Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,207

had to kill a child to get through the wall,” Remy said dully, watching them flee. His fists opened and shut. “Some idiot boy with no armor and a knife as big as his face. He wouldn’t get out of the way.”

Eliana couldn’t find the words to comfort him. Her throat closed in anguish; the air was hot and rotten with death. She pressed herself flat against the pillar and looked past it at the carnage beyond.

People of the city, arms laden with wailing children, tore screaming through the streets. They fled toward the castle, for it was the only place left to run. Angelic troops marched relentlessly up from the city’s lower neighborhoods. They unleashed arrows; they charged with swords raised high. Dozens of citizens fell, though no weapon had hit them. They dropped like shot birds from the sky, rolled down the stairs, knocked others off their feet.

A company of elementals in robes of charcoal and orange, scarlet and gold, rushed out from a side road, planted themselves between the angels and the fleeing humans. Fire snapped from their gleaming shields. Abandoned weapons flew up from the ground and whipped through the air at the angelic troops, slicing open necks.

Eliana searched for the best route to the castle. But every street and alleyway, every set of stairs and parapet seemed to crawl with more enemies by the second. A dark beastly shape jumped from rooftop to rooftop, then slithered down a wall and barreled into a crowd of people rushing toward a building for shelter.

Eliana’s palms began to burn. She clenched her fingers tight and turned, pressed her back flat against the pillar, tried to catch her breath. A screaming crowd rushed by. An elbow jostled her. A man with a shrieking child thrown over his shoulder ran past. From somewhere in the chaos came an explosive crash of glass and wood. Screams rose and were quickly silenced.

“You’ll have to fight them,” Remy said quietly at her side. “We’ll never make it otherwise. There are too many of them.”

Eliana squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t. She’ll find me. He’ll find me.”

“And they’ll come for you, and you’ll fight them here instead of there.”

“Or they’ll kill me where I stand without ever having to leave the castle.”

Something tugged at her breast, a familiar urgent pull. Her castings sparked and popped like a growing fire.

A voice of thousands, of millions, neither kind nor cruel, spoke in her mind. A single cold instruction, spoken not with words but with feeling, with a particular flavor of power veering left in her veins.

there

Eliana’s eyes flew to the smoldering iron gate. She pushed off the pillar and shoved her way through the running crowd. Remy hissed her name, grabbed for her sleeve. She pulled free, crawled over the wrecked gate, and entered a small courtyard. One of many, she could see, of various sizes and designs. Immaculate stone arcades connected them, and narrow passages capped with vine-draped arbors created a maze of walking paths. Pale statues lined the walls, hidden in private alcoves piled with flowers. Others stood proudly on the elaborate cornices, robed and stern. Eyes turned to the sky, shields in hand.

“These must be temples,” Remy whispered, joining her with his sword raised. “There’s Saint Marzana. And again, over there. You can tell by the shield she holds.”

But Eliana hardly heard him. She was staring at the far end of the courtyard, where a man and boy knelt beside a woman twisting in pain. The man was pale with graying hair, his skin lined but his movements deft as he cut an arrow from the woman’s shoulder. She screamed past the cloth stuffed into her mouth, turned her face into the boy’s arm. She crushed his hand, her knuckles white with pain, but the boy did not flinch. Ash and dirt streaked his sweaty face, but his eyes were keen, a watchful bright blue.

Eliana, watching him, could hear little but her own pounding heart. The screams and crashes of battle faded. Remy murmured a question, then spotted the boy and drew a sharp breath.

The sound unstitched her. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched the boy pass a jar to the man beside him, then bandages with which to dress the wound. Everything about his face was familiar—the stubborn jut of his jaw, the set of his serious brow. His hair, ashen in the dim light, shaggy and mussed, in need of a trim.

His name was in her throat. She clutched