A general, maybe, in an outpost some miles away.
Or the Emperor himself, even from across the sea. Sniffing her out from thousands of miles away.
I have her now, Rielle, and you can do nothing to save her.
Eliana stepped back from the wall, her heart pounding in her ears. She half expected the Emperor to walk laughing out of the trees.
Found you!
Patrik shouted at Dasha to look left, just before one of the crawling vipers pounced and grabbed her by the throat with a wide mouth of serrated black teeth.
Another viper leapt onto the stone wall and swiped at Harkan with long, webbed claws. Jessamyn jumped up and slashed her knife across its leg. It snapped its head around, screeching. Harkan, on the ground, fired one wild shot into its belly. The beast fell, but not before a lash of its hooked tail caught Jessamyn across her leg.
She collapsed with a cry, clutching her right thigh. Harkan caught her, helped lower her to the ground, pressed his hands against her wound.
“El, do something!” he shouted. “Your castings!”
She looked down at them. They hummed, warm and vibrating, like queer metal spiders come to life on her palms.
Her mind protested: the explosions at Caebris. The fire in the Nest. The storm in Karajak Bay.
The Blood Queen.
The Kingsbane.
Her blood runs in your veins.
But her blood, oh, her blood cared nothing about danger or mothers who ended the world. Her blood was rising to meet the hum of her castings, pressing feverishly against the underside of her skin.
Her blood knew what it wanted.
New gunfire rang out—sharp, precise. Eliana looked up. Two raptors fell from the sky. A third. A fourth.
She ran for the wall, crouched next to Patrik, wiped the rain from her face. “Who’s shooting? Not Gerren?”
Patrik’s eyes were fierce and bright beneath the sopping mess of his hair. He nodded at the paddock’s left wall, some fifty yards away. “It’s Simon.”
29
Rielle
“I have begun to wonder, as have Marzana and Ghovan, about the possibility of using our power to heal those who have suffered great injury in our service. They fight for us, for our entire kind, and so they deserve, in return, everything we can give them. God granted us enough magic to perform great natural acts. Is it not therefore an extension of that power to perform the greatest natural act there is? Giving life to that which lacks life? I must believe this is possible. The empirium is limitless, and we are of the empirium. Therefore, we are limitless.”
—Surviving journals of Saint Katell of Celdaria, May 24, Year 1531 of the First Age
Rielle heard the villagers’ screams in her sleep and awoke to the feeling of fire on her skin.
She cried out in horror and scrambled off the bed, pawing at her arms and torso.
“Rielle? What is it?” Audric followed her and tried to catch her hands, but she shoved him away. If he touched her, he would burn.
Evyline and Maylis burst in, the other members of the Sun Guard right behind them.
Rielle realized the fire was an illusion, a dream remnant. Her nightgown clung to her. Though the floor beneath her bare feet felt like winter polished smooth, her body dripped with sweat.
For the space of five shaking breaths, she stood with her face pressed against Audric’s chest. He smoothed back the damp knots of her hair.
“It’s all right, Evyline,” she heard Audric say. “Lady Rielle has had a nightmare.”
Then Ludivine’s shout came to her, followed by the faint mind-echo of screams.
Rielle, they’re burning! Hurry!
She let out a tired sob and detached herself from Audric, fumbling through the dark room for her clothes.
Audric retrieved his own. “What is it? What did she say?”
He knew well the various expressions she wore when Ludivine spoke to her. She felt a burst of tenderness to see him dutifully dressing at her side, ready to go wherever she commanded, without question.
“Villagers are burning,” she said. “I think there’s been a fire.”
No. Not a fire. Corien. He’s controlling them. He’s too powerful.
Where are you?
Trying to stop him.
And suddenly Rielle’s mind filled with images given to her by Ludivine: a humble mountain village, a series of stone shelters built into the side of a mountain pockmarked with caves. Four elementals flinging knots of fire. Blackened bodies, lit up where they had fallen, flames persisting even in the snow.
“It’s Corien,” Rielle said, drawing on her coat. “He’s controlling elementals in a nearby village. He’s making them burn one another.” She was afraid to look Audric in the eye. “I’m sorry. He’ll be there, but we must go to them.”
“Of course we must.” His voice was unreadable. He fastened his cloak at his throat, flung on his sword belt, and grabbed Illumenor. Together they hurried through the temple, the Sun Guard silent and burnished at their heels.
• • •
Ludivine gave them information en route. The village was not far, and the Obex had offered them the use of seven shaggy mountain ponies, solid and sure-footed.
The village is called Polestal, Ludivine said. Eighty-seven inhabitants. She paused. Now eighty. Seven have died. More are burning, half-alive. Most in the village are elementals. The rest are human slaves.
Rielle relayed this information to Audric and her guard, shouting through the snow.
“How are these firebrands overwhelming the other elementals?” Audric asked. “Why are they not fighting back?”
Corien is confusing them, Ludivine replied. Scrambling their minds. They cannot focus. Their power cannot find its footing.
After Rielle explained, Audric cursed passionately. “Why is he doing this? To draw you out, I assume, but why? He’s just seen you.”
Why, Lu?
His mind is closed to me, my darling. Ludivine’s voice was thin with terror and anger in equal parts. I’m trying to understand, but I can barely keep my own thoughts focused. He is a great storm, and in his wake it is difficult to even stand upright.
“Lu doesn’t know,” she replied.
Audric looked furious. “It’s a trap, and we’re walking right into it.”
“We can’t go back, Audric. We can’t abandon these people to him.”
“Begging your pardon, my lady,” Evyline interrupted, “but the lives of a few villagers are not equal to your own.”