Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,142

open. She raced past the nearest one just as a pale woman with ropes of matted hair jumped out of it. A hand grabbed her ankle. She fell hard, tore strips of skin from her hands. Turned around and plunged Arabeth into the woman’s throat. A strangled cry, and the woman collapsed, clutching the red river of her neck. Eliana rolled out from under her, yanked Arabeth free, and pushed herself to her feet. Her scraped palms stung; she wiped sweat from her eyes.

A thump behind her. Eliana spun around, ducked the wild blow of another prisoner—a man with scarred fair skin, a white knife in his hand. His blade caught her arm, cut a thin stripe to her elbow.

She cried out, ducked his second blow, thrust Arabeth at his neck. But he was fast. He struck Arabeth out of the air with his own knife, then pounced on her, knocking her to the ground. Her vision flickered. He pawed at her gown, dragged his tongue across her face. His breath was rancid, like meat left out to rot.

She let him slobber at her throat as she gathered her strength, then jammed her knee into his groin. He howled with pain, and she grabbed Nox, plunged the fat blade into the man’s concave stomach.

He fell atop her, the warm rush of his blood soaking her gown. She pushed him off, Nox in hand, found Arabeth smiling her crooked smile on the white flagstone, and ran.

But there was no escaping Vaera Bashta. Everywhere she looked, ragged prisoners pounced and clawed, their wild cries tearing the air into strips. Two men went tumbling down a staircase, then scrambled after a clattering pistol.

Eliana didn’t see who reached it first, but she heard the gunshot as she raced past. A boy darted past her, climbed up a drainpipe. The shape of his body jolted her, and for a moment, though his skin was darker, she thought it was Remy. An icy fist closed around her heart, squeezing hard as she ran. She hoped she would not find Remy. She hoped he was hiding in some gutter or under a staircase in the quiet dark. What would she do if she turned a corner and saw him changed? No longer the brother she had known, but a killer who dealt in blood instead of stories?

The thought battered her as she ran, a terrible whirling fear that rose in her like a current. She felt a sting at her palms and glanced down to see her castings faintly aglow.

She fisted her hands closed around them and ran up a broad flight of white steps, then up a narrow staircase set in the wall of a large apartment building with cruciata gargoyles yawning at each corner. She climbed until she found a high terrace, its walls frosted with scrolling white stonework. The air was quieter there, Elysium’s screams a distant cacophony. Under an arbor draped in ivy, she crouched, heart pounding, Arabeth clutched tightly in her right hand. She breathed until she felt it was safe, until the blood pulsing in her ears had slowed. Then, she formed a single clear thought:

Please, help me.

An answer came at once. I’m here.

Eliana sank to the ground. Is it safe to talk?

He is rather distracted by the evening’s events, the Prophet answered drily. With his mind in its current state, he is easily diverted by his own perversities. But you were right to run far before speaking to me.

Can I come to you? She felt like a frightened child, begging for comfort after a nightmare. Her head pounded with a primal fear, and she could think of little else. I don’t know where to go.

A feeling came to Eliana then, such a tenderness that her eyes grew hot.

We must wait a little longer, the Prophet said gently. When you come to me, he will find me soon after. Everything must be ready by then, all the pieces in place. Your friends are on their way, but you must keep fighting until they arrive.

Eliana wrapped her arms around her stomach, let out a single choked sob. She felt brittle, ready to fly apart from fear, as if the night’s horrors had ripped from her every plate of armor she had forged in the fire of her imprisonment. She could not even bring herself to ask what friends the Prophet meant. Instead, her skittering mind relived those moments with Corien in her bedroom, how he had smashed her face into her beaded