Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,215

and the two spears of light locked together. One red and blazing, the other pulsing gold as bright morning. Each blade crackled, throwing off showers of sparks.

Over the spear of her arm, Rielle’s eyes widened in shock. The pressure on Eliana’s sword lifted slightly, and her relief was so immense that she felt dizzy. She began at once to speak.

“Mother,” she said in the common tongue, trusting that Remy was nearby, “I have suffered much to find you. Please listen.”

She waited, hardly breathing, and then, over the roar of their weapons and the hot hum of light spilling over the terrace railing, Remy’s voice rang out, translating her words.

Rielle’s expression darkened. She looked to Remy, then back to Eliana, and spat something vicious, something Remy didn’t have time to translate. She shoved hard at Eliana’s sword. Power rushed up Rielle’s body in streams of light, gilding her red gown, and for a moment, Eliana feared her own knees would buckle.

But then she thought of Remy behind her, braving the end of the world at her side, and Simon, back in the future, and Navi and Patrik and Hob, and Ysabet, and Malik, and everyone else lying dead because they had chosen to fight for her.

She planted her feet firmly on the stone and drew power from it, from the air blazing hot against her skin, from the night sky burning with magic. Katell’s sword became a spear of pure light and power snapping within her palms. White and gold, like the burn of stars. Her castings blazed in her palms, feeding the new sword she had made. Her muscles burned, and her eyes watered from the fire’s heat, but she stood tall, holding fast against the might of her mother’s power.

Another wave of surprise crossed Rielle’s face. She looked in wonder at the sword, and Eliana felt a small surge of triumph.

If there had been any doubt in Rielle’s mind about Eliana’s true parentage, perhaps there was no longer.

A presence crept near the edge of her mind, simmering like hungry flames.

Eliana found him at once—Corien, but not the one she knew. Pale-eyed and flummoxed, but there was no madness in him, and even his mind, probing hers, felt more settled.

He stepped forward, mouth open to speak.

Rielle jerked her head at him. He went flying back against the railing and slumped to the ground. Not pinned there like the others, but simply thrown. A warning.

Eliana seized the moment. It might be the only one she was given. “You are in pain,” she said. “I see it, and I understand it.”

Behind her, Remy began to translate. Eliana glanced back at him. He knelt beside Audric, helping him sit. The Lightbringer seemed shaken, his face burned by Rielle’s fire. He caught Eliana’s eyes, and in his gaze she saw her own, and on his face she saw pieces of hers. His hand was tight around Remy’s, and even on this horrible night of violence, Remy’s face was lit up with joy, for here he was, helping the Lightbringer lean against him, holding the hand of one of the great kings of old.

“The empirium speaks to you,” Eliana said, tearing her eyes from Remy to find Rielle once more. “It speaks to me too. It tells me to rise. It tells me it is mine and that I belong to it. But I belong only to myself. And it is the same for you.”

Rielle watched her, light licking up and down her body. She hardly looked human, her beauty mesmerizing and terrible: the sharp turn of her nose and jaw; the defiant curve of her chapped mouth; the shadows like chasms beneath her eyes; her skin flashing translucent. Beneath it roared rivers of power.

Eliana’s spine itched with sweat. She jerked her head toward Audric. “You do not want to do this. You love him. You love him so much that after you kill him, after I am born, you see clearly what you have done and take your own life. You destroy this city. You break the empirium. Elementals can no longer work magic, and the angels turn black-eyed in their human bodies, deprived of taste and smell and sight. A thousand years pass. The Undying Empire rises.”

Eliana looked at Corien only once. “He calls himself the Emperor. He and his soldiers conquer the world. They kill and pillage. They raze temples and murder kings. Monsters crawl out of the Deep and come for us.”

Then Eliana thought of Zahra, and for a moment, she