded behind her eyes. His fingers were black arrows, diving into her deepest thoughts. They struck true, and from them spread horrible ripples of pain. He wouldn’t kill her, but he would remind her that he could.
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