Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,225

was desperate not to spill.

In her sleep, she shivered, and then he felt her soften, the tension she held even while dreaming beginning to fade. Soon, she was pliable in his embrace, warm and trembling. She brought his fingers to her lips, drew his arms tighter around her. Tears dropped onto his hands, and he buried his face in her hair, his throat aching as she cried. Even with the linens changed and the rugs replaced, their bedroom smelled of the smoke from Rielle’s fire, as did the rest of Baingarde, as did the ravaged city beyond it.

“Would you like breakfast?” he whispered at last. He hardly dared move. Mornings were such a fragile time. Another day meant more funerals, more patrols sent to the Flats to scour the wreckage for bodies not yet recovered, more whispered prayers and muttered curses. No one dared hurt Rielle or even come near enough to touch her. When they walked the ruined streets to visit healers’ rooms and pay tribute at the temples, crowds trailed them, watching. Some wary, some awestruck. Some even smiled and knelt in thanks as he passed, Rielle silent and pale on his arm. They reached for her with pious hands. They glared from the shadows and dreamed of her death.

“Yes,” she said, her voice thin. “Breakfast. Garver told me I should eat. For the child, at least.”

Audric recognized the slight edge to her words for what it was. He kissed her shoulder, bare where the nightgown had fallen. Then he lifted her hair and kissed her neck. His hand grazed the curve of her hip, and she sighed a little, relieved, and pressed her hot mouth to his hands. This, she knew. This, while she did it, silenced everything else.

He moved gently, his arms crossed tightly across her chest, his lips soft against her ear, and she clung to him, her fingers digging into his biceps. When she began her rise, her body arching against him and a soft cry falling from her mouth, she brought him soaring with her. Even in her grief, she hungered, insistent, and in those slow, sparkling moments just after, the air between them was at peace.

Sleepily, she kissed his arm, then twined her fingers with his and brought them to rest against her belly. Their child kicked against his palms. He thought of the girl who had fought for them on the terrace. Her flashing dark eyes, the wild whip of her brilliant hands. He held her name in his mouth. The syllables had become precious to him. Eliana.

Morning painted the windows white. Rielle drifted in and out of sleep, and Audric stayed awake, watchful. There was an ache in his chest that he had given up trying to soothe. If he unfolded his arms from around her, she might come unmoored. If he fell asleep, he might wake to find her gone.

A soft knock at the door alerted him to the time. Weariness dropped heavily onto his shoulders.

“My king,” announced Evyline, her voice muffled, “the councils are assembling.”

If Audric closed his eyes and held his mind very still, he could almost pretend that nothing about the past few long months had happened. That it was two summers ago, and Rielle was beside him, sleeping peacefully. That Corien was far away and Ludivine slept in her rooms downstairs.

But if he kept the councils waiting for too long, they would spend the rest of the day scowling and make an already difficult thing all the more difficult.

Tearing himself away from the soft haven of their bed was a torment. Audric dressed in silence, and as he fastened the buttons of his jacket, he came around to her side of the bed. The location of the mirror was a good excuse. He fussed with his curls, inspected the healing burns on his cheeks and jaw.

Rielle was watching him, her nightgown rumpled, her gaze soft.

“I love you,” she said quietly, and he knew this—he saw it in her eyes and felt it in her touch. He bent to kiss her, and she stretched up hungrily for him, her grip desperate in his hair.

“My light and my life,” he murmured against her scorching brow. “I love you, I have loved you always, and I will never stop.”

It had become a refrain, a song passed between them over the past few days until the words felt like worn grooves. Her eyes fluttered closed at his touch, and as he pulled away at last, he glimpsed a faint