Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,197

to strengthen my power,” she spat, “you knew what you would do. You saw Navi and the others coming to Elysium and guided them down here. You knew you would send them to fight the cruciata, sacrifice them without a thought if it bought us some time. You knew, and you never said anything to me.”

Ludivine sat up, wiping her mouth. As Eliana watched, her lip stopped bleeding. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Because you feared I would fight you.”

“I feared nothing. I knew you would react as you’re reacting now.”

A sob burst out of Eliana as she imagined Navi’s face. “I love them.”

“And they love you. Even those who have never met you. They love what they have been told about you. They believe in your ability to save them. And if they must die to allow you that chance, then they must die.” A smile touched Ludivine’s lips. “Navi draws irresistible pictures of you for anyone who will listen. Of course they love you. One night at Navi’s side, listening to her stories about you, and anyone would believe what she says. That you are a queen for the ages.”

Eliana wrenched her arms free of Simon and Remy. Her feet were stones on the floor. “You got inside their heads just now, sent them away to fight. You could have done that with anyone, recruited dozens of people from Elysium. Two hundred, five hundred. Why them?”

Ludivine let out a thin laugh. It did not move her face. Her mouth was pale, her eyes grotesquely dark in the bleached canvas of her skin.

“I’m not sure you understand how angry he is,” she said, her voice smooth as a polished blade. “It requires so much of my strength to keep him out of this room. I have very little left to spare, only enough to encourage people already inclined to die for you to go and do just that. I could not have shepherded people from the city down to us. I could not have gotten inside their minds and made them into puppet soldiers. It would have left me too vulnerable. It would have left Simon too vulnerable, or you. And now, every part of me that still lives is fighting him.”

Eliana pressed her fists to her thighs. A hundred people paled in significance against the entirety of humankind. She knew this.

And yet she clung to her anger. “You gave them no choice,” she whispered.

“They chose to sail to you,” Ludivine said. “They chose to follow Zahra through a city tearing itself to pieces when at any moment she could have died and they would have been discovered. One chink in Zahra’s mental armor, and a warship could have found them, blasted them to pieces on the high seas. I merely made a suggestion just now. A slight breeze at the backs of warriors already prepared to die and eager to fight.”

Eliana was too numb with sadness to protest when Ludivine took her hands. She wished Zahra were before her instead of this black-eyed angel with a hollow space where her stolen heart should be. She formed the thought viciously, slammed it at Ludivine’s face.

It remained unruffled, porcelain smooth.

“Five of my acolytes died twenty minutes ago while drawing the cruciata into my home,” Ludivine said quietly. “I have spent long years with all of them. I grieve their death. But I did not flinch at sending them to it, nor did they flinch at going. When Navi, Ysabet, and their crew left the Vespers, they knew they would sail to their doom. They did so gladly. They did so for you. It was their choice to fight then, and to fight today. We should now honor that choice by doing what must be done.”

Eliana held Ludivine’s black gaze, then turned away to face the empty door. Navi had stood there, and Patrik and Hob, only a moment before. Behind her, Simon and Ludivine were speaking. She ignored them, listening instead to the distant sounds of battle. Monstrous shrieks, wet guttural roars.

Swords crashing.

“I hear swords,” she said, the words foul on her tongue.

“My acolytes, before they died, managed to tempt one hundred cruciata underground,” Ludivine replied. “And Corien has sent five hundred angels ahead of him. They will move slowly, avoiding the cruciata blood our friends have spilled. This will give us some time. But their sheer numbers will eventually overwhelm the beasts. They will be the sea that clears a path for him. Before an hour has passed, he will stand