“I had thought of that,” she whispered, finishing her fruit. “That he would be kept alive as long as I am.”

She reached for a slice of buttered bread. She envisioned the three daggers strapped to Jessamyn’s belt but did not dare look at them. A strange peace came over her. She would have to be quick. One last kill for the Dread of Orline.

Remy, forgive me, she prayed.

Then she rose swiftly from her chair and struck Jessamyn hard in the throat.

Jessamyn staggered back and gasped soundlessly, clutching her neck. She hadn’t been expecting it. Eliana was weak. She’d gone soft; she hadn’t held a dagger in weeks. She hardly looked like a person anymore, let alone a killer.

But desperation gave her new strength. She found the shortest dagger on Jessamyn’s belt and wrenched it free of its sheath. Her mind a frenzy of white light and crackling noise, her blood afire with triumph, she thrust the blade toward her own stomach.

Before blade could meet flesh, something seized her—a firm but gentle presence in her mind like a hand around her wrist, pulling her back from the brink.

No, little one. Not yet. We have things left to do, you and I.

Whoever this person was, sending mind-speak into her thoughts as angels did, it was not Corien.

Eliana dropped the knife.

The adatrox stationed around the room remained silent and still. Jessamyn leaned against the dining table with one hand, her other hand at her collar. She did not lunge at Eliana to counterattack. None of the adatrox hurried forward to apprehend her.

Eliana stood slowly, staring. Jessamyn gasped for air. The dove at the window flew away with a soft trill.

We have a moment to speak uninterrupted, the voice told Eliana. I am deceiving the eyes of your guards, but I cannot shield us for long.

Who are you? Eliana stepped back from Jessamyn, her heart pounding in her ears. You’re an angel.

I am a friend.

Eliana spun around, searching for something to attack, but the room remained still and quiet. The only sound was Jessamyn’s ragged breathing. That does not answer my question.

Not all angels are alike, and not all worship at the Emperor’s feet. After a pause, the voice said, gentler now, Haven’t you such a friend? Your Zahra, whom you love?

Eliana sensed a kindness in this voice, and a great sadness. Her eyes filled with furious tears. Don’t you want me to stop him? This is the only way.

No. There is another. I don’t have much time before he realizes I’m here, and he can’t know I’m still alive, which is why I haven’t shown myself to you before now. Despite its sadness, the voice held an iron resolve that frightened Eliana, even kind as it was—for in this, at least, the voice matched Corien’s own. An indomitable will. Centuries of purpose.

I would have liked more time before coming to you, for your own sake, the voice continued. These months have been steadily wearing at you. You have suffered great losses, and you have so diligently worked against your power to protect us all that now you can find it only in moments of great duress, pain, or fear. That is why he hurts you so. That is why he promises happiness, only to tear it from your grasp. A pause. Then, an immense fondness. What you have endured is unforgivable. I wish I could tell you there isn’t more to come.

Eliana was mystified. Standing in a pool of still sunlight, her unseeing guards staring blankly like statues, she asked again, this time aloud, “Who are you?”

I have many names, the voice replied. But you know me as the Prophet.

18

   Rielle

“There is only one known scholarly depiction of Saint Tameryn without her dagger in hand—the frontispiece of a meticulously curated collection of obscure Astavari children’s tales. In the illustration, visible only when illuminated by direct sunlight, Tameryn is a child, and though ordinarily her likeness is of grave expression, in this instance she is beatific. In repose among a meadow’s flowers, she holds to her breast a white kitten in one hand and a beam of light in the other. No black leopard godsbeast to guard her. No dagger with which to fell her enemies. Not a single shadow in sight.”

—A footnote in The Book of the Saints

Rielle waited with mounting impatience for the tailor to finish adjusting the fabric of her new gown.

But she could not allow herself to be impatient. She needed to keep her mind as schooled as her face—mostly blank, a touch of imperiousness. The tailor moved quickly around her, pinning fabric, taking measurements. Corien had insisted she have a spectacular wardrobe, and the tailor he had conscripted for the job hailed from Kirvaya. Brilliantly talented, Corien had assured her, and indeed the man had created something exquisite—a high-collared black gown with structured shoulders and long snug sleeves that glittered with artful swirls of tiny gold jewels, a high waist, and a sweeping, dramatic skirt that allowed room for her growing belly.

Exquisite, and yet Rielle could not look directly at it. The black expanse of it, the glittering gold froth at the hem, reminded her of the endless sea of the empirium and how she had nearly drowned in it.

How she had wanted to drown in it.

The tailor fussed with a wrap of dark gray fur, draping it across her shoulders.

Rielle locked eyes with her reflection. The same green she had always seen in mirrors now flared with thick bands of swirling gold. The change had been happening slowly over the past few months, and she had ignored it, but could do so no longer. The gold would soon eclipse the green.

Suddenly, she could not bear to stand there any longer. Her stomach was unsettled; she couldn’t eat anything anymore without feeling sick. And she was surrounded by horrors. Monsters crafted from dragons and children forced into their magic. Monsters battering at the Gate. A monster who kissed her one moment and crafted abominations the next.

And she herself, the most monstrous of them all.

“We will finish this later,” Rielle announced, placing a hand on her belly. “I feel ill and need to rest.”

Half a lie, and one that almost made her laugh. She would never be allowed to rest.

As her handmaidens helped her undress, slip into a sleeping shift, and find her furred slippers, Rielle imagined clamping her thoughts between the jaws of a vise, afraid to breathe too loudly. Corien was working somewhere deep in the bowels of the Northern Reach to which he had not yet introduced her. With his mind occupied—directing the movements of angels around the world, communicating with those still in the Deep, working with his physicians to cut and maim—Rielle’s own mind was as clear as it would ever be.

But she had to move fast.

As soon as she was alone, she gathered every piece of warm clothing she could find. Her sturdy fur-lined boots, which she had worn earlier that week when Corien gave her a tour of the reeking dragon pens. Thick tights, thick wool stockings, tunic, and trousers, and a long fur coat that fell past her knees. A scarf to wrap around her head and neck and a fur hat to tie down over that.