Audric, staring at the shattered doors with a horrible dullness spreading across his face, as if he had been dealt a fatal blow.

Rielle could not bear the sight of his numb disbelief. One parent dead only months before. Now, the other.

She had recognized that bleak desperation in Genoveve’s voice, there at the end. And then there were the queen’s fists pounding against her temples, her hands clamped over her ears.

A swift heat snapped up Rielle’s body.

You did this. She reached inside herself, past her shock, and gathered up every rageful feeling she could find. The fury crystallized her mind, her vision, her certainty of what she must do.

Corien replied after only a moment. I won’t lie to you, my darling. I considered it. But as it turns out, I had to do very little.

Rielle fled the room, her vision a pure, hot crimson. Ludivine shot her a feeling of protest, grabbing her arm. Rielle wrenched herself free and ran on.

The woman was grieving, Corien continued as she flew down the stairs, shouting at every wide-eyed guard she encountered to move out of her path.

And that gave you the right to end her life? Rielle spat out.

You’re making many awful assumptions. Had it occurred to you that Genoveve had already decided to take her own life by the time I began visiting her?

Rielle flung open the castle’s front doors, guards streaming in and out on either side of her. The queen’s body, she deduced from their confused shouts, had been found shattered in the stone yard.

You lie. She sent him a vicious wave of anger. You infected her thoughts. You’re trying to break him, and you’ll fail.

Him? Oh. Corien’s voice was mild. You mean your cow-eyed lover.

My lover, yes, and someday, my husband. And with that, Rielle flung all her thoughts outward, banishing Corien as best she could, though she could still feel him hovering at her edges, though the effort of resisting him made her stumble.

Guards had gathered around Genoveve’s body, shielding her from any onlookers through the castle gates, but at Rielle’s approach, they scattered.

She sank to her knees, forcing herself to examine the queen’s body—every gash, every crack in her skull. The skewed position of her limbs; the dark pool of blood spreading beneath her. Her still, glassy gaze.

Audric arrived, breathless, tears streaking his cheeks. He let out a horrible ruptured sound at the sight of his mother’s body, and then sank to the ground beside her.

“Don’t touch her,” Rielle commanded, her vision already broadening past the capacity of her human eyes. She was sinking into a sea of furious gold. “Stay away.”

Then she bent low over the dead queen and began to work.

She knit in a controlled frenzy, her fingers skimming across each broken bone. She drew golden tracks down the queen’s limbs and chest, around the shattered plates of her skull, her snapped limbs. In the bright unblinking eye of her mind, she saw the queen as she had been before Bastien’s death—healthy and strong, a true northern beauty with her pale skin and auburn hair. Her straight nose, her eyes pale and sharp as Ludivine’s.

This time, when Rielle felt that tight shift deep in her gut, it felt not like a strain of muscle but rather an expansion. She welcomed it, leaning in to its fever. She opened her mind to it and let it consume her, and when it had enveloped her completely in its fire, she carried stars in her hands and held flames under her tongue. She burned cold and clear, and when she opened her eyes once more, it was to a world both familiar and strange.

She smiled a little, sinking back into her body. Beatific, she relished the hum of her bones. She was sapped clean of all worry, all anger and desperation. There was a distant clanging din, battering against the edges of her awareness, but she dismissed it as she would have a buzzing fly.

“I am everything and nothing,” she whispered, laughing a little, and when she found Audric’s eyes, the look he gave her, quiet and even, tear-bright, was one she could not decipher.

Then Genoveve’s trembling body arched up from the ground, bloodstained but whole. Audric darted forward to support her against his chest, and then, wild-eyed, Genoveve shifted, grappling for something unseen. Her eyes met Rielle’s, and she let out a horrible scream of anger, so raw that, despite Rielle’s euphoria, the sound shook her to her toes.

“You should have let me die,” Genoveve said, her voice tripping over her gasped breaths, and then she howled it to the sky: “You should have let me die!” And her hands clamped over her ears once more, and she rocked in Audric’s arms.

“She will kill us,” she whispered, turning her face into Audric’s chest. She moaned and wept. “She will kill us all.”

Then that distant din rose, sharpening itself against the queen’s keening cries. Rielle turned to greet it, peering curiously across the torchlit yard.

The crowd gathered at the lower gates had been banging their fists against the elaborate wrought iron, slamming their mock castings, their hammers, their knives against the thick stone wall. And now, as Rielle rose to greet them, they quieted slowly, until only a few stubborn murmurs remained.

“Do not be afraid,” Rielle called out to them, raising her hands as if to show them she carried no weapons. A useless gesture, but one she hoped would placate them. “I mean you no harm. Your queen was unwell, but I have brought her back to us. Just as I did Lady Ludivine. Just as I will do for any who require it. I am your Sun Queen, and you need not fear me. Do not be afraid.”

Then, smiling faintly to herself, she turned away from them and knelt at the queen’s side. Genoveve whimpered, struggling to move as far away as she could while still in Audric’s arms.

And Audric said nothing, watching Rielle quietly. She had seldom seen his gaze so somber.

She touched his face. “My love,” she whispered. She dropped a kiss onto his brow. “Do not be afraid.”

Almost immediately, she regretted kissing him. For when her lips touched his skin, the spell of her power shattered. She was left tired and aching, entirely human, and as Evyline helped her to her feet, she became aware of how, for the first time since she had known him, Audric was regarding her with something like fear.

40

   Eliana

“During the longest winter the world had yet seen, as the seeds of war sprouted slow from the dirt, Gilduin traveled far.

His heart ached for lands unknown. A nettle in his blood compelled him to travel without rest.

And this ache was one he did not cherish and longed to be rid of.

And Morgaine remained in her castle, her rule fair and just. Her eyes were steel and her mind cut sharp and true.

But at night she wept, alone in her tower, and she did not know that, alone in the desert, on a far white dune,