Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,182

I’m asking.” Tears rose fast, but she was too angry to dash them from her eyes.

Ludivine watched her thoughtfully. “Do you remember when Simon sent you back to Old Celdaria? You attempted to reach Rielle. She fought you, and you were too weak to match her.”

“Of course I remember. How could I not?”

“Corien was there that day, in Rielle’s mind. When you arrived, he skimmed your thoughts.”

Eliana tensed. She would never forget the words. Ah, Eliana. This is not our first time to meet, it seems. How curious.

Ludivine nodded. “The Emperor had touched your mind before, but only distantly and without much success. He knew you existed but could only find your thoughts intermittently, much to his frustration.”

“Because of you?”

“Because of me. But that day, you were far from me, in another time, and that Corien was able to find you, if only for a moment. And he said something else, didn’t he?”

A chill moved slowly down Eliana’s arms as she remembered Corien’s words. What a life you have led. What interesting company you keep.

“I remember,” she said, a mere whisper.

“In that moment, he did not see everything we had worked for, but he saw enough of it,” Ludivine continued. “He saw Simon and knew he was a marque. He knew you loved him but was not sure if he loved you. He knew that you meant to end his Empire before it truly began. He knew enough, and when you returned to your present, it was altered.”

Ludivine leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly weary. “I, of course, saw all of this too. I saw it in Rielle’s mind when she came home that night. But I kept everything I knew from her, and from Audric too. I was a coward then. I was too afraid of what this all might mean, and I didn’t act until it was too late. I could not face the scope of my own failure. So I went into hiding. I watched Rielle kill Audric. I watched the angels invade Âme de la Terre. I watched the world end, frozen in the grip of my own fear. After the invasion, I protected the boy Simon so Corien would not find him. Then I watched Simon summon threads and attempt to travel with you to the kingdom of Borsvall. I told him to hurry. I told him he was strong enough, and he was. But it didn’t matter.”

Ludivine closed her eyes. Her voice became a whisper. “The force of Rielle’s death knocked the threads of space askew and summoned forth threads of time. Volatile and unpredictable. I watched them snatch both you and Simon into darkness, and then I watched as Baingarde collapsed, the mountains around Âme de la Terre crumbled, and everyone living in the city was extinguished. I watched the angels crawl from the ashes. Those who had managed to cling to their stolen human bodies could no longer taste and see and feel as they had only moments before. Their eyes were black, and so were mine. I listened to them howl, Corien loudest of all, for he had lost her.”

A long moment passed. Eliana’s heartbeat pulsed in her temples. “But Simon said that we would be the only ones to notice any changes. Anything that us being in the past would have altered. I thought…” Words tangled in her throat. “I thought that meant…”

“That he would be protected from any changes to the altered future? He was, Eliana. But don’t you see? It was the only way. I made sure that the child Simon was there on the night of your birth. Rielle urged him to take you to safety, and I encouraged him, thinking I would join the two of you later. That I would protect you as I had failed to protect your mother. While the world healed from Rielle’s death, I would raise you and Simon as my own. Then, when you were old enough and strong enough, I would send you both back to the past to save Rielle before she began losing herself to Corien and to the empirium. Of course, Rielle died before Simon could travel, and the shock wave jarred his work. Both of you were thrown forward in time, and I was left alone in a shattered world.”

Eliana’s mind worked quickly. “Corien didn’t die, either. He survived.”

“He was beside your mother at the moment of her death, so his injuries were…severe. It took him centuries to recover fully, and his mind, while