though I’d been thrust into some raging golden fire.”
Then, a pause. A tiny flinch that Audric was viciously glad to see. He hoped it meant she was hurting in some way that would never heal, just as he was.
“Her power is rising fast,” Ludivine finished, “and I don’t know how much longer she will be able to control it.”
The silence was terrible. Audric leaned heavily against the table, ran his hands through his hair.
For the first time in weeks, he reached out to Ludivine’s mind, clumsy and desperate. Is she afraid?
Yes. Ludivine’s voice was a mere whisper of thought. And she aches for home.
Audric pushed back from the table and went to the nearest window. He shut his eyes against the cheerful morning, the lush palace grounds, and tried not to imagine Rielle alone in an unfamiliar country, Corien whispering promises in her ear and the empirium burning her alive from the inside out.
Unfortunately, his imagination had always been spectacular.
“Besides the dragons and the children and whatever unholy beasts they’ve made,” said Sloane, her voice brimming with anger, “how many troops does he have at his disposal?”
“By my last count, five hundred angelic soldiers,” Jazan replied, his voice hollow.
“More will come,” said Ludivine quietly. “When Rielle opens the Gate, there will be millions.”
“If she opens the Gate,” the Grand Magister of the Pyre pointed out.
“But there are others,” Jazan continued. He pulled restlessly at the hems of his sleeves. “Thousands of humans. The angels control them.”
Audric turned back to the table, his heart sinking as he began to understand. “He did that to the Sauvillier soldiers the day of the fire trial. He controlled them, turned them against their own people.”
“Their eyes were gray,” Sloane breathed, her gaze distant. She was remembering, just as Audric was. “Gray and empty, like a fog had fallen inside them.”
“The angels call them adatrox,” Jazan said. “His generals travel the world collecting them. Thousands of them. They slip inside their minds and remake them as they see fit. They tell them what to do, and the adatrox must do it. I don’t think they even know what they’re doing. I hope they don’t know.” Jazan’s face fell, lined with shadows. “The things the angels made them do to each other…the things the angels made them do to us…”
He collapsed into sobs, and after Kamayin called for her handmaidens to escort him to the palace’s hospital wing, Queen Bazati turned to her and spoke for the first time since the meeting began.
“I have many questions for you, my daughter,” she said, her voice low.
“Three years ago, I recruited two dozen spies,” Kamayin said, facing her mothers with a defiant gleam in her eyes. “The Starlings. They’re very good. Better than your spies, Mama. Don’t worry. I fund them myself.”
Queen Fozeyah’s mouth twitched, but the smile did not meet her eyes. “How enterprising of you.”
“Every princess deserves her own private order of spies,” Kamayin said, bristling. “When I heard of the missing children in Kirvaya, I had to send out my birds. And it’s a good thing I did. Now we know what we’re facing.”
General Rakallo, the decorated commander who had greeted Audric on the beach, scowled in her chair. “Yes, now we know, and now everything is changed.”
“It changes nothing,” said Sloane, a bite to her voice. “We suspected Corien would be amassing armies to rise up against us.”
The Grand Magister of the Holdfast, his ruddy face pocked with scars, spoke in hushed tones. “But we did not know just how large his forces would be, and we knew nothing about these monsters he is creating.”
“I don’t even understand how such a thing is possible,” Queen Bazati muttered, her hands in fists.
“The common angelic mind, Your Majesty, is extraordinary,” said Ludivine. “Corien’s mind is far from common. Before the Wars, he was strong. Now, after centuries spent in the Deep, planning his revenge, he is beyond any of us. Even me.”
“Except for Rielle,” Audric said at once, and as soon as the words left his lips, tears sprang to his eyes. It was the first time he’d said her name aloud in weeks, and the cherished word snatched away his breath.
General Rakallo sighed sharply. “Yes, the only being more powerful than the angel bent on destroying us is the woman who left her home and loved ones to join him. Forgive me, Your Majesty, if I do not find this particularly comforting.”
Kamayin abruptly stood, hands flat on the table. “That kind of talk is neither