Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,129

the Prophet felt a slight pain. Yes, little one. Except for your mother.

As Eliana walked through the winding city streets, following the empirium’s call, the buildings grew taller and closer around her. She kept her mind sharp, used it to create a path that was real even if the road underfoot was not. Even if this was an illusion, a mere echo of a world that lived far beyond her reach, she would believe in it. The path led her up a narrow staircase of stone, into a house with its doors thrown open to the night.

Hurry, Eliana, the Prophet said at last. Hours had passed in a blink. He will come soon. We can try another day, if we must. Do not allow stubbornness or pride to—

Here, Eliana thought. Inside the house, in the corner of a sitting room that existed in a distant world that was not her own, she had found what she sought.

Oh, the Prophet said, their thoughts soft with amazement, for they could see through Eliana’s eyes the place she had found: a thinness in the fabric of the Deep, a pliancy of the empirium itself, just as she had discovered in Avitas. Only here, in the Deep, it manifested as a slight watery sheen in the air. It was made of a thousand colors, as if it were a prism catching sunlight.

Eliana waited another moment, letting her eyes unfocus and turning her thoughts inward, so the empirium could guide her golden sight through the gleam to what lay beyond. She smiled to see it, then called up her power, brought her hands to blazing, and pushed aside the air shimmering before her until a small seam hissed open, spitting white-hot blue light against her fingers.

Past the seam and below her, as if she looked down upon it from a low cloud, stood a city, sprawling and white. Spiraling towers capped with wings reached for a brightening dawn sky. There was the wide chasm circling the city, the bridges spanning it.

And there was Corien’s palace, its burnished domes and elaborate parapets resplendent in the creamy light of sunrise.

Eliana sank to the ground and sat back hard on her heels. She braced her hands against her thighs, afraid to breathe too hard, though her head spun from her exertions. The world around her shimmered precariously. She blinked hard and, through a glittering haze, stared at the hole she had made. How weak it seemed, how small and pale. Fingers of light branched out from its perimeter, but so slowly and faintly that Eliana feared the tear might soon repair itself.

That’s enough for today, the Prophet said. Hurry home, little one, I beg you.

Eliana stood, swaying slightly. I must make it wider. Wedge it open farther. It’s too small now. The cruciata will never get through. Once I leave, it might mend.

There’s no time for that now. We will come back and try again and again until it is done. Or we will craft another plan entirely.

Staring at the faint shapes of Elysium, Eliana felt frantic. I cannot wait any longer!

If you try to push your power too hard all at once, you might lose yourself to the Deep, or you could draw the cruciata to you before you’re ready—before I’m ready—or you may alert Corien to our work, and he will come for you, and for me, and all will be lost. The Prophet’s voice was stern. You must ruthlessly measure out the use of your power, or you will leave yourself vulnerable when you most need the strength. We must work slowly, and all the while continue our exercises and rebuild your stamina. We decided this when you first presented your plan to me.

Eliana knew this was right, and yet she turned from the seam with tears of frustration in her eyes. Is he coming?

Soon, I think. And you must be entirely yourself before he sees you.

Her heart heavy in her chest, Eliana exited the house and hurried back the way she had come—through the city’s center to its outer streets. She saw the narrow door leading back to Avitas, distant greenery framed in angry bruised light.

It is real, she told herself, moving as quickly as she dared toward her exit. It is real, it is solid. She made herself slow, forcing herself to feel each footfall against the road. Then she was at the seam and slipping through, its light buzzing against her skin. On the ground beyond, safe in her charred thicket, she