The world spun slowly; something terrible was about to happen, and Eliana was helpless to stop it. She made her hands into fists. If her castings awakened again, she was not certain she would be able to dam the flood of her power this time.

Ioseph shook his head. “Don’t listen to him, sweet girl. It’s all right.” His voice shook. Tears rolled down his cheeks and into the beard Admiral Ravikant had kept so neatly trimmed. “It’s all right.”

“Isn’t it happy news?” Corien roared. He shook Eliana hard. “Tell me!”

A sob burst out of her. “Yes. Yes!”

“I’m tired of waiting for you to come to your senses, Eliana,” he said hotly against her cheek, “of offering you pleasures, promising you peace. No longer. If I cannot persuade you to reason, I will be forced to break you.”

Corien jerked his head at Ioseph’s tower. “Save the man who found you in the streets and fed and protected you until he left home to fight a war I started, only to have his body stolen and used like a puppet.”

He turned her roughly, made her stare at Remy’s tower next. “Or save your innocent little brother, who even now doesn’t blame you for all the misery he’s endured on your behalf. Try to save them both, and I’ll tear their skulls to pieces from the inside out before they even hit the ground.”

Then, before Eliana could even draw breath to beg, the guards holding Ioseph and Remy let them go, and their bodies plunged into the night.

16

   Tal

“Merovec found the Archon’s corpse at the doors of the House of Light. He claims the Archon took his own life, but he won’t allow us to examine the body. In recent days, the Archon had been pleading with Merovec to end the interrogation of elementals. He was the only one of the Magisterial Council Merovec would allow inside Baingarde; now we are without an ally in the castle. The city is in an uproar. Those loyal to Merovec are looting temples, dismantling them piece by piece. The faithful are desperate, with nowhere to go. Merovec has heard rumors of Red Crown and is personally entering homes unannounced with squadrons of soldiers to search basements and question families. It’s as if he thinks we’re hiding Rielle in someone’s attic. We in Red Crown say this to each other when we need courage: For crown and country, we protect the true light.”

—Encoded letter from Miren Ballastier, Grand Magister of the Forge, to the exiled king Audric Courverie, dated December 3, Year 999 of the Second Age

Tal reached a bend in the mountain path and stopped to catch his breath.

Below him stretched a sea of red rock—the canyons and mountains of southeastern Vindica. It was a country that had once belonged to angels and now could boast only a hollow, stark sort of beauty, as if the empirium itself had forsaken it. Crumbling cities had been abandoned to the appetite of time, hosting only a population of scavengers, wanderers, and the occasional ambitious acolyte on a solitary pilgrimage.

From his spot on the path, Tal surveyed the horizon, the mountains around him, the darkening periwinkle sky. Even though he wore a long, thick scarf tied around his head and neck, his lips stung, and his throat was parched. The brutal mountain winds, choked with grit, were ceaseless.

Then Ludivine’s panicked voice burst into his mind—a sensation with which Tal remained utterly uncomfortable and only allowed because he had long ago realized he could not find Rielle on his own. He wasn’t powerful enough. His mind was dull, unimaginative. It always had been. Only a decent elemental talent and a ruthless dedication to studying had secured him his position as Grand Magister.

This truth had always eaten at him. Now that he had been isolated for weeks, its appetite had become monstrous, leaving Tal’s mood black and fragile.

I cannot see her. Ludivine’s thoughts clawed at him like the frantic grip of someone drowning. Something’s happened. I cannot see her any longer.

Tal hated mind-speak. Hated it. The act felt unholy, made him want to bathe in scalding water.

Is she hurt? He stood rigidly in a patch of scrubby grass, staring at the southern horizon, where a thin black line marked the Namurian Sea, and Patria beyond. Is she dead?

He heard Ludivine’s exhausted laughter. Do you think Rielle could die and the world would somehow go on undisturbed?

Then where is she?

I don’t know. I don’t know! She’s so far from me. So far, and so frightened, Tal. A sob floated to him through whatever perverse connection Ludivine had forged with his mind. He is keeping her hidden from me. You must find her.

Tal let out a single bitter laugh. Desperation had kept him moving for weeks; he had hardly stopped to rest, pushing through storms of both snow and dust. He had followed a patchy trail cobbled together from Ludivine’s frantic whispers and whatever information he could gather when he dared to stop at inns, travelers’ hostels, encampments of nomadic tribes and roving treasure-seekers.

For weeks, he had hardly slept, both his dreams and his waking thoughts full of Rielle. The image of her from that horrible night outside the village of Tavistère tormented him. They had locked eyes; Corien had taunted him. Too late, Tal.

That desperation, the memory of her frightened face in the rain, had kept him pushing onward for long weeks, heedless of his aching muscles, the blisters in his boots, the hungry pinch of his stomach.

But now that strength left him all at once, like the bones had been sucked out of him. He sank to the ground and sat unmoving as the wind spat its relentless red sand.

Too late, Tal. Tal laughed, reached up under his head scarf, and scrubbed his filthy hands over his face. That’s what he said to me that night. I suppose he was right.

Ludivine’s voice was grave. In his mind’s eye, Tal could see her sitting in a chair surrounded by greenery, her shoulders tense and her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Tal, you must find her, she thought to him. If I cannot see her, then you’ll have to do it alone.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” he spat. He refused to mind-speak any longer.

I cannot leave Audric. He needs me to help him, and the world needs him on his throne.

“I didn’t ask you to leave Audric.” Tal pushed himself to his feet. That simple act was exhausting enough to make him want to lie back down in the sand and let it bury him. But he had seen a cave a mile or so down the mountain, and he could sleep there for the night.

“I’ll search the entire world for her,” he mumbled. “I, a single, simple firebrand, will track the most powerful pair of creatures who have ever lived. An angel and a queen of God. And when I find them, she’ll surely listen to me. Don’t you think? She always has. Not once has she ever defied me.”

After a moment, Ludivine spoke quietly. You sound slightly hysterical, Tal. You should rest.