But no answer came, and he gave up at once with a frantic sort of desperation, his mind a storm of barely suppressed screams.
He turned away from the window, dragging his hand through his curls, and then, the futility of his attempt slamming into him with dizzying force, he burst out onto the terrace, frantic for fresh air.
Some fifteen feet away, Atheria lay in her bed. Audric had asked his Mazabatian attendants to bring her cushions, as Rielle had done at home. It was a ridiculous sight—the massive, muscled godsbeast sitting primly on her pile of tasseled velvet, her enormous wings folded around her body like a feathered shell—and made him feel so homesick for his bedroom, and Rielle in it, and Atheria just outside, and his people sleeping in their beds in the city below, that his tired eyes filled with tears. He stood beside Atheria and leaned heavily on the stone railing.
“She may not even be in Celdaria by now,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the north. “She could be anywhere. I might have been sending my thoughts to the wrong place. I can’t send my thoughts, not like she can—not like they can—and I’m stupid for trying.”
Atheria pressed her nose against his hip, her nostrils flaring.
“I should ask Lu to help me, but I don’t want to ask her for anything.”
With a soft, curious trill, Atheria rested her muzzle on the railing beside his elbow, as if sensing she should comfort him but not particularly wanting to leave her pillows.
“But,” Audric continued with a weary sigh, “that feels like a sort of stubbornness I should work through and not allow to control me.” He glanced at Atheria. “Isn’t that right?”
The chavaile, momentarily distracted, snorted at a white moth that had alighted on her leg.
“Right. Thank you. An excellent talk.”
Irritable, and irritated with himself for feeling irritable, he resumed pacing, this time on the terrace. His exhaustion was so complete that he felt not quite intact within his own body, dizzy and parched. He hadn’t truly slept since arriving in Quelbani four days ago, and he had hardly eaten. His dreams were shapeless and menacing, and every time he woke, it was with Rielle’s name on his lips.
A horn announced the arrival of a boat in the nearby harbor. He squinted, following the line of the lantern-lit shore, and at last saw a ship out on the dark water—squat and plain, lit by the rising dawn. There was activity on the beach. Rushing figures, casted lanterns sputtering to life.
A joyful thought came from Ludivine: It’s Sloane, and Evyline, and the Sun Guard. They’re all alive and safe.
Audric stood motionless at the railing, watching the ship bearing his fellow Celdarian exiles glide toward the shore. Exiles loyal to him, who had risked their lives and abandoned their country to help him. He knew what they would want—to help him take back his throne, to help him find Rielle.
Audric could not imagine those things ever happening. His mind felt clumsy with despair; he couldn’t clear his thoughts and didn’t want to try. He was convinced the fuzzy, twisting grip of grief would never release him and had come to feel glad for it, for if the grief left him, he feared some sort of anchor would be dislodged. He would dissolve without it, simply float away and no longer exist—which wasn’t the most terrible thing he could imagine.
The most terrible thing had already happened.
He walked calmly to the doors of his apartment and ensured that they were locked.
Please make sure they are well fed, he said, not directing the thoughts toward Ludivine but knowing she could hear them nevertheless, his cunning, beloved little liar. And that they are given comfortable places to sleep and tended to by healers, if required.
What’s happened? She was alarmed by something in his voice.
I’ve lost the woman I love and the home I love, he thought, and I fear that before this is all over, I will have to choose between them.
Ludivine was silent for a long time. Are you going to hurt yourself?
He laughed aloud, bitterly. Wouldn’t you be the first to know?
The truth was, he thought he might hurt himself eventually, but at the moment, even thinking about doing so required more effort than he could muster. He made his way to the bed, stripped off his tunic, his trousers. He stood staring at the tall, claw-footed mirror until he could no longer stand the sight of himself—his