She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about the sweet, lonely ache that lingered against her skin where Corien’s touch had once been.

The angels are all gone.

The angels are all gone.

• • •

But the prayer did not help.

Rielle couldn’t sleep the rest of the night, which left her unfocused and sloppy the next day as her father drove her ruthlessly through her conditioning exercises. And even when she settled into bed the night after, her muscles aching, sleep eluded her.

Corien, apparently, had taken her request quite seriously. She could neither hear nor sense him. Her mind felt hollow as a cave.

Part of her was glad.

But the part of her that lay restlessly in her too-large bed, unsettled and on edge, yearned for company.

And when she thought of his final words to her—They will spurn you, and you will be left alone—the hollow of her mind expanded into her heart until all she could feel was a desperate, endless sadness.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered against her pillow.

She held her breath, waiting. Would Corien answer her? Send her some sort of reassurance?

Five breaths. Ten.

He said nothing.

She flung aside her linens, yanked the heavy plum-and-gold dressing gown from her bedside chair, and marched toward the door to her rooms.

Evyline snapped to attention. “Are we going somewhere, my lady?”

“Indeed we are, Evyline. I need some fresh air.”

She considered going straight to Tal and confessing everything to him: Corien, the angels, the frustration blazing hot paths through her body.

But instead Rielle slipped into the darkened castle—seeking solace, craving company.

And recklessly, secretly hoping at each turn of Baingarde’s moon-painted corridors, that she would see Corien standing there, with an apology on his lips and a sly kiss for her own.

26

   Eliana

“It is widely believed that the creation of the Gate, which ended the Angelic Wars, began the end of magic as it once was. If the Gate was the beginning of the end, then the Fall of the Blood Queen was the true ending. With her death, the Blood Queen stamped out every remaining spark of ancient power, leaving the world ravaged and dim.”

—Foreword to a collection of Venteran children’s tales entitled Stories of a Forgotten Age

“Can you walk?”

Gingerly, Eliana stood and gave Simon a tight nod.

She hoped she was pretending the right amount of pain. Remy squeezed her hand, and she glanced down at him with a smile she tried to make reassuring.

He, of course, would know the truth by the look on her face. If they hadn’t healed completely, her wounds from the bombardier blast were now well enough that Eliana could feel no pain, save a dull soreness in her muscles. Over the last few hours of sleep, it seemed, her wounds had closed. Her flesh had repaired itself.

And, Eliana knew, the next time Navi or Simon insisted on changing her bandages, she would have to lie. Or flee. Or be found out.

But found out for what? Was she one of them? Whatever Lord Morbrae was—whatever strangeness gave him his liquid black eyes, the gaunt hunger of his cheeks, the ability to repair a slit throat and walk away whole—was Eliana also such a creature?

A wave of disgust swelled in her throat.

I don’t have black eyes.

I have eaten, and I have had lovers. My hunger was sated, and the loving felt good and always has.

But…

But my body was covered with burns. And now, it is not.

She had always known that her body’s ability to heal itself faster and more thoroughly than anyone else’s was…unusual, to say the least. Impossible and unthinkable. She had, however, always explained it away when she lay awake at night, endlessly worrying. Or when she had first confessed to Remy by cutting open her arm in front of him, only for it to sew itself healed a moment later.

His horrified eyes had lit up with wonder.

“El,” he had whispered, “that’s some kind of magic.”

“Ridiculous,” she’d replied, her heart pounding but her voice cool. “Magic does not exist.”

“But it did, once. Maybe some of it survived Queen Rielle’s Fall.”

Eliana had snorted. “Doubtful. That bitch was a lot of things, but she wasn’t sloppy. She wouldn’t have left us any magic, not even a scrap.”

“So how do you explain it, then?”

She had shrugged, grinning. “I won’t argue with my body being a wonder. Harkan could tell you that much—”

Remy had clapped his hands over his ears. “Please, spare me.”

“I suppose I’m just more resilient than most.” She hadn’t really believed that inane explanation, even then. But what choice did she have? Any other possibility would be…too much to consider. Preposterous at best and dangerous at worst. And she had given up her hope for miracles years ago.

“Anyway,” she had continued, “I hope you won’t tell anyone. Not even Mother. Because—”

“Because if anyone found out, they’d use you as a weapon. Even more than the Empire already does.”

“Right,” she said stiffly after a pause. “Exactly.”

He had nodded. “I’m still going to believe it’s magic though. I have to.”

“Whatever lies you have to tell yourself, Remy, are no business of mine.”

But now that Eliana had seen Lord Morbrae, the knowledge of what her body could do—the question of what that meant—sat noxiously inside her.

Am I one of them? she thought, reaching back to scratch her shoulder. Or will I become one of them?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hob staring at her and remembered to wince as she moved.

“Quickly and quietly,” Simon muttered, “slip into the crowd along with everyone else. Stay close.”

Together, their ragged group of five slowly moved onto the broad, crowded road that led to the city of Rinthos.

It was a path congested with travelers: Refugees seeking shelter from the wild lands beyond. Small clusters of musicians fiddling baudy traveling songs and singing laments for the dead. A few merchants shilling wares—clothes, medicines, drugs, idols of the Emperor carved out of wood and small enough to wear around one’s neck.

Eliana kept her gait stiff, uneven, and her eyes focused straight ahead on the city gates. Adatrox drifted throughout the crowd and patrolled the perimeter wall, but they did not stop anyone from passing through the city gates. Not even the Empire, it seemed, wanted to do the work of clearing out the massive, clogged sprawl that was Rinthos.