The noises of the battle around her fell away. She existed in a cocoon—the water lapping at the ice, the ice hot with her mother’s blood, the blood slick on her clenched palms.
The water rumbled, shifting. The ice cracked open. Rozen’s body slid into the water and disappeared. A dim percussive noise struck the air. Bright lights flashed—angry and too many.
A muffled shout pulled her out of whatever place she’d gone.
She blinked. Blinked again.
Simon pulled her to her feet. “You’re burning up. Come on, let’s move. God, Eliana, what did you do?”
She didn’t answer, didn’t know the answer. A charged feeling tugged at her hands, nipped across her skin.
They plunged into frigid, knee-high water. She watched her feet wade through a black ocean thick with chunks of ice, felt her boots slide through mud.
“Eliana, stop!”
She stood on shifting sand, water lapping at her toes. The shore.
“Look at me!” Simon was shouting at her, but the field of light beyond her eyes was too bright, too terrible. She squinted her eyes shut and turned into him. Her body could no longer hold itself up. She sagged to the ground, and Simon went with her, holding her in his arms. The wind howled around them, whipping ice and sand against her skin.
“What’s happening?” she murmured. A brutal coughing fit seized her. Every bone in her body ached, every muscle burned.
A cold hand smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “Look at what you’re doing, Eliana. I need you to open your eyes for me, come on.”
She forced open her eyes and looked out to sea.
Lightning flashed, three new strikes every second, painting the battlefield a fevered silver. They blasted apart the crawlers still swimming to shore; icebergs erupted into flame. Roiling dark waves crashed against the Empire fleet. A savage wind whipped sails from their masts, stirred the sea into whirlpools that sucked the warships underwater and snapped them in two.
“You have to stop it,” Simon shouted over the wind.
“Am I doing this?” she murmured, then realized she wasn’t breathing, that the storm had sucked all the air from her lungs. Her gasp hurt, cleaved her chest in two.
Simon’s hands cupped her face, steadying her. “Please, Eliana, look at me, look into my eyes.”
She did, sobs she didn’t intend to release tearing out of her throat. “I killed her. I couldn’t save her!”
“I know.” He wiped the grit from her face. “And I’m sorry. But you have to stop this now, or you’ll kill us all.”
She shook her head, realizing through the frantic roar of her despair that somehow she was doing this, that the world was echoing her own rage. Zahra was right, and so was Simon. There was an impossible thing living inside her. She had always thought it a monster of her own creation, forged by the violence she had done to survive.
But the truth was this: It was a monster given to her by her mother. The Blood Queen. The Kingsbane. A traitor and a liar.
And Eliana decided, in that moment, to hate her.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” she cried. Her fingers blazed along with the storm; the feeling revolted her. She watched ships being torn apart, soldiers swimming for their lives. Black waves surged toward the shore.
“Just hold on to me,” Simon whispered, cradling her against his chest. “Hold on to me and think of Remy. Think of Navi.” He pressed his cold cheek to her forehead. “Think of home.”
Home. And what was home to her now? Orline? Or Celdaria?
With the storm raging, she could remember neither place.
Instead she listened to Simon’s wild heartbeat, imagined Remy’s voice reading her a story before sleep, and breathed.
51
Rielle
“Wind and water
Fire and shadow
Metal and earth and light above—
Hear our prayer on this day of death
Take in hand our fallen friend
To be born anew, through you
And begin again
In the eyes of the Seven, we pray”
—Traditional Celdarian funeral rite
Hours after the Archon’s blessing, near the midnight hour, Rielle brought Audric to Ludivine’s rooms.
Ludivine rose from a hearthside chair with a cautious smile. “Good, you’ve come.”
Audric pulled the door shut behind them with a snap. “Rielle told me what you are.”
Ludivine’s face fell. She glanced at Rielle. “What else did she tell you?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t be afraid of me. I want only to help you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Audric softened. “All right. Help me, then. Help us understand.”
Ludivine’s gaze settled on Rielle, infinitely tender. “I came to protect Rielle. The moment she was born, I felt her. We all did.”
“All?”
“The other angels?” Rielle said, her chest clenching.
Ludivine nodded miserably. “Yes, the other angels. I’ve been trying to protect you as best I can for years now.”
Audric dragged both hands through his hair. “I don’t understand. You’re Ludivine. You’re my cousin. We’ve known you since you were small. I was there the day you were born, for God’s sake. You’ve always been…you.”
“Yes.” Ludivine’s smile was sad. “And no. Do you remember when I…when Ludivine had that terrible fever a few years ago?”
“You were sixteen years old,” Rielle remembered. She sank onto a bench by the fire. “We waited outside your door all night with Queen Genoveve and your father, hoping you’d get through it.”
“Yes. Well.” Ludivine drew a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “I didn’t. That is, she didn’t. Ludivine Sauvillier died that night. And I took her place.”
Audric turned away and moved swiftly across the room. “This is some kind of trick.”
It’s not a trick, Ludivine’s voice cried out in Rielle’s mind. Tell him!
“It’s not a trick,” Rielle whispered, and she believed it, though the horrible truth of it sat like a weight on her lungs. “How could you keep the truth from us for so long? If you love us as you claim to—”
“I wanted to!” Ludivine’s eyes were bright with tears. “Every day, I wanted to. But I thought it would be best not to. I thought it would protect you. I thought…” Ludivine shook her head, gestured helplessly. “I wanted you both to be spared from all of this for as long as possible.”