blood circled her, its rays wet and shining. There were no bodies; flakes of bone drifted slowly through the air like snow. A hum filled Rielle’s ears, and she couldn’t determine if it came from somewhere far away or from deep inside her ribs.
She fumbled through shards of shattered marble, clods of fresh earth. Her hand landed on a long, heavy piece of metal, and when she lifted Ghovan’s arrow free of the rubble, her vision cleared.
She sat in a tableau of utter destruction.
The library was gone, its ruins demolished. Piles of dust and stone were scattered across the uprooted foundations like snowdrifts. Curls of black smoke crowned each of Rielle’s fingers. She cradled the arrow in her arms and smiled, her skin buzzing. She felt the cords of Saint Ghovan’s arrow snap into place as it connected to Saint Marzana’s shield, Saint Grimvald’s hammer, Saint Tokazi’s staff. A web of power that fed her own and painted her skin in veins of bright color.
She heard something heavy being dragged and looked up to see Corien kneeling a few paces in front of her. He’d found a body, still intact—one of the Obex, she assumed. She’d missed one.
Corien caught her wrists before she could destroy it.
“Wait,” he said, his voice coming through a churning sea of color. She blinked, and blinked again. Perhaps her vision wasn’t so clear after all. She could see the black and white of Corien’s familiar form, the faint sheen of red coating the ground, but beyond that, all was gold—gold behind her eyes, gold beneath her fingernails, gold at the corners of Corien’s mouth.
She lunged forward and kissed him, greedy and full of fire. She bit his lips, climbed into his lap. She was ravenous. In her right hand, she clutched Saint Ghovan’s arrow.
“Rielle, wait, listen to me.” Corien’s voice floated down from the clouds. Gently, he detached himself from her. “I need you to try something for me. Now, while you’re still hot and humming. My beautiful girl.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. His voice was urgent, thrumming with excitement. Or was she herself thrumming? The whole world was thrumming, and she had made it so.
Smiling, she touched his face. She’d been drunk before on wine and ale, but that was nothing compared to being drunk on the ecstasy of her own power. She sensed, distantly, that it had never been this good before, never this eager or quick—and never this disorienting. How suddenly it had erupted; how violently it had come over her.
She braced her palms against the ground. “What is it you want?” She laughed at the absurd shape of her hands in the dirt. “Anything. I can do anything.”
“I know you can.” Corien pushed the Obex’s body closer to her. “I have friends here. Many of them. Can you see them?”
He sent her a thought, and she sensed how tentative it was, how careful. He was being careful with her in a way he’d never been before.
He was afraid.
She would ask him about that later, but at the moment she was fascinated by the thoughts he was sending her. She became aware of a new presence—a dozen of them, dozens of them, all drifting nearby. Consciousnesses. Mighty ones.
“Angels,” she breathed, looking around in wonder. “There are angels here.”
The empirium granted her vision that her eyes would never possess. Faint shapes drifted through the air, dim and pale, shapeless and anguished. Their voices teemed, whispering. They did not have hands or arms, and yet she felt them reaching for her, imploring. They lacked cohesion. The empirium gold glinting inside them was pale, worn out.
“Those who have escaped the Deep,” Corien was saying quietly, “but who are not strong enough to be soldiers, I have sent here, to the City of the Skies, to hide and to wait. For you, my vicious marvel.” He paused, a tense, expectant beat. “Will you try? Now, for me? Your power is so vital right now, I can barely…Rielle, I can hardly look at you. You’re brilliant. You’re shining.”
“I am the Unmaker,” she said simply, kindly. An explanation. “And I am the Kingsbane. But you shouldn’t be afraid of me.” This she announced to the air. She felt settled in her own skin, blissfully calm. “Who among you is bold enough to be the first angel reborn? Come forward. Come to me.”
A mind approached her, curious and afraid, trying to mask its fear. A child, Rielle thought. A boy. A vision of truth came to