Lightbringer (Empirium #3) - Claire Legrand Page 0,80

and cocooned, her power a mere whisper. She was not angry. She was not afraid. She would not despair.

As she listened to the palace quake, hot tears of shame rolled down her cheeks. For so long, she had resisted the urge to give Corien any part of herself, had kept her power closed off and quiet—until tonight. Had it been Corien who had planted Remy’s voice in her mind, hoping it would provoke her? Or had the memory come from someone else?

She glanced up, saw Simon push himself to his feet and raise his arms, reaching for threads. Faint lights sparked at his fingertips for only an instant before the room went dark once more.

Eliana’s eyes fluttered closed, her castings dark inside her fists. When she smiled, she tasted salt.

Then a familiar roar of rage pierced the air, followed by the crash of glass. Someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. Remy’s face bloomed in her mind, gaunt and bloody. One eye blue, the other reddened from a cruel punch and ringed with bruises. She wanted to reach for him but would not. She shut her eyes, fought against the pull of his dear voice whispering her name.

It wasn’t real. She lived inside a nightmare, that was all.

“I will hurt him again,” Corien hissed against her ear, his breath sour with wine. “And again, and again. I show you beauty, I promise you peace at last for weeks, and this is what I get in return? You goddamned idiot girl. You’re fighting a war you cannot win, and you know it. I will hurt him right in front of you, just like I did before. Yes, that was real, and it will be so again. I will rain agony upon him until you break. Is that what you want?”

He was dragging her across the room, his arm wedged under hers. She struggled against him, but his mind held her fast, forcing her to walk. She felt sick with fear as her legs moved against her will.

“I want to see the concert,” she gasped out.

“Oh, no, my pretty one,” said Corien, laughing. “It’s too late for niceties. Consider the peaceful life I have given you forfeit.”

Their progress through the palace was a blur of motion and color, her feet clumsy under Corien’s direction. When she came to herself again, blinking rapidly, she stood on a terrace blazing with torchlight. The wind howled, and a quick glance around showed her that they stood on one of the topmost levels of the palace, the space lit by a dozen torches. Two white watchtowers flanked the terrace, and Eliana went cold with horror as she saw Remy dangling from one of them. An angelic guard held him by the collar. His face, bloodied and hollow-cheeked, was framed by neatly trimmed dark hair.

And from the other tower…

Eliana stared at the man hanging in the air, held suspended just as Remy was. She knew the face, but her mind refused to accept what it might mean.

“Father?” she whispered. Her arms were ice.

Ioseph Ferracora stared down at her, his face wet with tears and his eyes no longer black. They were blue, like Remy’s. His square chin jutted stubbornly, like Remy’s.

“Oh, yes, I’ve been meaning to tell you this,” Corien said cheerfully. “Your father—I’m sorry, the man who raised you; we know who your real father is, don’t we?—he didn’t die in the Battle of Arxara Bay, as you may have been led to believe. He was alive when Admiral Ravikant found him. And since Ravikant is one of our most talented, one of our strongest, he was able to inhabit your father’s body while still preserving his human life, keeping his mind intact and healthy. The admiral, of course, has graciously absented himself for the purposes of our little reunion tonight.” Corien gently touched Eliana’s cheek. “Isn’t this happy news? Ioseph Ferracora still lives after all!”

Eliana could not find her voice. Her eyes locked on to her father’s face and wouldn’t let go. She could not stop thinking of the vision Corien had sent her—Remy, Simon, Ioseph, and herself, happy and laughing in a sunlit house. And there was every memory from her childhood: Ioseph going off to war; dancing with Rozen in their kitchen; holding little Eliana in his lap after the annual Sun Queen pageant, both of them glittering with gold powder, watching the sun rise while the statue of the Lightbringer towered above them.

The world spun slowly; something