Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,186

gossamer wings streaming like rivers of starlit shadow from her back.

But before she could send Zahra the image, Ludivine stopped her with a gentle press in her mind. She cannot bear it, Eliana. Her mind is losing cohesion from so much strain. Be gentle.

Eliana stared at the floor, where only the faintest black wisps marked Zahra’s unraveling. The vague dark print of her eyes were but a suggestion of shadow on the stone. Eliana shook her head, her throat aching. Her tears washed away all color from the world.

“Zahra, why did you do this?” she whispered.

A fractured voice replied, a mere breath of sound. “For you, my queen.”

Then, a slight tremor against Eliana’s skin. A soundless give, as if the air had previously held a great weight, a mammoth intelligence, and now held nothing but itself.

38

Audric

“Rise with the dawn, my brothers, my sisters, my friends! Rise with the light! With the sun at our backs, we meet our enemies without fear or despair or doubt! We know only the rage blooming bright in our hearts! The love for those we have lost! The love for the home that has been taken from us! And love for the day we know will come tomorrow, and the next, and the next, until the sun rises and looks down upon a world of peace at last!”

—A speech delivered by Saint Katell of Celdaria to the elemental troops at the Battle of the Black Stars

Audric rode Atheria to the highest slopes of Mount Cibelline and stood in the quiet, thin air, watching the horizon. From such a height, the puny watchtower flames seemed laughable. Beyond them churned a relentless black sea—the angelic army, scattered with white starbursts of light that hovered and glided and sometimes soared.

Audric knew what those lights meant. He had read every account of the Angelic Wars he could find. He had seen the illustrations in his books and had drawn his own sketches when he was young. Angels in flight, wings of light and shadow carrying them past mountaintops and into the clouds. They could glide through an army and leave dozens of glassy-eyed, empty-minded soldiers in their wake.

Rielle had given them bodies, which was no surprise. But it seemed she had also given some of them wings.

Audric watched the distant angels fly until he could no longer stand on his own. He turned to Atheria and leaned hard against her, his knees unsteady. She watched the horizon, ears flat and teeth bared. She snapped her tail as if longing to whip it at someone.

He breathed hard and fast against her coat. When he returned to Baingarde, he would be not only a king but a commander. He would show no fear. He would neither balk nor cower.

But on Cibelline, sheltered by the ancient whispering pines, he clung to Atheria, seeking anchor in a storm. She covered him with her wing, and he gladly hid beneath it. Long moments passed. On the mountain, the world was quiet. A few bird calls, a whistle of wind. No marching boots, no crackle of elemental energy, no clank of angelic armor.

Evyline and the Sun Guard were waiting for him in the grid of armory courtyards. He would dress soon, and he would need their help to fasten the plates of his armor, secure his cloak of emerald green, violet, and amber.

And then, he would need to face this. Face her. He would need to show himself before his army, and the Mazabatian troops, and the elemental regiments sent from the temples, and somehow rally them to face their inevitable doom. How many thousands could they claim? And how many more could Corien?

He wrenched himself from the solid warmth of Atheria’s belly and climbed clumsily onto her back. Even kneeling, she towered, and he was too shaky for grace. He huddled there between her wings, then climbed off and tried again, and again, until he had shaken the nerves from his skin and could swing easily onto her broad back.

Long weeks ago, they had ridden out to meet the eye of a storm.

A storm, an army—one was not so different from the other.

He held the lie in his mind as Atheria shot down the slopes, swift and silent over the treetops. These were his last moments of peace. He knew somehow that he would never again be able to breathe without also drawing a sword or watching a soldier sworn to him cut down by an angelic blade.

As Atheria rode the wind, Audric tried