Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,128

No, not air. Nothing. The empirium, the Prophet had said, raw and unfettered.

Distant shrieks and howling roars crashed against each other, building to an awful, discordant cacophony that slammed over and over against her ears, as if she were falling from a high cliff through chaotic mountain winds.

She gasped and choked, struggling to breathe. Heat swept across her skin in painful waves, and with a burst of terror, she wondered if this was the beginning of the end. She would lose her body just as the angels did, her skin peeled away by the Deep.

Eliana, listen to my voice.

She fumbled for the Prophet’s faint, distorted words as if they were handholds she could use to climb free of the darkness. What’s happening? I don’t understand!

Listen to me and concentrate on what I’m saying. Remember the city you saw, the road you walked upon? You must recreate the illusion, use it to steady yourself and find your footing once more. Your little river, Eliana—remember it. How it anchors you to your own power. How it protects you from anything that would hurt you.

Eliana struggled to think of the city and its black spires, the boy with the white braids, the juggler’s glowing orbs. The images rushed at her, tumbled and frantic, and she grabbed for them, imagining her castings and the power they carried as anchors that could pin the world back into place. And with each image she caught and held came a relief from the roaring noise battering her ears. The brilliant lights dimmed; the spinning blackness slowed and steadied. She began to feel the edges of herself return—the hem of her nightgown kissing her legs, her hair brushing her shoulders, the cool embrace of her castings.

There you are. The Prophet’s voice was steady, no longer so distant. Take a step.

Eliana obeyed and placed her foot on the wet cobblestones of the spire-city’s rain-slicked road. For a moment, she did nothing but stand on her own shaky legs and breathe. She clung to the feeling of her own physicality, hoping it would ground her.

Trust the illusion, she told herself. She held onto the song of her power, thrumming in every vein, and in her mind she drew a picture of the world she had seen. Rebuild it.

The boy with the white braids sprinted past her. Dizzy, she turned to watch him as he plunged into the crowded street and crashed into the arms of a man who knelt before a shop front, waiting to embrace him. The man’s white hair was bound in many knots. He was, Eliana thought, the boy’s father.

Her eyes filled with tears as she watched them. How long it had been since she had been held by someone who loved her.

Come home now, the Prophet ordered. I should never have allowed this.

Eliana turned away from the narrow green light in the distance that marked her way home. I can’t. Not yet. I haven’t done what I came to do.

Eliana, you nearly lost yourself to the Deep just then. This is new to me too. If that happens again, or something worse, I may not be able to help you.

Eliana flexed her fingers. The chains of her castings shifted gently around her hands. But if I go back now, I could die there just as well, so I might as well stay here and finish.

The Prophet fell silent, their quiet anger a cloud on the horizon of Eliana’s mind, but she ignored that and closed her eyes. She concentrated on the slight weight of the gold discs resting in her palms, slowly urging her power to rise until a gentle force tugged at her chest. That same instinct had brought her to the courtyard garden, where the air was thin.

Now, this pull at her chest, at her shoulders and fingers, urged her to move forward. Slowly, she opened her eyes and found the black city painted in incandescent shades of empirium gold. Brightest where she focused her gaze, dimmer at her vision’s periphery.

The empirium is luminous here, she thought to the Prophet. Brighter than anything I have seen in Avitas.

As it should be. The Deep is the empirium unburdened by physicality. The Prophet’s voice softened. I think this is why you, daughter of Rielle, can walk there without pain. The empirium is the footprint of God. It is the thing that made the worlds. And you carry more of it inside you than any being that has ever lived.

Except for my mother.

A fluttering pulse, as if