“We’re here,” she croaked. She had not used her voice in days, perhaps weeks. “Aren’t we?”

The admiral’s smile was jubilant, the ghost of her father’s face alight with an expression of frenzied joy she had never seen him wear.

“Get dressed,” he commanded. “He is waiting for you.”

3

   Audric

“Fear not, Celdaria: The traitor Audric Courverie no longer sits on Katell’s sacred throne. The murderous Kingsbane has fled in fear. At last, the mysterious attacks plaguing the eastern borders, leaving our citizens pale and disfigured in their homes, will end. At last, we will find justice for what we have lost. At last, the House of Sauvillier will bring Celdaria’s enemies to their knees. Look to the capital and rejoice, for though the crown was weak, it is now strong once more. All hail His Majesty Merovec Sauvillier, the True King of Celdaria!”

—A royal decree issued upon Merovec Sauvillier’s assumption of the Celdarian throne, November 8, Year 999 of the Second Age

Audric would have flown for days, if Ludivine had let him.

In the sky, with only the low clouds and Ludivine and Atheria for company, he was almost able to forget everything that had happened. He existed in a soft gray world, even when the sunlight hit him full on, so brilliant and hot that beads of sweat rolled down his brow and back and pasted his clothes to his skin.

His clothes—trousers of the finest wool, boots polished to a faultless shine, a tunic of emerald silk, an embroidered coat of white and gold that hugged his trim torso.

The clothes he had worn to his wedding only days earlier.

“Hush,” Ludivine told him the first time memories of that night managed to penetrate the numb fog that had fallen over him. She rode behind him on Atheria, arms wrapped around his waist, cheek pressed against his back. “There’s no sense in thinking of that now. Not until we’re safe.”

Safe. He laughed, but only a little. He hadn’t the energy for more than that, and certainly not enough to talk to her, even if he’d wanted to.

And he didn’t want to.

He spoke to Ludivine only once, after she convinced him to stop in a small wood near the southern shores of Celdaria. They had to fly carefully, and only at night. Audric had allowed Ludivine to dictate the terms of their travel, too weary and heartsick to protest. It was soothing to be directed and carried. Directed by an angel, carried by a godsbeast.

Again, he laughed. Each time he did, Ludivine’s concern butted gently against him like that of a fussing mother. Several times, he considered turning around, shoving her off Atheria, and watching her plunge through the clouds to the ground. The only thing that stopped him was the hope that she might be useful in finding Rielle and convincing her to come home.

A callous, selfish thought, perhaps. He hoped Ludivine could sense it. He hoped it sat as heavily on her heart as his last memories of Rielle sat on his. He hoped it suffocated her.

Atheria alighted soundlessly in a grove of oaks and shook out her wings. Audric felt her great black eyes watching him as he stood between two gnarled trunks and looked north, toward home.

Ludivine touched his arm. “You didn’t abandon them.”

“I did,” he said flatly. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

“If you had stayed, Merovec would have killed you.”

His grip on Illumenor’s hilt tightened. “I can protect myself.”

“Of course, but that is something we could not have risked.”

He rounded on her. “Why? Because with me dead, you would have had to work harder to bring Rielle home?”

Ludivine’s pale gaze was steady. “It would have broken my heart to lose you.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It is nevertheless true.”

“Surely you don’t expect me to believe that anything you say is true.”

She watched him quietly for a moment, perhaps hoping that her steady silence would wear him down, that he would apologize for his unkindness, that he would draw her into his arms and kiss her brow as he had always done.

But instead, he watched her with the patience of a mountain until she was the one to look away and sink heavily onto the grass.

“I have made a grave error somewhere,” she muttered, “but I cannot see it.”

“Your error was in thinking you could control us like pieces in a strategy game,” Audric snapped. “You thought you could scheme with Rielle, keep her all to yourself, and still protect her from him somehow. You convinced her to hide the truth from me, and you ushered her through the trials, and you encouraged her to practice the art of resurrection, which is exactly what he wants of her, and you did all of this without consulting anyone.”

As he spoke, he grew angrier. His fury did not erupt, but rather overflowed steadily. The world was a whirl of dim light and roaring sound, but he stayed put where he stood and breathed through the heat of his anger.

His fight with Rielle was too fresh for him to make the same mistake twice and push away his strongest ally in the war for Rielle’s allegiance.

If it could even still be won.

And the fact that he had to think of such things—Rielle’s allegiance, as if she owed that to him or anyone—disgusted him so thoroughly that he realized with a swift, quiet turn of understanding that he hated himself utterly.

He stared down at Ludivine, steeling his heart against the sight of her sitting there with slumped shoulders, staring bleakly at nothing, a lock of mussed golden hair come loose from its crown of braids.

“All those months ago, when the Borsvall soldiers ambushed me during the Boon Chase,” Audric said, “and Rielle lost control of her power while saving me—you could have stopped her then, isn’t that right? You could have entered her mind and subdued her, kept her power secret. She would not have been found out. No trials, no Sun Queen.”

“I could not allow you to die,” Ludivine said hollowly.

He waited a beat, then crouched before her. “Because you love me?”

“Because Rielle loves you.”

The words gutted him. Did she still? He might never know. “Because you wanted her to love me. You wanted us to love one another, and wed, and you wanted us to have children, maybe, for each of these things would have bound her more securely to me, to the crown. To you.”

Ludivine flinched. “Because if you had died, it would have broken her heart.”

“And in her heartbroken state, she might have done something rash. Fallen into the arms of one ready to soothe her grief. As she has now done, despite all your efforts.”