Simon was remembering, yes, in the midst of these tears and this horrible rising fear, this desperation to keep Corien close to him. He could not stop remembering.
He remembered Queen Rielle thrusting her infant daughter into his arms on the night of her death. He remembered her shadowed eyes sparking gold, and the sour charge to the air as the room burned bright behind him. He remembered Corien crying out in the queen’s rooms, the sound savage with grief. He remembered looking out into the night and summoning the threads that would carry him and the child safely to Borsvall.
And there was his father, gripping his head and stumbling onto the terrace outside the queen’s rooms. Toppling over the railing, falling fast to the ground below.
And there were the dark threads of time, gripping Simon, tearing at him. The pain of that, and of how for the first few weeks after arriving here, he had hardly known himself, had been more beast than boy. He had forgotten how to speak. He had run on all fours, bleeding and burned, screaming at nothing.
“And the child?” Corien crooned, caressing him still. “What happened to her?”
“When I awoke here, she was gone.” Simon dug in his pocket for the scrap of blanket he carried there. Every time he slept, he buried his face in it. Sometimes he screamed into it. He bit down hard on it and tugged, rocking in the dark.
Corien considered that for a long moment. “She could be here. She could be anywhere. She could be nowhere.”
Simon swallowed hard. His heart pounded like hooves against rock. He was a stampede. He held so still that his thin body burned with tension.
“Yes, my lord,” he whispered.
“Then a marque will be useful. Even one whose magic is dead and gone.”
Then, Corien froze. Simon felt a shift in his mind, and then a sudden, hard stillness, as if something had lodged deep within him and would never move again.
Corien pulled away to stare at him, and the expression he wore now was so different from what had been there before that Simon quailed and tried to move.
But Corien held him fast.
“I see it now, in your face,” he whispered. His black gaze raked across Simon’s every scar. “You are the man I saw when Rielle’s daughter came to her that day, on the mountain…” A single soft laugh. Something cleared in his face, and Simon did not understand what it meant, nor did he comprehend anything Corien was saying.
“You are Simon Randell,” said Corien. He touched his temple, his slender fingers trembling. “Of course you are. And now you are here.” He kissed Simon’s brow, and at the touch of his cold lips, a warmth bloomed in Simon’s body, steadying him.
“And now,” Corien whispered, “you are mine.”
“Perhaps I can reawaken my magic, my lord,” Simon blurted eagerly. Something had happened between them, though Simon did not know what. All he knew with certainty was that he would never be alone again. “I’ve tried, but alone I’ve failed. Maybe with you…”
He stopped, flushing under Corien’s keen black gaze. What did Corien see when he looked at him? For the first time, Simon felt the humiliation of his ruined skin.
But Corien only held out his hand, and with the other, he gently lifted Simon’s chin. Simon squirmed in his grip.
“Yes, Simon.” Corien smiled. His fingers closed around Simon’s own. “Maybe with me.”
Then Corien’s mind claimed him.
The pain came without warning. Simon was staring up at Corien, and then Simon was screaming, but no sound escaped his lips, for Corien would not permit it to. Something—some awful, insistent presence—was splitting Simon’s skull apart, tearing at each thought he had ever known, each memory living inside him. Searching for truth. Hunting for lies. It was unlike anything he had ever felt. Before, Corien had barely swept his mind.
Now, he was unmaking it.
“I am sorry, Simon.” Corien smiled down at him, watching him writhe in his arms. “The world is a strange place, and there is no stranger part of it than the twists and turns of time. I must know for certain that you are mine and mine alone. I must know I can trust you.”
Then he pressed his cheek to Simon’s brow and whispered, “We have much work to do, you and I.”
It was the last sound Simon heard before his mind shattered.
1
Rielle
“‘But how did it happen?’ many have asked. ‘How was one zealot able to convince all of angelic kind to turn on