Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,42

me.”

Corien leaned against the wall beside the doors. “Oh, Eliana. You don’t understand. Here, I’ll help you just a little. Every passing minute I remain in your brother’s mind is a year gone from his life. Maybe more. Every mind is different.” He shrugged. “Leave, if you wish.”

Eliana stared at the door, at her hand upon the bronze wing, and a slow, sinking dread came over her. A high whine sounded in her ears; she heard the sound of Remy’s skull hitting the floor. He was convulsing.

Corien’s face was full of pity she could not trust. He removed piles of gold from his pockets. “Here,” he said gently, and began to fasten the familiar thin chains around her wrists. The twin discs of her castings settled in her palms, smooth and cold.

Corien smiled. “There, you see? When the mood strikes, I can be most generous.”

She stared at him in horror, knowing this was just what he wanted, then turned back to Remy. Her castings were unblinking cold eyes against her sweating hands.

She crashed to her knees at Remy’s side, fumbled to lift him, held his head in her lap. His eyes were glazed; spit foamed at his lips. She held on to him, desperate to soothe his shaking, but he did not see her. He stared at the ceiling, clawing the air, and then he began clawing at himself, his fingernails tearing at his arms, his cheeks.

Eliana caught his arms, held him tight against her body.

“Release him,” she cried. “What are you doing to him?”

“I’m forcing him to relive the moment my body was torn from me,” Corien said calmly. He was close now, watching them from above. “When I was driven into the Deep by your ancestors and stripped of all physicality. My skin flayed, my bones crushed, my veins sucked dry by the universe itself. The empirium dismantling me in an abyss where nothing is allowed to exist save for its own raw power.” He drew in a slow breath, exhaled. “As you might guess, it was an agony I cannot possibly describe. No one who hasn’t felt it can know.”

He crouched for a better look, his black gaze fixed on Remy’s thrashing body. Eliana sensed a great focus within him, a terrible concentration that connected everything he was to everything Remy was, small and helpless in her arms.

A faint smile played over Corien’s face. “After this, perhaps Remy can help me describe it to you. Our little wordsmith.”

Sitting on the ground with Remy dying in her arms, she realized with a sick jolt of fear that this was a horrible parallel to that moment in Karlaine: Remy’s abdomen torn and bloody, her own vision a field of empirium gold, her hands submerged in his wound, knitting him whole once more.

And Simon behind her, holding on to her, an anchor in that savage moment of awakening. Against her cheek, he had whispered, I’m not letting go.

“You know how to end this, Eliana,” Corien said quietly. “You know what you must do.”

She sucked in harsh breaths, fighting with all her might to still Remy’s body, but it was impossible. She could not fight Corien alone, not without using her power, and if she managed to summon it, Simon might manage to summon his.

“I will die before I help you,” she said through her tears.

Abruptly, Remy’s thrashing subsided.

He was limp in her arms, drenched with sweat. Trembling, he stared at the ceiling, his lips moving soundlessly.

“Remy, can you hear me?” She held his cheeks, pressed her forehead to his. Against the cold chains of her castings, his skin was blazing hot.

“Talk to me. Please, say something.”

He did, in a whisper so faint she had to ask him to repeat it. “Kill me.”

Eliana’s blood froze. “What did you say?”

His bleary gaze locked with hers. “Kill me, El. Then he can’t use me against you like this.”

From the shadows, Corien stretched, his joints popping. “God, it really can be hard work to dig and dig like this, to implant. To focus so singularly on one mind while also controlling thousands of others. Quite painful, really, if that’s a consolation of any kind?”

“He’s done nothing to you.” Eliana swiped at her eyes with shaking hands. “He’s an innocent.”

“So were many angelic children who suffered the same fate Remy just lived through,” Corien returned calmly. “And they didn’t wake up in their own bodies afterward, alive and whole. Isn’t he lucky?”

Then Simon spoke. “If you care about him, you’ll do as you’re commanded and