Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,198

in this room. But by then, you will be long gone.”

Eliana turned. Simon stood in the center of the room, his back to her. He pulled threads from the air, a weaver of light.

Ludivine put her hand on Remy’s shoulder. “Remy and I have been practicing Old Celdarian. In case something should happen to Simon, Remy will know how to speak with whomever you encounter. The common tongue was different then, and Celdarians will be more likely to trust you if you speak their language. Luckily, Remy’s vocabulary was already quite robust. He learned much in his time with Jessamyn.” She smiled fondly, tucked some of Remy’s dark hair behind his ear. “If only we had longer to spend together, Remy Ferracora. Your mind is a fascinating one. It holds so many dreams, even after months of living in darkness.”

Watching them, Eliana felt ill. She snatched Remy away from Ludivine, then walked with him to the far side of the room.

In the shadows, she steeled herself. Pressed her brow to his, held his cheeks. His eyes were her whole world. Bloodshot and blue, rimmed with dark lashes.

“I would say you can’t go with me,” she said, “but somehow I don’t think you’ll accept that.”

A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “If I stay here, I’ll definitely die. If I go with you, I might live.”

She bit her tongue. It was not the moment to talk about time, what might or might not happen, what would or would not be changed.

“There is that,” she said weakly.

Remy put his hands over hers, gently pressed her fingers. “You can do this, El.”

It felt wrong to hear the pet name in his new cracking voice. This boy before her, this wiry killer with watchful eyes. She pressed a fierce kiss to his forehead. If she didn’t look straight at him, she could pretend away the past few months and imagine her room in Orline. The lace curtains, her mother’s quilt, Remy’s voice lulling her to sleep as he read of saints and angels, godsbeasts and kings.

From the corridor came horrible sounds, the crash and tear of teeth and swords like lightning splitting open the earth. A sharp cry burst free of the chaos. Eliana thought it sounded like Navi. Her neck went cold with sweat.

Ludivine moved past them to the door. The light from Simon’s growing threads lit the walls strangely, a wan white-gold that carried with it a sharp, acrid scent like the silver charge of spitting storm clouds.

“When you step through the threads, you will find yourself in the royal gardens behind Baingarde,” Ludivine said. Her hair was liquid gold in the growing light. “It was a peaceful evening. Audric, Rielle, and I were resting under a sorrow tree at the end of a long day. Long, but good. The trials were over. We had not yet left for the tour that would introduce her to the kingdom. Her father had recently died, and Audric’s too, and there was grief in us, and fear, but when it was only us three, there was also peace.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. The threadlight gave her eyes a golden sheen. “Simon?”

“Nearly there,” he said, his voice tightly coiled.

Eliana went to him and stood at his side. She felt Remy join her, caught a glimpse of how soft with wonder his face had become as he watched Simon work. The expression made him more familiar.

“Is there anything I can do?” Eliana asked.

Simon tightly shook his head. “No.”

“You’re doing wonderfully.”

His mouth quirked. His temples gleamed with sweat. “How would you know?”

The truth was, she didn’t. But it was beautiful, as it had been before, to watch his long, deft fingers draw light from the air. The serious furrow of his brow, the set lines of his jaw.

She placed her hand on his arm. His body relaxed, and the swirling threads of light gathering at his fingertips solidified, brightening.

Despite the fear turning coldly in her chest, Eliana smiled.

“Thank you,” Simon whispered, his voice thin beneath the growing hum of his threads, and though he could not remove his hands from the air, she felt him shift toward her. Their legs touched. Remy hooked his arm through hers, pressed his cheek to her shoulder. He muttered a sentence in Old Celdarian over and over. At the corner of Eliana’s eye, one of the candles flickered.

Then, an explosion of sound from the hallway, a titanic cascading clatter of metal against stone. Past the door flew a slain