When he woke, he would see the memories, and he would hate them. He would hate her for sending them, reminding him of what they had both lost, and he would hate her even more for leaving him. He would not understand it, and she would not leave him with an explanation, for the truth was too craven.

For years, she had dreamt of a future with them. They would age and have children. Rielle’s power would grow, and she would use the empirium to solidify the hold Ludivine kept on this body she had grown to think of as her own. Rielle would help her truly join with it at last, become human at last, or at least near enough—stripped of her long life, diminished by Rielle’s godly craft to something crude and fragile. And Ludivine would finally be able to rest, no longer fighting to remain intact inside a body but instead simply existing. A being no one would fear or revile. She would love and watch over Rielle and Audric and their family for the rest of her days, and grow old, as they would, and die, as they would, and never be required to live without them.

But instead, she had failed them both utterly. She had known it for months. Either one or both of them would die in the fight to come, perhaps at each other’s hands, and Ludivine could not bear to see it.

She rose, shaky, and brushed the twigs from her skirt. Then she turned and saw a looming dark shape among the trees. Monstrously tall, horribly still. Even in the shadows, Atheria’s black eyes were unmissable. They fixed on Ludivine as if she were prey.

Ludivine froze. Under the godsbeast’s gaze, the shield of her mind felt pitiful and childish. She had never felt more keenly like the coward she was.

“My love was not enough to save them,” she whispered, clutching her stomach. “If I stay and watch them die, it will kill me.”

The chavaile stared. Her tail flicked savagely.

Ludivine turned away, fled fast through the orchard and across the fields beyond, climbed over a crude wooden fence, and then, at the banks of a small stream, looked back.

Atheria had not followed her. Audric would wake to see the chavaile at his side. Maybe he would see in her great dark eyes the truth she had heard.

Ludivine squared her shoulders and faced the northern horizon. There were hills, and mountains beyond. Patchy woodlands, rivers rushing to the sea. She knew not where she would go, what she would do. She knew only the drum of her heart, her footsteps stamping out Coward, the hot racing fear that told her to run.

If she ran, she could hide.

And if she hid, when the world ended, she could live content inside the cocoon of her memories and pretend she heard nothing.

31

   Audric

“For weeks, the magisters and I have been suggesting to Merovec that he implement the reinforcements and defensive measures you outlined in your last letter, but he refuses. He insists the true danger is inside Âme de la Terre’s walls. He continues his interrogations of elementals and refuses to look past our borders toward the true danger. I suspect it’s because the idea of what’s coming terrifies him. He is incapable of facing it. Many elementals have gone missing. Rumors of bodies stacking up inside Baingarde race through the streets like wildfire. My heart grieves to send you this news, but I can also tell you this: Red Crown is ready. Everything is in place for your return. A series of instructions sent via several different messengers will shortly be en route to you. Patience and courage, my king. Soon, you will be home. For crown and country, we protect the true light.”

—Encoded letter from Miren Ballastier to the exiled king Audric Courverie, dated February 21, Year 999 of the Second Age

At every turn in the narrow, dark tunnels beneath Mount Cibelline, a part of Audric held its breath, hoping the next stretch of darkness would reveal Ludivine.

She would be breathless with excitement. News had come from the north. She hadn’t run away; she had simply gone into hiding to safely make contact with Rielle. And now, Rielle was coming home, speeding south on some other glorious godsbeast who had come down from the clouds to save her—which would of course make Atheria jealous, Ludivine would point out. He would laugh and embrace her, and then she would shield them all—Audric, Sloane, Evyline and the Sun Guard, Kamayin and her soldiers—as they snuck into Baingarde under cover of night. And by the time Rielle arrived home, the castle would once again be his.

But the tunnels remained dark, the only sounds those of his breathing, the footsteps of his friends and allies, and the other part of Audric, the less hopeful part, knew the truth:

Ludivine was not coming back.

They climbed a narrow set of stone stairs set into the deep earth. Evyline insisted on leading the way; she and Sloane and the Sun Guard had taken this route months earlier and knew it well. Audric marveled at the passage of time. Though only a little over four months had passed since his doomed wedding, the long weeks since had felt like an entire age, and that he had been married to Rielle on the same night as Merovec’s coup—the same night he had fled his home—felt bizarre, even impossible.

As he climbed, the acid bite of shame flooded his mouth. Sloane and Evyline, the Mazabatian queens, and Princess Kamayin had all told him many times that it was not cowardice that had driven him away, but he still found it difficult to believe them.

This was a moment in which Ludivine would have reached out to him. It was not cowardice, she would have told him in that low, steady voice of hers. It was wisdom. You could not know what allies remained to you. The vision Corien sent had already thrust the night into chaos. You are the heir to the throne. If you had stayed that night and died, then the reign of Saint Katell and her descendants would truly have been lost.

But Audric’s mind remained his own, empty but for his whirling thoughts. With each footstep, even as he climbed through the mountain, he felt himself sinking back into the heavy, dark place from which he had only just begun to emerge in recent weeks. He longed to sleep, to tuck himself into a cold corner of these tunnels his ancestors had built and close his eyes forever.

But then Evyline, at the head of their procession, opened the hidden door carved into the mountain, and they emerged into the overgrown gardens behind Baingarde.

Audric stood aside at the tunnel’s mouth, allowing the others passage, and gazed at the familiar green world around him. So far from the castle, the gardens sprawled untamed. A profusion of ferns and tangled moonflower vines grew thick around the hidden door. A carpet of pine needles softened the ground, and overhead the trees grew tall and close.

The scent was so familiar that Audric felt lightheaded—the thick green spice of the shivering trees, the sweetness of old leaves rotting in the dirt. Past the wild growth near the door, far out in the jade gloom, a sorrow tree stood, its thin branches heavy with bright green buds and tiny pink blossoms. The first blooms of spring.

Audric could not tear his eyes from them. He had kissed Rielle for the first time beneath one of those trees. He knew he shouldn’t think of it, and yet he could not help doing so. The warmth of Rielle in his arms, the softness of her mouth. The eager noises she had breathed against his ear, her trembling hands in his hair. The sweet ache of happiness at finally allowing themselves to kiss.