He met with the royal councils, saw to the repair of the watchtowers and the wall, helped the surviving city guard as they slowly cleared the ruined streets. Foul odors drew them to bodies buried in the rubble, both human and not. A disemboweled beast with a stomach full of flies. A child stuck through the heart with a rafter rent from the roof of her bedroom.
Over each body, he knelt and prayed. Sometimes those nearby joined him. Sometimes they stood and stared resentfully. So many had died, and yet he had lived.
He made himself look at their pain without flinching. Sometimes he woke from dreams drenched with sweat, his bones aching from some primal fear, and he knew with biting certainty that he should have died that night. And yet there he was, shaking at the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, alive and whole with only a few scars and one nasty bandaged gash on his leg.
Then Rielle would reach for him, softly call his name, and in her arms he would find a kind of solace until the next nightmare claimed him.
• • •
Often, Rielle joined him when he met with his advisers. The larger meetings, with dozens of people gathered in the Hall of the Saints, were one thing—Rielle sat quietly on her throne at Audric’s side and offered insight when needed. What was the condition of the Gate? What would be required to close it, and when would she be strong enough to try it? Could it be resealed completely, even stronger than it had been before?
How many angels still remained in the Deep?
And what other creatures might someday escape it?
But the more intimate meetings in the small council chambers surrounding the Hall of the Saints—these Rielle avoided until the day came when her expertise was required.
They sat around a large square table of polished oak. Rielle to Audric’s right, and to his left, Genoveve, pale and silent, her auburn hair pinned up in neat coils. Beside her was Sloane, shadows under her bleary eyes. Ardeline Guillory of the House of Light sat on Rielle’s other side, followed by Rafiel Duval of the Firmament, his thick black braids tied at his nape. The Archon’s chair sat empty, gleaming with polish, and then came Brydia Florimond in her earthshaker robes of umber and soft green, her ruddy skin patched with bandages.
Then there was Miren, rigid and stone-faced. Between her and Sloane, Tal’s chair sat empty.
“We have received reports from Queen Obritsa,” Audric said, drawing out the papers. “She is requesting aid. Supplies, healers, soldiers. Corien’s fortress—”
“Yes,” Rielle murmured, her gaze distant. “The Northern Reach.”
A pause, silence stretching taut across the table. Magister Duval looked at his hands, his mouth thin.
Audric imagined his mind as a flat, clean plain, free of divots or dust. It was the only way he could move past what Rielle had told him about her time there in the icy far north and focus instead on the papers in front of him.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “The Northern Reach. When Corien died, so too did many of the angels there, but not all. Any angels who were not connected to him at the exact moment of his death have survived. Hundreds are still held captive below the mountains in elaborate prisons. Obritsa’s army is stretched thin between rescue efforts and the escalating revolution in Genzhar.”
He held his breath, then glanced at Rielle. She was lovely in her stillness. Back straight in her chair, chin slightly lifted, the delicate bones of her face carving sharp lines from brow to jaw. Her eyes were fixed on the immaculate shining table, but Audric knew it wasn’t the table she saw.
“Before we approve anything,” he said, “we will need schematics of the site, a sense of the geography of the Northern Reach. Surely, there are places hidden underground that the Kirvayans have missed, and we need anything that might give us an advantage. Is your memory complete enough to create a map, Rielle?”
Rielle laughed softly. “Of course,” she whispered, her voice thick with secrets. “I remember everything.”
Sloane shifted in her chair. Magister Florimond looked hard at her pen. Genoveve closed her eyes, her mouth thinning.
But Miren pretended nothing. She glared at Rielle, spots of bright color on her cheeks.
Audric swallowed against the turn of his stomach. For the first time, he felt glad for Ludivine’s death. He could not have borne looking at her face and seeing the pity that came from knowing exactly what things Rielle remembered.
“Excellent.” His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. He shuffled the papers, withdrew Ilmaire’s official report and the letter folded within. “And Ilmaire has written as well. The Gate remains unchanged, but scores of dead fish and other water animals have washed up on shore along several stretches of the Northern Sea. He is concerned that the Gate may be emitting something toxic, perhaps unknown substances from the Deep, and that they are affecting our air and water in ways we have not yet examined.”
He paused, gathering himself. When he looked at Rielle, he felt numb. “What does the empirium tell you? Does it offer an explanation for this?”
He struggled to keep a bland curiosity in his voice, and yet he wanted to fall to his knees at her feet and scream at her until that distant, inward look she wore shattered. Shake her until she was free of it.
Rielle absently tapped the table’s edge. Her brow furrowed, and when she spoke, it was with a kind of irritated dismissal, as if she were concentrating on something very far away and Audric’s question was nothing but a nuisance.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
He waited for elaboration. None came. In the silence, his cheeks burned. Magister Guillory cleared her throat. What they must think of him, of Rielle, of all of this.
“What does it say, then?” Audric asked her. “Can you… I’m sorry, this may be a silly question. Can you purify the sea somehow? Prevent further devastation?”
Rielle sighed. The sound seemed to diminish her. How small she was, and how impossibly far away. She glanced at him, mustered up a smile. He hated it. She was trying to make him happy, trying to reassure him, and failing utterly.
“Of course I can,” she murmured.
And then Miren could bear no more.
She scoffed, leaning forward. The explosive force of her anger set the brass buttons of Audric’s coat blazing with heat.
“Is that all you will say?” Miren said, her voice rough with sadness, her eyes bright. “Yes and of course? You could say something else. You could look at us as if we’re all actually here in front of you. Or you could apologize. You could look me in the eye and say you’re sorry.” Her voice broke, her jaw square as she fought off tears. “Are you even sorry for what you’ve done to all of us?”
Rielle stared at her, blinking, and she looked so strange in that chair, so ill-fitting, that Audric’s throat clenched with fear. Rielle looked at Miren as if trying to understand an unfamiliar type of weed—not one she was interested in pulling, simply one she hadn’t noticed until its thorns pricked her ankle.
He wished he could leave them all, march Rielle up to their bedroom and keep her there. Feed her and love her and rub her sore back until her face found its color again and she looked human once more.
“Miren, you will hold your tongue,” Genoveve said tightly. “Rielle saved us, I’ll remind you. She destroyed Corien and took many of his soldiers out with him.”
“Not before thousands had died. Not before our city was in ruins. Homes destroyed and families shattered.” Miren lay her palms flat on the table, her mouth twisting. She had not once said Tal’s name, and yet Audric heard echo of it in every word.
“Say it, Rielle,” Miren choked out. “Tell me you’re sorry.”
Rielle examined her hands, then looked calmly at Miren. “If I tell you, will you believe me?”
The room held its breath, the silence fat with nerves.
And then Miren sagged against her chair, her expression flattening. “No,” she said at l
ast. “I won’t.”
Rielle smiled a little, the saddest smile Audric had ever seen. “I don’t blame you. But I am sorry, truly. I wish it could be undone. I wish Tal—”
Miren surged to her feet, her ax glowing at her hip. Every piece of metal in the room vibrated, ready to fly at her command.
“Don’t say his name to me,” Miren said harshly. “Not ever. He loved you more than anything, more than me, and that wasn’t enough for you. Nothing we can give you is enough.”
Then Miren pushed back from the table and stormed out. A moment later, Genoveve squeezed Audric’s hand gently and rose to follow her.
“I suggest we retire for lunch,” Audric said into the heavy silence, “and meet again in the afternoon. Three o’clock at this same table, please.”
As the others quickly left the room, he gathered his papers. Rielle sat unmoving at his side. He could not bring himself to look at her. If he did, he would see the truth on her face, the thing he feared most of all—more than the angels still roaming the world, more than whatever lurked beyond the Gate and might someday emerge from it.
If he looked at her, he would see the truth: Miren was right.
Without meeting Rielle’s eyes, Audric offered her his hand. Wordlessly, she took it, her fingers so light against his palm that it frightened him. As they returned upstairs to their rooms, he clung to the sound of her footsteps, relished each of her labored breaths. Her belly, huge and wonderful. She cursed it, quietly, carefully, as if trying out a joke, and his laughter felt fragile on his tongue.
Lunch awaited them—fresh bread and soft cheese, figs drizzled with honey, a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. They ate in silence, and not once did Rielle let go of his hand. Her thumb rubbed his, over and over, leaving behind soft smears of gold.
• • •
One night, Audric left Rielle sleeping fitfully in their bed and went up to the roof. The summer air was warm, and night birds called from the thick forests carpeting Mount Cibelline.
He walked the long breezeways of the fifth floor, each bordered with a railing of white stone. Leaning against one of them, he looked down at the scaffolding hugging the castle’s western face. Two towers had collapsed during the battle. Great holes torn from the walls by careening elemental magic left Baingarde looking haggard and feeble.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, willing away the tired burn behind his eyes. With sleep came dreams. He wanted none of it.
Movement shifted at the corner of his eye, smooth and gliding. He watched Atheria fly, smiling to see her nip bats from the air. The sight was welcome—and increasingly rare. When Rielle was awake, the godsbeast stayed far from Baingarde.
Yet more grief for Rielle to carry.
The air shifted beside him like the weight of something moving through cold water.
A chill prickled his skin. He was not yet used to the feeling of wraiths, nor did he entirely trust them, though they had given him no reason not to, other than the fact of what they were. Angels without bodies—angels who had refused resurrection.
Dozens now guarded the city, hundreds patrolled the mountains, and the one drifting near him now was his favorite. His shoulders eased a little when he recognized her—the tall gray reed of her body, eyes black and serene, long thin limbs. Dark hair streamed faintly to her waist, but near Rielle, an echo of her true self shone with power for all to see—gleaming white hair, rich brown skin, and shining platinum armor, as she had worn when she’d first entered the Deep.
“Zahra,” Audric said warmly. “Is there something you need?”
The wraith inclined her head in greeting. Her voice was resonant, like the toll of heavy bells. “Nothing but company, my lord king. The night is quiet.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.” He looked at the vast dark sky. Sometimes he still saw the faint echo of wings burning there. Sometimes he felt their heat on his neck, and the memory made his mouth taste sick. He closed his eyes, holding himself steady.
Then Zahra huffed out a breath. Suddenly, the feeling of her was troubled. It was a helpful thing to have loved an angel. He could easily read the moods of wraiths, and now he had an army of them.
“I lied,” Zahra said miserably. “In fact, I do need something. I need to give you an answer you’ve been seeking.”
He turned to face her. Shifting and strange as it was, her dim profile held a quiet dignity that he found immensely reassuring. He had been meaning to tell her this.
“An answer to what question?” he asked.
“You’re wondering why I fought against my own people, why I have pledged loyalty to you and your family. You’ve been wondering it since the night I knelt at your feet, and the answer we gave your councils has not satisfied you.”
Stunned into silence, for a moment he could only stare at her. A rising anger helped him find his words. “You’ve been reading my thoughts. This was not part of our agreement.”
Zahra turned, eyes wide. “No, my king. I have broken no part of our agreement. The treaty between us was well written, and all of us who put our names to it did so because we believe in the potential of this new friendship.”
“Then how—”
“My lord king.” Zahra’s voice was fond, and he was reminded at once of her agelessness and his smallness in comparison. How she had lived for centuries before his birth and would drift through hundreds more after his death. “You are a man of exceptional strength, of both mind and heart. But your curiosity is swift and often defies your efforts to remain inscrutable. Your questions dart from you like birds. I cannot help but see them on your face, even the ones you decide not to ask.”
He raised his eyebrows. A bold thing for her to say, but there was a strange relief in feeling so seen. “Tell me what you have to say, then.”
She hesitated. “It is a long story. Perhaps I was wrong to approach you now. It is only that…oh, my lord king, it is such a wild tale. I have been waiting weeks to tell you.” She shimmered, brimming and eager, fiddling with the ends of her hair. “We should retire to your study, perhaps, where you can sit comfortably.”
“I am comfortable here. The fresh air is a balm. Tell me, Zahra. You said you have answers for me.”
“Yes, my king. You wonder why we fought for you that night, why we betrayed our people to ally with their enemy. Part of the answer is simple, and we told your councils as much: We did not agree with Kalmaroth’s mission of vengeance. Not every angel who lived in the Deep was a creature of violence and anger. Forgive me, my lord king, but it is unjust to look at the many millions of us and reduce us all to one feeling, one philosophy, one desire.”
Abashed, Audric nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but Zahra held up her hand.
“Please, if you’ll allow it, I must tell it all at once. There is much to say, and you have meetings in the morning, my lord king. At some point, you will need sleep.”
He gave her a wry smile. “I suspect I may not sleep much after you’ve told your tale.”
“Perhaps not. I called it wild. An inadequate word for this story, but I cannot think of another.” She paused, drawing in a breath. A sad, strange habit of wraiths, she had taught him—they did not have lungs, but they did still feel the instinct to breathe. “You’ll remember,” she said, “the girl Eliana. Your daughter, my king.”
The beloved word struck him. He had not expected this. “Of that night I remember many things, but her most of all.”
“We fought in the city that night before we came to you. We shielded your people from angels. We cloaked them from the beasts that hunted them.”
He did know this and started to thank her, as he had many times before, but she hurried on before he could.
“As we fought, I sensed her,” said Zahra. “Eliana. She was different from everyone living in the world, everyone but the boy at her side. The two of them were from another time. I knew it at once.
All of us did, and it was this that brought us hurrying to you and that brought the angels storming through the castle to fight you. We all ached to touch her mind, to understand her strangeness, but I ordered the others to shield her and your friends, and while they dove to protect them, it was I alone who read her thoughts. My king…”
She knelt, overcome. Shadows pooled around her, as if she knelt in shallow dark water.
“I saw everything she had seen,” she whispered. “I saw the world in which she had lived. I saw the Undying Empire and all it had done. I saw the people she loved and those who had hurt her. I saw myself through her eyes. In that time yet to come, in which your daughter had lived and fought, I was her friend. I loved her, and she loved me.”
Slowly, Audric sank to sit beside her. The soft night winds kissed his hands. Overhead, Atheria dove for her supper, chirping gaily.
“I felt everything in that moment my mind touched hers,” Zahra said thickly. “I saw all that she had endured and what would happen to the world if she failed. I died for her in that future world. I died in her arms, and she wept over the place where I had been. My lord king, this is what I saw. This is why I fought for her, and for you, her father, and why I always will. I died for her, and I would again.”
Zahra reached for his hands. Her dark fingers passed through his like smoke. The cold, supple press of her nearness made him shiver. Tenderly, she touched his cheek. Presumptuous, and yet he sensed nothing would ever be typical between them, not for as long as he lived.
“May I tell you the rest?” she asked. “May I tell you the story of your daughter?”
Tears in his eyes, completely undone, Audric nodded, and then he listened through the night as Zahra spoke of a future that would never be.
• • •
It was as if she had heard him, his daughter.
The next day, Sloane came bursting into his study, her eyes shining. Her excitement summoned the room’s shadows. They rose trembling from their corners and stretched across the bright windows.
He knew it before Sloane drew breath to speak. A light broke open inside him, warming all the tired bones of his body. A single word rose, blooming through his thoughts:
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