Lightbringer

by Claire Legrand

  Eliana. Eliana. Eliana.

  For of course, that would be her name.

  “I’ve sent for Garver,” Sloane said. She was sparkling at the door, her wide smile a welcome sight. The days had been hard, but this joy was easy and desperately needed. “Your mother is with her, and the nurses. The pain hasn’t come for her yet, but she insists it will happen very soon. She’s asking for you. She’s nervous, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her this happy.”

  She waited for him to stand, but he couldn’t. His knees would surely give out if he tried.

  Sloane was merciful. “Come upstairs,” she said gently, helping him rise from his chair. “It’s time.”

  48

  Rielle

  “To the skies you were born, to the skies you return

  Back to the high places, the far moon, the cold burn

  But why did the great song call you so soon, child of the stars?

  And why oh why did you listen?”

  —Traditional angelic lament

  It was dawn in the burnished glory of autumn, and Rielle could no longer hold her tongue. Today was the day. She would tell him as soon as he awoke.

  Eliana, full and happy, had fallen asleep on her chest. It was five months since she had come into the world, eerily quiet, staring at everything with those huge brown eyes, and Rielle had still not grown used to how beautiful she was. Her smooth skin, a pale brown like the cheek of a fawn; her soft head, impossibly small; the silken dark hair swirling atop it. The warm weight of her, how perfectly she fit in Rielle’s arms. The gentle burbling noises she made while waving her tiny wrinkled feet, hands clenched as if ready to punch.

  Rielle kissed Eliana’s head and laid her carefully in her cradle. As morning sunlight crept across the room, she watched her daughter sleep. Sometimes her mouth moved, suckling nothing. Sometimes her eyelids fluttered—a dream—and Rielle laughed, in awe of this little person sleeping below her, this person she had carried through month after awful, glorious month.

  She hadn’t known what to expect when Garver had laid the child in her arms. Nearly twenty hours of excruciating labor, pain so unthinkable that it had drawn her deep into its heart, where everything felt gold and hot, and she glided down a molten fall. And then, at the end of it, a child. Audric holding her hand, laughing through his tears, and this creature, this tiny girl, staring up at her. Squashed and tiny and utterly perfect, her eyes wide and dark, as if already thinking of questions to ask.

  It would have been easier had Rielle felt nothing in that moment. She could have feigned love easily enough. Without Ludivine to out her, she could have fooled everyone. The wraiths avoided her, except for Zahra, who was infuriatingly reverent. Never mind that she was capable of killing angels. The mother of Eliana was to be protected and loved without question.

  But one look at Eliana’s face, and Rielle had been done for. Relinquishing her to Audric in exchange for sleep felt unreasonably devastating. She could spend the afternoon kissing Eliana’s fingers and forget to eat entirely. She could watch her for hours and never grow tired of staring.

  Love left her dizzy, reeling, giddy. She woke in the middle of the night to comfort Eliana, propped her legs up on a settee and laid Eliana on her thighs. Crooned at her, bounced her gently. Audric would wake later and greet Rielle with a kiss on her brow. He had stopped commenting on her fevered state, for which she was grateful. He would shift Eliana to his shoulder and walk slowly through their rooms. If the night was warm enough, he would open the windows, let the breeze in to cool Rielle’s overheated skin. She would watch him from their bed, quietly burning, eyes heavy, and as he sang nonsense songs to their daughter by the light of the moon, she would fall asleep to the sound of his voice.

  All of this, this love sitting hot as tears in her throat, and yet, when Rielle returned to bed on that autumn morning, she felt the same restless, weary disquiet that she had felt in the hours before Eliana’s birth, and in the days before that, in every long week that had passed since destroying Corien and Ludivine on the terrace.

  As she settled against the pillows, it happened again, just as it had only an hour earlier. Each time it came for her, less time had passed since the one before. Audric slept peacefully, sprawled on his back as always, mouth half-open, curls mussed. Rielle turned away from him, pressed her mouth against her shoulder.

  A pulsing heat bloomed at her every joint, as if something buried deep in her marrow were pushing her apart. Her power illuminated her every vein; she closed her eyes and saw the blinding crystalline tree that was her body and all its paths of blood. The pain was deafening. When it came, she could hear nothing else. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, holding her breath until the feeling passed. She held it for so long that her vision began to spot, but she couldn’t let go until it was safe. Never before in her life had she been able to hold quite so still.

  When she opened her eyes, gasping quietly for air, Audric was watching her. He reached for her, and she found the strength to push herself away from him. A pressure remained in her fingertips, at her temples, tight and hot, tenuous. If he touched her, she would burst.

  “What can I do?” He was sitting up now, fully awake. “Should I send for food? Water? Shall we walk in the gardens? The evening is cool. It might bring you some relief.”

  Rielle looked at him, blinking the spots from her eyes. How long had she been sitting there, finding her air again? It could have been hours. Her body ached as if freshly bruised, but when she looked at her bare arms, she saw only gold. It crashed against her bones, burrowed into her fingernails.

  It wanted out.

  “Nothing. You can do nothing, Audric. There is no relief for me, and I think you know that.” And then she risked gathering his hands in hers, because she could not live another second without telling him what must be done. She kissed his wrists, breathed out slowly against his knuckles. “I have to leave, my darling. I cannot stay here.”

  He laughed a little, his brow furrowing, as if she’d told a bizarre joke. “What do you mean, leave? To go where?”

  She closed her eyes. “You’re not stupid. Please don’t pretend to be. Every word I speak costs me. I have to leave. I cannot…”

  She paused, swallowing hard, as if trying not to be sick. But it wasn’t sickness ripping through her. It was hunger, it was need, it was every unseen scar etched into her bones raising its voice in anguish, it was the little golden threads in her blood winding up like coils, ready to snap.

  I rise

  The empirium’s voice, wordless and strange, was gentle. There was no kindness there, no regret, but there was something like acknowledgment. This would be difficult, it seemed to tell her. And yet that was no reason to spare her.

  we rise

  “I know,” she whispered, her voice ragged. “Give me a little more time. I need just a little more.”

  “What is it saying?” Audric took her face in his hands, his eyes bright. “Tell me. Let me speak to it.”

  “It hears everything you say, Audric, and it doesn’t care. It’s not a person or a being. It is everything that lives. It’s you, and me, and all of us.”

  “I’ll make it care.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’ll give it anything. I’ll give it myself. Anything.” His voice wrapped tight around stifled tears. “There has to be something. An exchange to be made.”

  Rielle touched his cheek. “Listen to yourself. As if the empirium is a thing that bargains. You’re not facing down an enemy, Audric. This is not a negotiation. It’s trying to help me. I’ve grown beyond this body. I’m in pain, and it’s offering relief. I have only to let go of the rope and drop.”

  “Please,” he whispered over and over. Eyes closed, mouth tight against her palm. “Please, don’t, not this.”

  The longer she looked at him, the less strength she had to stay solid, to sit
earthbound on the bed.

  “I’ve told you what the past months did to me,” she whispered, dry-eyed, and yet she could barely speak, her chest in knots. “Something has awakened in me, and I cannot put it to rest. I pushed my power beyond its limits, and now it races on, dragging me behind it. You have to let me go.”

  “No, I don’t. I can’t. That’s not the only way, Rielle.”

  “It is. Look at me. I don’t belong here anymore. Maybe I never did. We used to have that conversation all the time. None of this should surprise you.”

  “Yes, we had that conversation, and every time, I told you that of course you belong here. This is your home, your family. I still think that, even after everything that’s happened. Your power is not all of you. It is only part.”

  She smiled fondly at him. “Even if I had no power at all, you would love me just as you do now.”

  “I would. I would.” He looked away, glaring fiercely at the bed. “We’ll find healers—we’ll scour the world for them. Scholars of the empirium, the finest surgeons in Mazabat.”

  “Audric—”

  “And the wraiths—their angelic minds are spectacular. They’ll help us engineer something to help you, something to quell the pain and calm your power—”

  “Audric, look at me.”

  Little shakes of his head, disbelieving. He would not accept it, and he would not look at her. He dragged a hand through his hair, made a sound like choking.

  “Please don’t do this,” he said hoarsely. He pressed his forehead against hers. “Don’t leave us.”

  “I can barely hold myself together,” she said, stroking his hair. “I fight it every day, this turning inside me. Someday, I will lose my grip, and then what will happen to all of you? Can’t you see the danger?” How dear it was, the soft slide of his curls through her fingers. Each caress of her fingers gilded the dark strands gold.

  “You’re stronger than you know.”

  “And yet, what kind of life is it to fight constantly against yourself?”

  “I’ll help you,” he whispered, eyes closed tightly.

  “You have helped me. You welcomed me back into your life. You defend my goodness and honor every time you enter a temple and someone shouts in your face, denouncing me. You gave me Eliana.”

  “And you would leave her anyway? You would let her grow up without knowing you?”

  A stab to her heart. She ripped herself away from him. “Do you think I haven’t thought of all this a hundred times over?”

  He lowered his gaze, wiped his face. At last, heat rose behind her eyes. She had told herself she would not cry, but he looked so ashamed, slumped on their bed. Bare-chested, tears dropping onto his hands.

  “I know you’ve thought of it,” he whispered. “I’ve watched all of this turn in your eyes. I’ve told myself it was just my imagination. Every morning, I wake thinking this will be the day you tell me what you’ve just said.”

  “And every day I live is another day of pain I can hardly bear. Another day in which you and Eliana and everyone we have fought so hard to save are in danger. Look at me.”

  She lifted his chin, saw the bright shine of his eyes. She pressed a hard kiss to his mouth.

  “I must go,” she told him, each word a struggle. “You know this. You’ve seen me suffering.”

  His face was a tapestry of despair. “I have.”

  “You’ve seen the changes in me. The lights beneath my skin, how I burn hotter than fever.”

  “You cry in your sleep some nights,” he said, touching her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Some days, you’re far from me, from all of us. I wonder where you’ve gone.”

  “And yet you would ask me to stay?”

  Helplessly, he shook his head. “I hate myself for it.”

  She heard it in his voice, the loathing and the guilt. Their bedroom, soft with morning, glinted with her tears. She kissed his beautiful hands, each rough with new scars. She wished she had been there to see Atheria carry him into the hurricane. From the shore, Sloane had told her, he had dazzled. An orb of light, racing unafraid into darkness.

  “You are not deserving of hate,” she whispered. “Eliana will learn from you how to love herself. Be kind to your own heart, if only for her sake.”

  “Rielle,” he said, the word splintering against her skin, “I don’t know how to live in a world without you in it.”

  “You will learn.”

  “But the Gate,” he said desperately. “Who will close it, if you leave?”

  “I wouldn’t leave that for you to face alone, Audric, I—”

  She shut her eyes, turning slightly away. The pain was rising once more, sharp-toothed and churning. Gold bit at the insides of her eyes, and a great force pulled at her palms, the soles of her feet, the top of her skull, the small of her back. Fists sank into her muscles and twisted, grinding bone against bone. Soon she would fly apart, and what a relief it would be. She thought of the endless black sea, the rushing sky bright with stars, the little girl holding out her hand.

  Come with me, the girl had said. We are rising, you and I. There is so much for us to do.

  “Stay with me.” Tenderly, Audric gathered her hands in his. His palms were clammy, his voice trembling with worry. “I’m right here, Rielle. Listen to my voice. Please, God, stay with me. Please, my darling.”

  Sweat rolled down her back, pooled under her breasts. If she dove into frozen water, she would melt every iceberg. If she stepped off the bed, if her toes touched the floor, she would fall forever.

  “I’m here,” she whispered faintly, once she could speak, and he held her, hardly breathing, until this latest burst of agony had faded—the bed linens soaked, her skin blazing like polished copper, tears streaming like rivers down her cheeks. She turned into Audric’s body, hid her face in the curve of his neck. Slowly, carefully, he stroked her damp hair, as if she were a bird blown from glass or a beast he dared not provoke.

  “I love you, Rielle,” he whispered, trembling. “I have loved you always, and I will never stop.”

  I wish you would, she wanted to tell him. It would be easier for you, to stop loving me. But there was no need to stab a dying man, and his voice was already calming her, coaxing her into a woozy lull—her name on his lips, his voice torn to shreds. She fell into a shallow red sleep.

  • • •

  Rielle waited long enough that Audric began to suspect she had changed her mind. Every morning, he woke to find her still beside him, and hope broke open across his face, lit his eyes warm and soft. He began to sleep more soundly, no longer waking every time she shifted.

  Then a chill night came. A sharp wind thumped its fingers against the windows. Clouds black against the stars, the moon new and dark.

  Rielle awoke from sleep that hardly deserved the word. Waves of scorching light pulsed behind her eyes. Each dull boom chipped away another piece of her skull.

  She held her breath, listening. Eliana slept in her cradle, fist at her mouth, little breaths coming steadily. When Rielle climbed out of bed, Audric did not wake. Shadows darkened the soft skin beneath his eyes. He would deny it, but now she was only a source of grief and endless worry for him.

  She hurried quietly across the room in her bare feet. At the door, she had to stop for a moment, put her hand over her mouth until the sob building in her throat subsided. How desperately she wanted to kiss him once more, bow her head over Eliana’s tiny warm body and press her face to her daughter’s round cheeks.

  But she could not risk waking them. She stepped into the hallway, closed the door behind her. Never had a sound held such terror and such bone-shattering relief. Knees shaking, she leaned hard against the door, held up a hand to silence Evyline before the woman could speak.

  “Send the others away,” Rielle muttered, staring at the floor. She found it hard to look at Evyline, who had asked R
ielle many times for permission to replace Maylis and Fara. But Rielle would not allow it. She wanted to look at the two empty places in her old guard. She wanted to feel the remorse it brought, let it sit prickly in her gut.

  Evyline obeyed her at once. Soon they were alone.

  “What is it, my queen?” Evyline placed her broad hand on Rielle’s back. “Is it an angel?”

  Unthinkable, that Evyline could have forgiven her, and yet when Rielle finally found the courage to look at her, she saw only love in the older woman’s tired eyes.

  “I’m leaving,” Rielle whispered. “I need you to help me reach the mountains. I cannot be in the city when it happens.”

  Evyline’s eyes widened. Rielle watched her swallow her protests, the dimming of her face as she accepted this command.

  “Very well, my queen.” Evyline offered her arm, and Rielle took it gratefully. “Where shall we go?”

  “Mount Taléa. The foothills, near the pass.” Rielle squeezed her eyes shut. Power rippled at her fingertips, pushing hard at the beds of her nails. The ends of her hair sparked white.

  Evyline’s face was tight with worry as they hurried down the hallway. “Will we have time to get there? My queen, forgive me, but your face…it is full of light. Stars beneath your cheekbones.”

  “I know.” At the stairwell, they stopped. Rielle leaned against the wall. Her mind first went to Ludivine, a horrible mistake that left her breathless with sorrow. She pushed past Ludivine’s memory, and Corien’s just behind it, and instead formed a picture of a different angel in her mind.

  Zahra? Please, hurry.

  A moment later, the wraith emerged from the nearby wall, her hair streaming behind her in white currents. Evyline flinched in surprise, spat a curse.

  Zahra knelt at once. “What can I do, my queen?”

  “Two things,” Rielle said tightly. “I need you to guard us as we walk through the city. No one can see us. Keep them far away from me.”