Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,233

my imagination. Every morning, I wake thinking this will be the day you tell me what you’ve just said.”

“And every day I live is another day of pain I can hardly bear. Another day in which you and Eliana and everyone we have fought so hard to save are in danger. Look at me.”

She lifted his chin, saw the bright shine of his eyes. She pressed a hard kiss to his mouth.

“I must go,” she told him, each word a struggle. “You know this. You’ve seen me suffering.”

His face was a tapestry of despair. “I have.”

“You’ve seen the changes in me. The lights beneath my skin, how I burn hotter than fever.”

“You cry in your sleep some nights,” he said, touching her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Some days, you’re far from me, from all of us. I wonder where you’ve gone.”

“And yet you would ask me to stay?”

Helplessly, he shook his head. “I hate myself for it.”

She heard it in his voice, the loathing and the guilt. Their bedroom, soft with morning, glinted with her tears. She kissed his beautiful hands, each rough with new scars. She wished she had been there to see Atheria carry him into the hurricane. From the shore, Sloane had told her, he had dazzled. An orb of light, racing unafraid into darkness.

“You are not deserving of hate,” she whispered. “Eliana will learn from you how to love herself. Be kind to your own heart, if only for her sake.”

“Rielle,” he said, the word splintering against her skin, “I don’t know how to live in a world without you in it.”

“You will learn.”

“But the Gate,” he said desperately. “Who will close it, if you leave?”

“I wouldn’t leave that for you to face alone, Audric, I—”

She shut her eyes, turning slightly away. The pain was rising once more, sharp-toothed and churning. Gold bit at the insides of her eyes, and a great force pulled at her palms, the soles of her feet, the top of her skull, the small of her back. Fists sank into her muscles and twisted, grinding bone against bone. Soon she would fly apart, and what a relief it would be. She thought of the endless black sea, the rushing sky bright with stars, the little girl holding out her hand.

Come with me, the girl had said. We are rising, you and I. There is so much for us to do.

“Stay with me.” Tenderly, Audric gathered her hands in his. His palms were clammy, his voice trembling with worry. “I’m right here, Rielle. Listen to my voice. Please, God, stay with me. Please, my darling.”

Sweat rolled down her back, pooled under her breasts. If she dove into frozen water, she would melt every iceberg. If she stepped off the bed, if her toes touched the floor, she would fall forever.

“I’m here,” she whispered faintly, once she could speak, and he held her, hardly breathing, until this latest burst of agony had faded—the bed linens soaked, her skin blazing like polished copper, tears streaming like rivers down her cheeks. She turned into Audric’s body, hid her face in the curve of his neck. Slowly, carefully, he stroked her damp hair, as if she were a bird blown from glass or a beast he dared not provoke.

“I love you, Rielle,” he whispered, trembling. “I have loved you always, and I will never stop.”

I wish you would, she wanted to tell him. It would be easier for you, to stop loving me. But there was no need to stab a dying man, and his voice was already calming her, coaxing her into a woozy lull—her name on his lips, his voice torn to shreds. She fell into a shallow red sleep.

• • •

Rielle waited long enough that Audric began to suspect she had changed her mind. Every morning, he woke to find her still beside him, and hope broke open across his face, lit his eyes warm and soft. He began to sleep more soundly, no longer waking every time she shifted.

Then a chill night came. A sharp wind thumped its fingers against the windows. Clouds black against the stars, the moon new and dark.

Rielle awoke from sleep that hardly deserved the word. Waves of scorching light pulsed behind her eyes. Each dull boom chipped away another piece of her skull.

She held her breath, listening. Eliana slept in her cradle, fist at her mouth, little breaths coming steadily. When Rielle climbed out of bed, Audric did not wake. Shadows darkened the soft