Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,32

don’t know what’s happened—”

“I do.” Corien came to Eliana and stroked her cheek. “I think you’re nothing without her, Simon. And I think you’ve made her angry.”

Eliana stared back at him, triumph blooming like fire in her heart. But before she could try to speak, she fell abruptly into a thick fog.

Corien was everywhere and nowhere. She heard him whisper but could not see his face. She was being moved about like a doll, her legs carrying her against her will. She felt rough hands on her neck and arm, guiding her. She caught a glimpse of sunlight, a chamber of gold, a rustle of black fabric. Simon’s silhouette. Shadowed figures moving swiftly. The echo of Corien’s laughter. A clipped order: Make sure she eats. Make sure she sleeps.

A vision took her: herself sleeping comfortably in a white nightgown, on a white bed, in a white tower, with a white shore far below. She knew it was a lie and tried to resist it, tried to punch her way to freedom, but the vision was too powerful, and it claimed her.

She was the Eliana sleeping in a strange white bed, and as she dreamed, she smiled, and knew nothing of grief, and was content.

A cool hand stroked her back. Sleep, Eliana. There is much work to do, I see. More than I had imagined. Sleep. Dream.

She obeyed.

7

Audric

“Merovec has begun calling elementals before him in the Hall of the Saints for questioning. From among our citizens and from his own ranks. We’ve heard he asks them if they know where Rielle has gone. If they speak to angels. If they are loyal to him, or to you. He does not allow the magisters to witness these proceedings—only the Archon, and only because he stopped using his magic upon his election, decades ago. What the Archon sees during these long hours, we do not know. Odo and I are doing what we can to comfort families and quietly grow our efforts with Red Crown, but the air is rank with confusion and fear, and we must move slowly.”

—Encoded letter from Miren Ballastier to the exiled king Audric Courverie, dated November 19, Year 999 of the Second Age

At home, when Audric had been unable to sleep, he had never minded.

He had his books for solace, the royal archives to disappear into, the gardens and catacombs to wander. As a child, he’d had his cousin Ludivine and his best friend, Rielle, who had never minded being woken up for a nighttime expedition down to the kitchens for sweets or joining him in exploring an unfamiliar wing of the castle. Baingarde was massive, an ancient and rambling construction, the secrets of which Audric had spent his entire life unraveling—just in time, he reflected wryly, to be driven away from it.

And then, of course, in recent months, sometimes he had been unable to sleep simply due to the sheer joy of knowing Rielle was there beside him in his bed. He would close his eyes and imagine their lives together, a golden future stretching on for decades.

At night, with Rielle beside him, he found it easier to ignore the dangerous reality of their changing world.

But here in Quelbani, in the queens’ palace, there was no solace to be found, and Rielle was so far away that the distance between them felt incomprehensible.

He tried reaching for her. Once, on that awful day when the fanatical members of the House of the Second Sun had taken their own lives on Baingarde’s steps, Ludivine had connected the thoughts of all three of them at once. At the time, Audric had thought it a careless mistake made by Ludivine in a moment of panic and horror.

Now, he could be sure of nothing.

But perhaps something of that three-person mental link remained. Some ragged, hair-thin thread he could access if he was lucky.

As if he had ever been lucky.

Another wave of weariness swept through him. He stopped restlessly pacing through his rooms to stand at one of the windows. Closing his eyes, he thought of Celdaria: the twelve snowcapped mountains encircling Âme de la Terre; the verdant farmlands in central Celdaria; the glittering canal cities hemming the southern coast.

Rielle? He felt tentative, embarrassed, as he reached out into the breezy Mazabatian night with his thoughts. Are you there?

He waited tensely for several minutes. He sent pleas out into the night, apologies, declarations of love.

Where are you?

Are you safe?

Rielle, I’m so sorry.

I love you, my darling, and I always will.

My light and my