Corien’s expression was grim. “No. They seem to be immune to such indignities.”

“Perhaps the empirium saw fit to punish the angels for beginning the war against humans,” Rielle offered blithely. Antagonizing him cleared her mind. She could not resist it. “Perhaps the cruciata have committed no such offense.”

Corien shot her a dangerous look. “Perhaps.”

“I was told about these cruciata before,” she said, moving past him. “I heard they originated from the Deep itself.”

“Who told you this?”

“Jodoc Indarien. Speaker of the Obex in the Sunderlands. He shot Ludivine with an arrow constructed of a strange metal. He called it a blightblade.”

Corien stiffened, reading her memory. “He told you only what he knew, which was incomplete.”

“Jodoc also said that a cruciata’s blood is deadly to angels. Is this accurate?”

“Frustratingly, yes.” Corien glanced up at the suspended beast. A line of neat black stitches bisected its belly. “This viper crawled through the Gate some years ago and—clever thing—snuck aboard a trade vessel that had come to the Sunderlands with supplies for the Obex. I don’t think the Obex even knew it had broken through. Many angels died during its capture and during the journey here. It’s something about the blood. We had to bleed it dry before it was safe to dissect. Even the fumes can be toxic.”

“To you,” said Rielle. “Not to humans.” She blinked guilelessly at him. “So Jodoc said.”

Corien’s mouth thinned. “On that point, he was correct. My hunters, once exposed to the beast’s blood, were pushed from the human bodies they inhabited and completely lost cohesion. Thankfully, others took their places, and I’m confident we’ll eventually engineer ways to protect ourselves from their toxins, should we encounter more cruciata in the future.”

The suggestion in his voice killed her amusement. She looked straight at him. “You mean if I open the Gate.”

He gave her a tight smile. Her use of the word if had not escaped him. “I do.”

She shivered at the thought. The empirium rippled through her, a dark tremor. Was it afraid or eager? She searched her own heart for the answer but found none.

“I have many loyal to me in the Deep,” Corien went on. “Thanks to you, my dear, and your failed efforts to repair the Gate, I can now communicate with them. They tell me the vast majority of cruciata remain in their own world, which we have named Hosterah. If you open the Gate, the risk of a cruciata invasion is slim. If you’d like, you can reseal the damn thing once my people are free. And if any cruciata do come for us before you manage that, you will destroy them.”

Rielle sensed a memory. It floated to the surface of his mind and drifted toward hers. It was herself, months ago in the Sunderlands, attempting to repair the Gate and instead cracking it further.

“Is that why you urged me toward it?” She watched Corien closely. “You wanted me to touch it. You wanted to see if I was powerful enough yet to open it.”

“In part,” he admitted smoothly.

“But you suspected I wasn’t ready and that it would hurt me.”

“I guessed it would hurt you and knew that your failure would help me—and thereby help you.”

She stepped back from him, reaching for his mind and finding, to her horror, that he spoke the truth. “You astonish me.”

“And you yourself wanted to attempt a repair.” Corien approached her slowly. “Even if I hadn’t encouraged it, you would have done exactly the same. Why shouldn’t I have taken advantage of a situation that was already in motion?” He was near her now, his eyes alight with passion. “I have my people to think about, Rielle. Millions of angels, imprisoned and waiting for me to free them. Remember that.”

At his words, a bitter thought occurred to Rielle—that Audric, even to help his people, even if everyone expected it of him, would never urge her toward a thing he knew would hurt her.

She shoved the thought at Corien and watched the anger settle over him like a net of flitting shadows.

Satisfied, she lifted her chin and stared him down. “Can you control the cruciata as you can control humans?”

His furious gaze moved across her face, as if searching for a chink in her armor. “No. Their minds are too alien.”

“So you are creating your own.” Rielle stretched onto her toes to touch the cruciata’s stiff tail. “Beasts with blood that won’t harm you. Beasts with minds you can influence.”

Corien’s eyes followed her every movement. “Precisely. Though complete control of their minds remains elusive, we have devised…other methods to manipulate them.”

For a moment, Rielle gazed up at the viper, imagining it alive and vicious—twenty feet of muscle and scaly hide, racing across the ground with claws as long as her forearm.

“If I open the Gate,” she said slowly, “I could exacerbate the damage done by the saints.”

“Yes,” Corien agreed.

“Without meaning to, I could widen those cracks in the Deep and bring the cruciata here.”

“And then you will destroy them, as I’ve said. You’ll blink them to ashes.” Irritation colored his voice. “You worry for the people of this world. You worry for those who would not worry for you. Why?”

Because life is precious.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

Because I am the Sun Queen. I protect, and I defend.

None of the answers she mulled over rang true. Early in the trials, she had believed such things, had even proclaimed them for all to hear. But maybe she had been lying to herself even then.

Corien was watching her intently. “They don’t deserve your pity or your protection. You’re more like us then you are like them. You belong with us.” A pause. “You belong with me, not with him.”

Rielle tried to hold this declaration in her mind but could not find a steady grip on it.

She turned away from Corien to stare at the beast, with which she felt a sudden sick kinship. “I belong nowhere,” she whispered.

It was the truest thing she had said in some time.

Corien’s fingers brushed the small of her back. “I know you must come to this truth on your own, and I will wait for you to find it, but I urge you to see it now: where you belong is at my side.”

When she did not reply, he found her hand, pressed his thumb into her palm. “I have been engineering this war for centuries. And at the end of it, you and I will reign over a glorious new world in which the only beasts are our own and will obey our every command.”