dark woods, sodden branches whipping at him, the only light that of his blazing shield, and when he emerged into the clearing where she stood—he knew it, he knew she was there even before he saw her, he could feel it, he could feel her; he had begged the empirium to find her, and it had, for once, cleanly and completely obeyed him—the pulsing pain in his head exploded.
He crashed to his knees; his shield flew away, the flames extinguished. He fell forward on his hands, and when he looked up, the world tilted, and he saw her for only a moment.
She wore a long, dark cloak so large it swallowed her. Her wet hair clung to her cheeks.
Their eyes locked, and even as his vision darkened, his skull screaming as if it were tearing itself in two, he recognized that look in her eyes. He had taught her for years; he had practically raised her.
She was frightened.
He reached for her, his arm shaking. “Rielle, darling, it’s all right, I’m here—”
But then he could no longer hold himself up, and as he watched from the mud, immobile and dazed, a white-haired girl with pale brown skin carved a ring of light from the air at Rielle’s feet. He didn’t understand what he was seeing. Was the girl a marque?
There was a sweep of darkness, swift movement, a snap in the air. A tall man, the wind whipping his coat.
Then the light was gone. And so was Rielle.
All that remained was a voice that did not belong to her. It was soft and refined and highly amused.
It said, Too late, Tal.
And then it kicked him hard into oblivion.
5
Rielle
“For millennia, the angels lived only in the skies. After the first angel ascended from the dust of old, the rest of her kind were born—from clouds and comets, from high astral winds. Luminous and ageless, they studied the stars and the empirium beyond. It was not until the angels at last noticed humans living in the world below that they descended, too fascinated to resist what were to them repulsive, remarkable creatures with fleeting lives and enviable powers. To the humans, the Great Descent was a rain of fire upon the world, beyond the work of any elemental. Chaos ruled. Countries were unmade and borders erased. Humans scattered far and wide, leaving the nations we now know as Patria and Vindica free for the angels to claim as their own.”
—And Fire Fell From the Skies: The Great Angelic Descent and How It Changed the World, a collection of scholarly writings compiled by Lyzet Taval, of the First Guild of Scholars
Rielle had not yet mastered the art of traveling through Obritsa’s threads with any sort of grace.
The third time she stepped through the humming ring of light she had come to despise, she managed to keep her balance for only a moment before her knees buckled.
The ground came at her fast, a flat, hard stretch of red dirt scattered with sharp pebbles that pierced her tender palms.
She looked up, swallowing against the faint urge to be sick that always seemed to accompany traveling by thread, and discovered she was at the bottom of a narrow canyon of towering red stone. There was a roaring river nearby, carving its way through the rock with white foam and a black current. The sky was bright with sunset, casting an eerie crimson light across the flat canyon walls, into which intricate designs had been carved. Rielle picked out familiar shapes: Winged angels soaring through cities crowned with high towers. Great sleek warships pushing toward a distant shore. Stars and moons dotting the canvas of red rock in various configurations, like some sprawling map left behind by a mammoth traveler.
“It’s beautiful,” she said softly.
“Of course it is. Angels made it.” Corien approached her with his left hand outstretched. “This is Samandira, the entrance to Eridel. One of the greatest cities in Vindica, long ago. A place of study and enlightened thinking. Universities where angelic scholars worked to unravel the mysteries of creation. Libraries containing thousands of works examining the nature of the empirium. Before humans destroyed it,” he added lightly. “The war did much damage. And then, after our imprisonment, thousands of humans journeyed here to demolish what remained. For years they have done this—undoing everything we accomplished. Pillaging the ruins.”
Rielle knew the lightness in his voice was false. After he helped her to her feet, she laced her fingers through his. His black cloak and trousers, once