Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,213

Please. We’ve missed you.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

There was no warning. She lunged for him, tearing light from the air as she moved. He pushed himself to his feet, and when they crashed together, it was with swords. Rielle had made one out of nothing, a searing weapon of pure light and power. She held it in her bare palms, glaring at him over its wide, crackling blade. Audric gripped Illumenor in hands slick with sweat. His muscles burned, and his knees shook.

“They’ve missed me?” Rielle’s voice had fractured once more, hundreds of booming pieces hissing with fury. “Everyone who has feared me? Everyone who told me to pray and pray and pray, to ignore my hunger, to use my power, yes, but only as ordered by church and crown? Kingsbane, they called me. And you never admonished them. In private, you loved me. You put your child in me. You married me. But you let them scream epithets at our gates, curse me and yell for my death. And when the truth was made known, you became just like them, even though you’d swore you never would.”

She leaned closer. Her mouth was bright with stars. “Kingsbane. Monster. You said it yourself. And now you see you were right in that, at least, and wrong in everything else. You never thought I could become this, never let yourself imagine it. It frightened you. Not my Rielle, you told yourself. She would never. She is good and faithful and pure of heart. And when glimpses of my true self became clear to you, you shrank from me. You touched me with anger. You looked at me as if you didn’t know me. And you never did. You knew a lie.”

Audric had gathered his power as she spoke and now used it to push up hard against her. Illumenor flared white. Rielle stumbled, caught herself. Her sword went out like a snuffed candle, but when she spun back around, she had made another one. This one snapped with red fire, and when it crashed against Illumenor, the sparks burned Audric’s cheeks and brow. He screamed in pain but held fast to his sword. Shadows moved across Rielle’s face. He could see the startling shape of her skull, how it blazed like lit bronze.

The others rushed forward to help, and through an exhausted haze, he watched Rielle fling them away—Miren, Sloane, Kamayin, Evyline, each of them pinned flat to the terrace with hissing tendrils of power.

“Rielle, look at what you’re doing!” His knees gave out. He dropped to the stone floor. “These people are your friends!”

“Are they? Is anyone?” Rielle’s eyes darted to the others. Her tongue wet her lips. She looked at Sloane. “I killed her brother.” Then at Miren. “And her lover.” Her eyes found Evyline. “Her friends, just now. They’re broken on the ground.” And then Kamayin. “And half her people are lying dead on the battlefield. And everyone in this palace is dead, and so is your father, and mine.”

Kamayin’s wail of furious grief pierced the air. Audric heard Miren struggling against her bindings. Every piece of metal on the terrace quaked with anger.

“And these are my friends?” Rielle whispered. “These are the people who will welcome me home?” Her blazing eyes fixed on Audric. A terrible sadness passed over her face, so swiftly that he realized he had probably imagined it. Some delirious hope, as he lay crushed beneath her, that she would regret this when it was over.

She exhaled, a trembling hot breath. “You don’t know what it’s like to live like this,” she said, and he could not read her voice, could not tell if she meant it as a boast or a plea.

He gasped for breath. Her power would smother him. “Tell me, then! Stop this and tell me, tell everyone. Ask us for help. Let us help you!”

“It’s too late, Audric. It was too late years ago, the moment I was born with this in my blood. It was too late when Aryava uttered his last words.” Her eyes shone, but her words were cold as stones at the bottom of the sea. “We were fools not to see it.”

Where before her face had been soft, now a door closed over it, and Audric knew as he stared up at her that it would never open again.

She shoved hard, slamming him into the floor. Illumenor went skidding across the terrace. Somewhere in the sea of endless light, Corien was laughing.

Rielle no longer