Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,30

his free hand, his voice lilting. “I see you, Rielle!” Then he released her, wistful. “You have her sharp jaw, her cheekbones. But you’re lithe where she was soft, and darker than she was. And you’ve his mouth, his nose. His great brown cow eyes.”

It was the mention of Audric that jarred her, awakening within her a surprising spark of defiance. Of the Lightbringer she knew only the old songs, Remy’s beloved tales. The dilapidated statue near the river in Orline—King Audric, proud and sad, mounted on the chavaile that had once been loyal to the Blood Queen, both of them looking toward the rising sun.

Eliana bristled at the derision in Corien’s voice. Cow eyes. As if the Lightbringer had been a mere pitiful beast.

“Considering all your mighty power,” she said, forcing the words through her teeth, “I’m surprised it took you so long to find me. I arrived in this time eighteen years ago. Surely your angelic mind should have found me much sooner than this. And yet you needed a crude human tool to scour the world and do your work for you.”

She refused to look at Simon.

But Corien only spread his arms, palms up. “You’re right, of course. If our world was as it should be, if my beloved hadn’t permanently damaged the empirium when she died”—he gestured to his ink-black eyes—“I would have found you within hours. My former glorious mind would have found you at once, right where you lay in Rozen Ferracora’s arms, and would have held both of you immobile until my soldiers came to fetch you. And then they would have slit Rozen’s throat, and Ioseph’s too, which would have been a shame, because out of all the bodies Ravikant has possessed, Ioseph’s is his favorite. But perhaps that’s only because he was so eager to see the look on your face when you realized what your adoptive father’s body was being used for.”

He clasped his hands, gazing at her with an admiration that reeked of mockery. “I saw it, you know. I saw everything that happened that day. My soldiers are my eyes and ears, and I saw you on that beach, your hands blazing as you ran toward the water. Oh, dearest Eliana, you were so full of hope. It was really quite charming. I saw your face when you realized Ravikant lives in Ioseph’s body. And then, when Simon shut you into your cell? Splendid. A magnificent portrait of disbelief and devastation. It was almost like I could see your heart breaking. Which has always struck me as an odd expression. A heart can’t break, can it? It can burst, it can be torn to shreds, it can be stomped upon and smeared across the ground, but it can’t break in the way a bone does.”

He spoke too quickly, his black eyes bottomless and glittering. He seemed elated to be looking at her, like a delighted child reunited with his best friend. Eliana’s stomach turned. She couldn’t contain a small, panicked sob.

“Please,” she said, focusing on the one thing she could think of clearly, “let me see my brother.”

He ignored her, smoothing back a lock of hair that clung to her damp cheek. “Can you imagine if you were mine instead of his? Your mother’s beauty added to my own? My angelic beauty, of course. How I looked before the Deep took me. My God. You would be a vision. And!” He clapped his hands. “You would have wings on your back, just like Simon once did! The sign of a marque. Isn’t that right, Simon?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” said Simon from somewhere behind her.

“Do what you’re going to do and be done with it,” Eliana spat, tears hot in her eyes. “You’re going to hurt me. So hurt me.”

Corien’s smile faded. “How disappointing. You seem to have inherited your father’s lack of humor.”

“I also inherited his lack of tolerance for evil despots.” She felt dizzy with fear but forced herself to look straight at him. “I know what you want. You want to use me as a weapon, to finally eradicate humanity, as you failed to do with my mother. I won’t help you. You’ll have to kill me.” She grasped wildly for ammunition. “You can’t force me to do what you want—not on that scale, and not with the power I possess. If you could do that, you would have done it with Rielle.”

A flicker of anger passed over Corien’s face. She latched on to it, startled. “Ah,