Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,36

had left him a neat stack of books on the bedside table, and a note: From my own personal library. Novels with happy endings. If you bend or tear even a single page, we shall no longer be friends.

He retrieved the topmost book—The Hawk and the Dove. Then he crawled into bed and held the book to his chest for a long time, breathing in the scent of paper and ink, and thought of home.

• • •

He did not go to the meeting the next morning, despite Sloane’s threats.

Her justified fury made him all the more disgusted with himself. The angrier he became at his own inability to face what must come next, the further he sank into a toxic whirl of despair. He recognized his self-pity and still could not extricate himself from it. He knew a walk in the fresh air would benefit him but refused to leave the unwashed cocoon of his blankets. He began to wonder if someday Sloane might actually drag him from the bed kicking and screaming, but he imagined he had a while before she attempted that.

It was much easier to turn away from the look of disappointment on her face and pretend she wasn’t there, so that was exactly what he did.

• • •

Four nights after Sloane and the Sun Guard’s arrival, Audric awoke from a gluey, uncomfortable sleep to a strange series of shuffling sounds.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes and saw Atheria’s head resting on the mattress near his outstretched arm. She had settled herself on the floor by his bed and was staring at him with her enormous dark eyes.

“Sleeping in here with me now, are you?” he asked quietly.

She blew a hot breath on his fingers. He loved her snorts, her chirps in the morning as she watched the sky and imitated birdcalls. He knew she could bite clean through his arm if she wanted to with those sharp predator’s teeth, but in the quiet darkness, she was gentle beside him, a warm, familiar weight.

That night, he dreamed of riding Atheria. They flew east, toward the sunrise; he was tired and heartsick, but his sword arm was strong.

• • •

Audric did not attend the war council’s second meeting either. He knew when it was happening; Sloane visited every day to remind him of the date. She admonished and wheedled him by turns. Only once did she resort to begging.

“Merovec won’t know what to do when he comes for them,” she said quietly, and they both knew who he was. “Merovec thinks he can vanquish angels, but he doesn’t know them like you do. He’s hard, intransigent. And he doesn’t know Rielle.” She crouched beside him, her eyes bright with tears. “Audric. The day may come when she turns on Celdaria. You know this. And you know her. When that day comes, you may be the only one who can stop her.”

“I won’t hurt her,” he said, his voice so raw and vicious that it startled him as much as it quite obviously startled her. “Don’t ask me to do that. Ask me anything but that. Say it again, and I’ll never forgive you. And damn you anyway, Sloane, for being so persistently heartless.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then something in her deflated, as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time and finally realizing the depth of her disappointment. His shame was blistering; he revolted himself.

Sloane did not visit him after that, not for days, and then something happened without explanation one morning when Audric woke from a few hours of restless sleep. It had been eighteen days since the Celdarian entourage’s arrival. Nearly one month since he had last seen Rielle.

He rose from his bed with a sense of tranquility that disturbed him, like a sea ominously still before a gale. He stood silently in the center of his bedroom, barefoot and bare-chested, and recognized that he existed on a knife’s edge. On one side was the third war council meeting, which would begin downstairs in an hour. He could dress and wash himself, trim the beard that had grown a bit wild. He could attend the meeting and by doing so face the impossible, inevitable heartbreak on the horizon.

On the other side was an ending. He could take his own life and let the rest of them sort everything out on their own.

He considered the idea, examining it as a healer might inspect a wound that needed stitching. For several