“Quinlan is looking after him,” Annick replied. “She has powerful friends. They’ll be safe.”

“Your wife is entirely too good for you.”

“Too true,” Annick said, and then added, a grin in her voice, “Do you know, at times like this, I almost find myself wishing you and I hadn’t ever stopped loving each other.”

“At times like this, I find myself wishing I had no power at all, so I could send your sorry ass to save the world and stay at home with my son.”

“Our son, you wretch,” Annick said fondly, and kissed Garver’s nose.

Tal listened to their quiet conversation until his eyes began to drift shut, and for the first time since leaving Celdaria, he fell asleep with a flare of hope burning clean and bright in his heart.

17

   Eliana

“There are days when I too lose my courage. I hear the screams of the dying, and I think all is lost. But if you learn one thing from my writings, I hope it is this: Whatever pain you have been dealt, the Sun Queen, when she comes, will bear far more. And she will know all the while that, if she surrenders, she will do so at the cost of everything that lives.”

—The Word of the Prophet

It was over far too quickly.

Eliana lurched across the terrace, clumsy with terror, and crashed to her knees against the low stone parapet. Ioseph and Remy fell fast toward the ground, their bodies blurred shapes in the darkness.

From the moment Eliana grasped Corien’s intent, she knew what her choice would be, and therefore did not hesitate. She could sense the truth in his words: If she tried to save them both, he would kill them, and she would be left with nothing.

But he had known that and had correctly guessed how she would respond to that threat, that she would have no choice but to do what she was doing now—reaching out for Remy’s body as it spun and plummeted, desperation making her castings flare to life.

The empirium shifted at her command, the air around Remy weaving itself into a brilliant cushioned net. Eyes glazed, her vision gone golden and supple, Eliana could see the change in the air like the press of a thumb against skin, making the world’s flesh stretch and pucker.

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she lowered Remy gently to the courtyard below, the clean white stone now marred by something Eliana could not bring herself to look at. Instead, she watched a pair of guards lift Remy to his feet and escort him away until he was lost in the shadows.

She huddled on the terrace, shivering against the parapet. She laid her cheek on the rough cool stone, and as she listened to the sounds of soldiers carrying away Ioseph’s body, something broke within her. Not a snap, but a gentle giving way, as if a tree gone soft and half-rotted had been standing too tall in harsh winds and could no longer bear its own weight. An exhaustion unlike any she had felt before fell over her, drawing a thick blanket of numbness over her thoughts.

She barely noticed Corien helping her rise. He smoothed her hair back from her face, wiped away her tears.

“What a waste to make you endure this,” he said. “We would make a happy family, if you allowed it. You, me, Remy. Your mother too, once I’ve found her. I’ll let you flay Simon down to his bones if you wish and keep him alive for every second of agony.”

Corien’s thumb caressed her jaw. He watched her with eyes blacker than the sky above them. “Send me back, Eliana, and you’ll never have to feel like this again.”

Then he turned and was gone, and Eliana slipped into a quiet dark tunnel devoid of life. When she found light once more, she was on her clean white bed in her clean white rooms, every surface awash in soft moonlight. She curled atop the blankets, shivering.

A crackling sound spit through the room, a warped buzz that reminded her of the sour hiss of galvanized lighting. From a brass funnel affixed to the wall, high in a corner of the room above a bundle of thick wires, came the soaring melody of the orchestra playing in the theater downstairs. The brass device distorted the sound, making it seem as though the orchestra were making music on a distant high mountain.

Eliana did not know how Corien had achieved this, nor did she care. The music struck her ears like the blunt heels of vicious hands, and she let them pummel her to sleep.

• • •

Eliana awoke to the nauseating smell of breakfast arriving.

She watched dully as her white-robed attendants carried dishes to the small white dining table by the south-facing windows—a plate, a bowl, a pitcher, a goblet. The scent of food sat in her nose and mouth like a sour film. Eliana turned away from the neatly set table. If she looked at it for another second, she would be sick.

There was a moment of silence, and then from the doorway came a sharp huff of impatience. Jessamyn appeared, marching over to Eliana’s bed in her trim black uniform. A small collection of sheathed knives hung from her belt.

“You will eat every bite,” she commanded, yanking Eliana upright. “His Excellency commands it.”

Eliana did not resist. Once on her feet, she followed Jessamyn to the table. Her mind felt muddled; to move her legs, to think her thoughts, was to slog through a swamp. She felt as though she had been pulled through a tight chasm into a state that was neither awake nor asleep.

And yet her gaze flitted to Jessamyn’s daggers. How easily her thoughts tipped to Arabeth and Nox and Whistler, her own beloved, long-gone knives. Slowly, an idea began to form.

Eliana sat before her breakfast and measured her breathing, allowed her idea to grow. If she moved too quickly, she would disrupt the fog that kept her mind torpid, and Corien would sense what she intended and stop her.

“Eat,” Jessamyn snapped, standing tall beside the table.

Eliana lifted a spoonful of mash to her lips. Morning light filtered through the windows; the glass was spotless, and beyond it, a dove perched on the gutter preened its feathers.

Eliana’s idea turned and sharpened, steadily taking shape. She could not—would not—help Corien. And yet she could not endure more of this. The endless nightly torment, Remy brought before her and abused, the inability to trust her own mind.

This was the answer. She had to end his game before he could win, and this was the only way to do it.

She ate under Jessamyn’s watchful gaze. Spoon from bowl to lips until the dish was clean, and then she started on her fruit. A berry popped open between her teeth.

“Where is Remy being held?” she asked. If she was going to abandon him to this place, she needed to hear the truth of his fate. “Is he hurt? Is he being fed?”

“Fed, yes,” Jessamyn said after a slight pause. “Hurt, yes, but nothing egregious. The Emperor will make certain he is safe as long as he is useful.”

As long as he is useful. Eliana smiled with faint relief. Once she was gone, they would kill him. He would want it that way. He would want her to do this. Two lives in exchange for countless others? A simple equation. If Remy knew, as she did, that it was the only way to win, he would hold the blade himself.