hesitate. She summoned more threads, each drifting in a cloud of steam as the snow once again closed in fast around them.
A vision settled before Rielle’s eyes: the black fortress at the Northern Reach, a gaping hole at the corner where the tower she had collapsed had once stood.
She blinked, and then Corien was beside her, cloaked in black and gray furs. He had left his face bare, and in the relentless snow, his pale-eyed beauty was even more startling.
“What is the point of this, Rielle?” he asked her. “What are you hoping to achieve?”
Though he was not truly there, he was real enough in her mind, and Rielle swayed toward the promise of warmth in his arms.
But then she turned away from him, remembering the cruciata corpse hanging from the ceiling, the stolen Kirvayan children crammed into cages, the crawlers howling in their pit.
“You lied to me,” she told him. “You never told me what you had been doing, what atrocities you have made real. I may be a monster, but I am not so monstrous that I can permit the abuse of children and godsbeasts.”
Corien laughed gently. “You’re confused, darling. You’re tired. I understand. Come home to me. Come home and rest.” His voice slipped down the curve of her back. “Remember how good I made you feel, how you came apart again and again under my hands? Remember the power of that, the rightness of it? You belong here. You belong in my arms, Rielle.”
Teeth chattering in the cold, Rielle shouted at Obritsa, “Faster, please!”
“Our throne awaits us,” Corien said urgently. “If monstrous acts are required to achieve that, then so be it. It was a monstrous act that was done to me and my people. All great work must start somewhere, and what our future holds will be glorious enough to burn away any memory of the grotesque and cruel. You want this more than anything. I can feel it. I know you, Rielle.”
Obritsa looked back over her shoulder. “It’s ready!”
Rielle hurried toward the ring of light shining above the snow.
“You’re lying to yourself!” Corien roared. “Without me, what will be left of you? You’ll be alone! You’ll never find—”
Rielle stepped through the threads, and his voice disappeared.
• • •
They landed on a steep icy slope. Rielle immediately skidded, then caught herself on a nearby rock.
But Obritsa could not find her footing and slid past Rielle with a sharp cry of fear.
Rielle reached out and stopped her, freezing Obritsa in a net of power that held her sprawled motionless in the snow.
As Rielle felt herself begin to slip, her grip on the rock failing, inspiration bloomed. She touched the empirium and sent a gentle wave of power rushing out over their little stretch of mountain. Snow and ice became mounds of downy grass dotted with wildflowers, and the air turned balmy and sweet.
She collapsed into a cool patch of clover, breathing in the smell of green.
Corien’s voice came quietly. I’m ashamed of how I spoke to you. I was afraid when I realized you’d left me. I’m sorry. I was cruel, and I lied to you. Rielle, you’ll never be alone. His voice held stifled tears. And I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never abandon you or flee from you or flinch away in fear. Queen of my heart, I was made for this. I was brought into this world to love you.
Obritsa crawled through the grass to Rielle’s side, helped her sit up. She had summoned more threads, a ring of them humming cheerfully at Rielle’s toes.
“It’s time,” said Obritsa, panting. “Come. It’s fading fast.”
The girl was right. Rielle looked blearily around to see her meadow’s grass withering, the blooms turning black. Her focus was too scattered, her fear and anger running rampant.
She pushed herself to her feet, turned away from Corien’s soft pleas, and passed through Obritsa’s threads to whatever lay beyond.
• • •
On a clear night in the White Wastes, Rielle and Obritsa sat with their backs against a squat low cliff, looking out over a magnificent vista of snowy fields. The world was white and flat as far as Rielle could see. Above them, a sky of stars and twisting lights—green and violet, turquoise and amber. The legendary Astavari sky.
Obritsa—exhausted, her power depleted—rested her head against Rielle’s shoulder. Rielle stroked the girl’s arm through her furs.
Corien was quiet, only the barest shade of color on her mind’s horizon. Rielle knew she should be worried about what that could mean, but she was