Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  Rielle’s throat tightened with sudden fear. She whirled, desperately searching for Eliana, but Eliana was alive and well, spinning around to fling light at Katell’s sword. It crashed into the blade and held there, roaring, and though Ludivine was no elemental, Katell’s casting now shone as if she were. She raised the sword high, tossing harsh beams of white light.

  Corien, hatred vivid on his face, found Illumenor where Audric had dropped it. A double cruelty: fighting with the sword of the man whose death he craved, and using a casting that was not his to use.

  Audric cried out in pain. Rielle searched through the flames, saw only licks of him between bursts of light, and then she could search no longer, for Corien rushed at Ludivine with a roar, and they met in furious battle. Jagged dervishes of shadow and light sparked between the casting of Saint Katell and the sword of the Lightbringer, the blades bewildered to be held by angels.

  Ludivine’s face was strained, drawn tight and pale. She was no warrior, had never trained for it, and yet she flew at Corien, her strikes brutal.

  But it was not only with swords that they fought. Rielle realized this slowly as she watched them whirl and collide. Her vision still throbbed, and her wits struggled to reassemble, but this she knew: for the first time since he had come to her so long ago, Corien was nowhere in her mind.

  The strange emptiness sent her into a panic. Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she searched for him, and then for Ludivine, sent them a cautious question.

  Are you there?

  But no answer came. Rielle’s thoughts were entirely her own. It frightened her, the wilderness of it. She had forgotten what it felt like, and the loneliness inside her reared up so ferociously that she found it hard to breathe.

  A hand gently touched her own, anchoring her. She knew him at once, though it had been months since she had felt the brush of his skin.

  But she could not look at Audric. Seeing the burns on his face would unravel her. She reached for him in silence, found his fingers, slippery with blood. He helped her sit, and she leaned hard against his chest. He was steady even then, a solid warmth, even with his pulse beating wildly under her fingers and his breathing ragged. Behind them, their friends bled to protect them. Their daughter—their astonishing, impossible daughter—fought beasts with hands made of fire.

  And before them, two angels were locked in furious combat. Stolen swords crashing, the air around their bodies glinting silver with power. Pale shapes formed at their backs. With each blow, each cry of anger, the shapes rose higher, blooming in the air ripe with magic, until they were twice as tall as their counterparts. One shape was Kalmaroth, the angel Corien had once been. Tall and fuming, wings blazing from his back. Even the memory of him was magnificent. His sword cracked like lightning.

  And there was Ludivine, and Rielle’s throat seized to look at her. She had never known Ludivine’s angelic name, had been gently turned away from the subject whenever she dared ask, and now she wished she had pressed for it, because this memory, this echo of her true self, was exquisite. She looked to be perhaps Rielle’s age, or maybe a bit older, like Audric, and there was a luminous, unbearably beautiful quality to her face that brought tears to Rielle’s eyes, for she knew she looked upon an ancient creature that even now, after all she had seen and done, she could not truly understand. This Ludivine, pale and flaxen-haired, shining tresses twisting down her back in elaborate coils, was not as tall as Corien, but her bright eyes were ferocious and her enormous wings were as radiant as the sun.

  Rielle’s burning eyes moved to Ludivine, her Ludivine. Strands of golden hair had come loose from their knot. Fear had stripped her face of all color. She looked quickly at Rielle, a sharp light in her eyes.

  And as their gazes locked, the world fell away from Rielle, leaving her weightless. A cold wave of dread dropped down her arms. Audric must have sensed the change in her. He murmured an urgent question. Was it Corien? Was he hurting her again?

  But Rielle could not bear to answer him, for she understood the truth of what Ludivine had done. With one look, Ludivine had told her everything. They had shared years of knowing glances across dinner tables, years of sleepy soft looks as they woke in each other’s arms, or Audric’s, or all together. And now, this.

  Rielle’s blood roared, her heart howling in protest, and a hundred regrets, a thousand words of grief, lodged in her throat like knots of fire. But she would say none of them, could say none of them.

  For Ludivine had engaged Corien not only with sword but with every bit of strength her mind possessed. How many times had Ludivine confessed that her strength paled in comparison to Corien’s? And yet here she was, throwing herself at him with no hope of survival, drawing him into a battle so fierce that he had abandoned Rielle’s mind to fight it.

  Leaving her free, for however long Ludivine could distract him, to do what must be done. As if Ludivine were holding closed a door that Corien was clawing through from the other side, giving Rielle time to run. The path was clear, and it would crumble if Rielle did not act quickly. Corien would realize what was happening and unknot himself from Ludivine, and the moment would be lost.

  Unsteadily, Rielle stood.

  “Stay back,” she commanded, stepping away from Audric. Guilt was poison in her veins. Her mouth was bitter with it. With each hammering heartbeat, she thought of the black altar on that frozen mountain, the angel she had smashed between her hands like soft clay. One minute there, the next, annihilated.

  I cannot, she thought wildly. Through her tears, she watched them fight. Corien and Ludivine, Ludivine and Corien. Never mind how they had hurt her, how she had hurt them. Their lies, their cruelties, how they had tugged her between them. Losing either one of them would destroy her. Losing both was a thing she could not imagine. And yet Ludivine was holding Corien back, giving Rielle a peaceful mind at last. A mind free of whispers.

  A choice lies before you. Her daughter’s voice, kissing her memory. Only you can make it.

  And you must. Ludivine managed a few fragile words. Inside them was a fierce, sweeping love. It’s all right. Don’t be afraid. Ludivine glanced at her once more. There was a weight to that look. A finality.

  And then, like a swift jab to the throat, Ludivine was suddenly frantic, her voice breaking at last. She had done all she could. Her strength flickered, fading. Corien’s rage bloomed like black waves.

  Now, Rielle, please!

  Rielle knew she would hear those words for the rest of her life—Ludivine’s frayed voice, trembling with fear, begging Rielle to kill her.

  She would remember everything that happened in those seconds before the end. How she reached for Corien and Ludivine, held them in her palms as if she were the god that had made them. How Corien realized too late what she intended and screamed for her to stop, his voice shattering. She would remember gathering the empirium—every speck of it, every shimmering strand within reach. How eagerly her power responded and how devastatingly fast it flew at them.

  The world flared hot and brilliant—the dark mountain, the burning castle atop it. Rielle’s mind, her palms, the air whining as if ready to pop. All went white, and then there was nothing. A silent, booming darkness. The fire, gone. The lights streaming through the castle, vanished, as if they had never been made.

  Rielle fell hard to her knees.

  Breathed once, twice. Three times, and a fourth.

  Shaking, she looked up.

  Spots of color bloomed before her eyes. She blinked, the world returning to her. The mountains, the city, the stars beyond. The battlefield somewhere below. A quilt of light and fire, baffled dark shapes darting through the air.

  Rielle stared, and stared, and as she looked at the charred spots where Ludivine had stood and where Corien had fought her, she felt something rising inside her. Something savage and lonesome, like the forest at night, like a sea seized by storms. There were not even ashes left behi
nd, some ruin of them that she could touch. Her power still simmered in her palms and in the hollow of her throat, in the crooks of her elbows and the bones of her feet. It hummed quietly, satisfied.

  Someone behind her cried out in surprise—maybe Miren, maybe Evyline—and Rielle turned to see that every angel and beast on the terrace had disappeared. A faint glow lingered in the air where they had once stood. Ripples in the empirium, echoes of life suddenly and utterly erased.

  Rielle knew what this meant, looked dully at her new reality as if reading scripted instructions. Corien had boasted countless times: I am infinite. At any given moment, his mind had been connected with thousands of others—adatrox, elemental children astride their monsters. Angelic captains, eager soldiers. Angels in Avitas; angels in the Deep. And then Ludivine, fighting him, had tangled her mind with his, their power locking together like warring blades, and now they were gone, they were gone—Rielle had killed them both at once, efficient, like an arrow through two hearts—and so every mind they had been inside at the moment of their deaths had also been destroyed. Not just dead—smashed into nothing, reduced to ashes so small they could not be seen or touched or tasted. Thousands of them, obliterated at the moment Corien was, leaving the angelic armies in ruins.

  The thing rising inside Rielle erupted. An animal howl tore free of her throat. She was beyond weeping. This was a feeling for which there were no words. Her grief left her shaking, and her hands were claws on the stone, nails ragged against it. The air was sour with the things she had done.

  Arms lifted her. Audric helped her sit against him, gently caught her hands, and held them against his throat. She felt the beat of his heart against her fingers, the soft vulnerable curves of his neck.

  “I’m here,” he said, his wet cheek touching hers. “I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m here.” Tears shook in his voice, for he had loved Ludivine too. He had been there in the gardens, at the dinner table, in the warm bed at dawn.

  Rielle clung to him, keening against his collar, and then a terrible thought occurred to her. She looked frantically past Audric at the terrace beyond. The bodiless angels who had fought for Eliana drifted above in eerie whispered conference. Alive, but uncertain. What would come next? What now?

  But Rielle didn’t care about them, nor did she care about Miren, stumbling to her feet, or Sloane, turned away with her hand over her mouth, or Evyline, limping toward them.

  “My queen?” Evyline managed, unsteadily, to kneel. Hope erased years from her face. “Are you with us? Is it you?”

  Rielle did not answer her. She was looking past Evyline at Kamayin, who was sinking slowly to the ground. Eyes wide, she stared at two faint shapes moving toward each other—a boy and a girl, flickering like shadows thrown from candles.

  A word lodged in Rielle’s throat. Eliana?

  She reached for her, wondering where she would go, or if she would go nowhere. If the woman named Eliana would cease to be, now that she had done this thing she had traveled so far to do.

  Rielle held her trembling breath.

  Blew it out.

  They were gone.

  47

  Audric

  “On this day, Audric Courverie, the king of Celdaria, proclaims, in agreement with the Church, an alliance with the nation of wraiths, who are absolved of all responsibility for the actions of their kindred and with whom the people of Celdaria hope to forge a friendship of peace and communion.”

  —A royal decree issued by Audric Courverie, king of Celdaria, dated May 21, Year 1000 of the Second Age

  At dawn, Audric quietly opened his eyes, and before he was fully awake, he turned to find Rielle beside him.

  She slept in a thin nightgown of white linen, curled on her side to allow her belly room. Turned away from him, her face was hidden. A fear gripped him, as it always did in these terrifying moments upon waking, that something had come for her in the night, some vengeful angel who had gotten past the wraiths’ defenses.

  He held his breath until he saw her chest rise and fall. Relief surged through him, and he blinked until his vision cleared. For a moment, he traced the tangled lines of the dark hair spilling across her pillow. Then he moved toward her slowly, wrapped his arms around her. If she turned toward him, he would see the tired lines framing her mouth and carved into her brow.

  He found her hands, clenched in hard fists at her chest. She was feverishly hot, but Garver Randell had pronounced her to be perfectly healthy. Audric wrapped his hands gently around hers as if cupping water he was desperate not to spill.

  In her sleep, she shivered, and then he felt her soften, the tension she held even while dreaming beginning to fade. Soon, she was pliable in his embrace, warm and trembling. She brought his fingers to her lips, drew his arms tighter around her. Tears dropped onto his hands, and he buried his face in her hair, his throat aching as she cried. Even with the linens changed and the rugs replaced, their bedroom smelled of the smoke from Rielle’s fire, as did the rest of Baingarde, as did the ravaged city beyond it.

  “Would you like breakfast?” he whispered at last. He hardly dared move. Mornings were such a fragile time. Another day meant more funerals, more patrols sent to the Flats to scour the wreckage for bodies not yet recovered, more whispered prayers and muttered curses. No one dared hurt Rielle or even come near enough to touch her. When they walked the ruined streets to visit healers’ rooms and pay tribute at the temples, crowds trailed them, watching. Some wary, some awestruck. Some even smiled and knelt in thanks as he passed, Rielle silent and pale on his arm. They reached for her with pious hands. They glared from the shadows and dreamed of her death.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice thin. “Breakfast. Garver told me I should eat. For the child, at least.”

  Audric recognized the slight edge to her words for what it was. He kissed her shoulder, bare where the nightgown had fallen. Then he lifted her hair and kissed her neck. His hand grazed the curve of her hip, and she sighed a little, relieved, and pressed her hot mouth to his hands. This, she knew. This, while she did it, silenced everything else.

  He moved gently, his arms crossed tightly across her chest, his lips soft against her ear, and she clung to him, her fingers digging into his biceps. When she began her rise, her body arching against him and a soft cry falling from her mouth, she brought him soaring with her. Even in her grief, she hungered, insistent, and in those slow, sparkling moments just after, the air between them was at peace.

  Sleepily, she kissed his arm, then twined her fingers with his and brought them to rest against her belly. Their child kicked against his palms. He thought of the girl who had fought for them on the terrace. Her flashing dark eyes, the wild whip of her brilliant hands. He held her name in his mouth. The syllables had become precious to him. Eliana.

  Morning painted the windows white. Rielle drifted in and out of sleep, and Audric stayed awake, watchful. There was an ache in his chest that he had given up trying to soothe. If he unfolded his arms from around her, she might come unmoored. If he fell asleep, he might wake to find her gone.

  A soft knock at the door alerted him to the time. Weariness dropped heavily onto his shoulders.

  “My king,” announced Evyline, her voice muffled, “the councils are assembling.”

  If Audric closed his eyes and held his mind very still, he could almost pretend that nothing about the past few long months had happened. That it was two summers ago, and Rielle was beside him, sleeping peacefully. That Corien was far away and Ludivine slept in her rooms downstairs.

  But if he kept the councils waiting for too long, they would spend the rest of the day scowling and make an already difficult thing all the more difficult.

  Tearing himself away from the soft haven of their bed was a torment. Audric dressed in silence, and as he fastened the buttons of his jacket, he came around to her side of the bed. The location of the mirror was a good excuse. He fussed with his cur
ls, inspected the healing burns on his cheeks and jaw.

  Rielle was watching him, her nightgown rumpled, her gaze soft.

  “I love you,” she said quietly, and he knew this—he saw it in her eyes and felt it in her touch. He bent to kiss her, and she stretched up hungrily for him, her grip desperate in his hair.

  “My light and my life,” he murmured against her scorching brow. “I love you, I have loved you always, and I will never stop.”

  It had become a refrain, a song passed between them over the past few days until the words felt like worn grooves. Her eyes fluttered closed at his touch, and as he pulled away at last, he glimpsed a faint golden light shifting across her face. A sly wink, it illuminated her cheekbones, the curve of her lips, and was gone.

  A cold stone dropped between Audric’s ribs. He smoothed his thumbs across her face as if he could wipe away whatever it was, this luminescence that sometimes rippled to life under her skin. She gazed up at him dreamily, her sleepy green eyes suddenly swirling with golden currents. Beneath them, shadows stretched long and dark.

  “Is it happening again?” Rielle whispered.

  He nodded, unable to speak. It had been happening for weeks.

  She took his hand, kissed his knuckles. He helped her to the bathing room, then saw her back to bed and sent a page downstairs for food. Her feet dangling above the floor, she watched him gather his papers, his dress cloak, his favorite pen. When he kissed her goodbye, she held his healing face tenderly in her hands, and all the way downstairs, the sweetness of her touch lingered. Yet Audric could not shake the rope of dread winding slowly around his heart.

  Yes, Rielle loved him. He knew this, and yet he feared that someday, for her, it would not be enough.

  • • •

  The days passed too quickly, each one packed with activity that left him aching with exhaustion by nightfall.