Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,57

beauty. The water is black and cold, the snow endless and clean.”

Rielle hardly heard him. Her vision tilted, and she tipped into a rocking sea of half consciousness. Following her was Corien’s voice, and chasing that, a vision: herself robed in red, haloed with light. Stars and moons rained upon her open palms, waterfalls made from the night sky. At her feet knelt Corien, legions of angels behind him—all winged, all armored.

You will open the Gate, he told her, and you will remake the world.

But Rielle heard the doubt in his voice, the fear and worry.

As she spiraled into blackness, another voice came to her from the distant ocean of her power. A voice that rumbled and quaked. A voice of many, and of one. She recognized it at once. It was the endless ancient black of Atheria’s eyes. It was the roar of her own blood as she watched her shadow-dragon lick the Archon’s cheek, ready to devour him. It was the humming snap of power in her veins when she turned fire into feathers, when she tamed oceans, when she killed, and killed, and killed again.

It was the voice of the empirium, and it burned its cold, pitiless words into her mind like a brand she could not evade:

this power is yours

you are mine

mine is yours

take it

take me

I take you

I rise

I rise

I RISE

11

Simon

“Do you think I want to write this decree? Do you think I yearn for more death? No, my friend. But do you hear what they call us? Saint Katell the Magnificent. Saint Grimvald the Mighty. And yet we are holding together what remains of this world with only our own tired hands. I don’t know if the Gate will stand. But I know what I saw, and I know the true danger of marques just as well as you do. We cannot allow this all to happen again. The world will not survive it.”

—Undated encoded letter from Saint Katell the Magnificent to Saint Grimvald the Mighty, stolen from the archives of the First Great Library of Quelbani

Simon sat in a chair just outside the Emperor’s private study, pretending to read the book in his hands.

But what truly interested him was the young woman sitting nervously across from him.

Her name was Jessamyn, and she was a student of Invictus—the Emperor’s private regiment of human assassins, all of them ruthless, all of them devoted to the angelic cause. She had lightly freckled brown skin and a neat braid dyed bright red, which would no doubt change soon. The Lyceum, which housed the Invictus barracks and training yards, was as full of hair dyes, masks, and costumes as a playhouse.

Simon studied her. She was picking her nails, as if sitting in the receiving room outside the Emperor’s study was a terrible bore. But Simon knew better. All Invictus operatives were the same. He saw the sheen of sweat at her hairline. He saw her nervous gaze flit to the study’s closed door, to the Emperor’s secretary at his desk, to the attendants flanking the outer doors, then back to her nails.

She was terrified.

As she should be.

He smiled to himself. Corien would enjoy watching her squirm.

“You’re the Invictus trainee, aren’t you?” Simon said. “Jessamyn, yes?”

The girl’s expression soured, but then quickly calmed.

Simon expected as much. Her teacher had been Varos, an assassin Corien had been fond of, who had recently been killed during the attack on Festival. By Harkan, of all people. It was a shame to lose a good assassin, but it was a comfort to know that before Varos died, he had managed to dispose of that Venteran fool.

All of this had been in Jessamyn’s report. And in Varos’s journal, which Simon had confiscated on the Emperor’s behalf, there were many notes about Jessamyn herself—that she was desperate to prove herself to the Emperor. That she learned quickly and struck fast, and that she despised her human name.

What Varos hadn’t known, and what Jessamyn herself still did not, was that Eliana had known her, had fought with her—or at least she had known a Jessamyn who had existed but did no longer.

Thanks to him.

“Yes, Jessamyn,” she said tightly. “That’s correct.”

Simon inspected her, head to toe. “Interesting that he would want to speak with a person of so little consequence.”

To her credit, Jessamyn only inclined her head—though Simon saw a muscle in her jaw twitch.

“Nevertheless, I hope I can be of service to him,” she replied. “Do you know why he wants to see me?”

“The Emperor has heard