Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,60

open and I can scoop out all her damnable insides.”

He raised his gaze once more to Jessamyn. “I will break her. I will see my love again, and then all will be as it should.”

Jessamyn’s expression was hard and eager. “Of course, your Excellency. I will do as you command.”

Then Corien rose, swaying, his brow knotted with pain. He turned as if to return to his study, then fell hard against Simon’s chest.

Simon caught him, helped him stand. He was muttering two words in Lissar over and over against Simon’s jacket:

Burn them.

Simon found Jessamyn staring from her spot on the floor. “Get out of here. If you tell anyone what you’ve seen, I’ll cut out your eyes and feed them to you.”

Jessamyn fled at once, and after she had gone, Simon helped Corien into his study and kicked the door shut behind them. The bare floor was slick with blood, the rugs bloated with it. He avoided the body that had once belonged to General Bartamos and settled Corien in the chair nearest the quiet hearth.

For a moment, Simon stood over him, watching him breathe. Corien gingerly touched his own temples, as if they would rupture under the weight of his hands. It was not the first time this had happened, nor would it be the last.

And Simon knew of only one way to steady him when his mind was like this—split by rage and exhaustion, poisoned by centuries of grief. Every day, more cruciata escaped the Gate’s pull. Every day brought the world of the Deep closer to their own.

The Empire needed a commander, not a madman.

Simon waited until he had steadied his breathing, until he had arranged his thoughts and felt prepared for what would come next. He was a slate, smooth and clean. He was a hollow vessel, ready to receive what it must.

“You are pushing yourself too hard,” Simon said at last, keeping his voice steady. “Even you, mighty as you are, are not indestructible. Not after a thousand years of rebirth and conquest.”

Corien laughed softly. “I told her that once. I told her that not even she was invulnerable to death. I told her so many things.”

Simon glanced at the windows, each glowing with the yellow light of early evening. Admiral Ravikant would arrive at nightfall. The rugs needed to be removed, the furniture switched out, the floor scrubbed.

He knelt before Corien and kissed his red knuckles, as he had done in rooms even darker and bloodier than this one.

“And, my lord,” he said softly, “I must point out that you will have difficulty keeping your Empire loyal to you if you kill any general who comes to your office with a valid concern.”

With those words, the air in the room changed. Simon felt Corien lift his head to stare at him, but he kept his own bowed. A thrill of fear pricked his calm. Fleetingly, he thought of that frozen Vindican plateau where Corien had first tortured his mind. He remembered waking days later in fits of agony, feeling as though his mind had been flayed and restitched a thousand times over.

He remembered how calm Corien had been afterward, how kind—tender, even.

“What are you saying, Simon?” Corien asked quietly. “That I am no longer fit to rule? That I should take care to temper my rightful anger, or else those I command, who would still be rotting in the Deep were it not for me, will rise up against me and somehow succeed?”

Simon shook his head. “No, my lord. I only meant that I worry.”

“Odd that you should say so,” Corien mused, “for I worry for you. Weeks have passed since Eliana’s arrival, and still we remain here. Your power seems reluctant.” Cool fingers, sticky and rank, cupped Simon’s cheeks. “I think it needs a little encouragement.”

And then Simon could say nothing else, for in the grip of those bloodstained white hands, he was no longer Simon. He was a mind in agony. He was a body inert on the floor.

He was a weapon, dismantled by the hands of its master.

12

Audric

“I write this so that, if I die, and someone comes upon my body, they’ll know where I have been and what I have seen. I have wandered north from the place that was once my home and never my home, and have now entered the northern mountain range called the Villmark. I’ve always wanted to explore these peaks in search of ice dragons, the ancient godsbeasts that Saint Grimvald rode into battle against