Kingsbane

Rielle released Ludivine to glare at him. “I’m not going underground. I’m going to stop this.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to conserve your power for the task ahead.”

“And how do you suppose we’ll find Saint Tokazi’s staff if Quelbani is buried beneath the ocean?”

“How do you suppose you’ll repair the Gate if you’re dead?”

Rielle shook her head. “Tal, you don’t understand. I won’t die. Not today. Not because of this storm.”

The sky was alive with lightning; it cast unflattering lines across Tal’s stricken face. “How can you possibly know when or how you’ll die?”

“I don’t. But I know my power, and I know what it can do.”

Rielle turned away from him, pulled toward the balcony by a force she could not name. With a sharp cry, Atheria alighted upon it and then ducked into the room, shaking water from her wings.

Rielle smiled faintly, stepping across the rain-soaked, glass-strewn floor to meet her. The chavaile’s black eyes watched her approach with unearthly steadiness, her breath steaming in the suddenly frigid air. All sound dimmed—the roar of the sea, the piercing howl of the wind, the shudder and groan of the storm-battered palace. Rielle heard only the resonant chime of her own heart, slowing to meet the drum of Atheria’s, and she understood, as she touched the godsbeast’s velvet muzzle, that the eye she had felt upon her, and the unseen hands she had felt touching her, and Atheria’s drenched wings tender on her back, urging her closer, were one and the same.

She let her eyes unfocus, following the twin beat of their hearts down into the quiet space only they two could see—and suddenly Rielle’s eyes streamed with tears, for Atheria glowed before her as hot and golden as the sun.

She looked down at herself, at first to shield her eyes from Atheria’s glory, but then because she had to see the truth for herself—and there it was, glowing hot and golden in her own breast. The brilliant light that was the empirium, living inside her blood and bones—of her blood and bones—and it was telling her, through the storm, through the great unfeeling eye and the phantom, guiding hands, and Atheria’s patient and tired gaze: Come. Come find me.

And it was nothing like when Corien crooned to her through her dreams, and it was not even the sweetness of Audric murmuring to her in the haven of their bed.

This voice was cold and pure and many, like the light of stars that burned for no one but themselves. And Rielle knew if she followed it, she would find Saint Tokazi’s casting.

This voice was of the empirium, and it was trying to help her.

Tal grabbed her arm and spun her back around to face him, jarring her concentration.

Evyline moved swiftly toward him, her expression ferocious. “Lord Belounnon, release my lady at once.”

Tal ignored Evyline, his gaze frantic as he searched Rielle’s face. “Take me with you. You’re going somewhere, and I won’t let you go alone.”

She could not even be angry with him. She touched his face, drawing him down to kiss his rain-soaked brow. “My path is not one for you to choose, dearest Tal.”

“Please,” he said reverently, his hands tender in her hair. “Let me come with you. I beg you. I want…” He swallowed. In her golden clarity, she saw his fragility, his confusion. “I want to understand how you are possible.”

Rielle ached for him. Tal would never be able to understand what it meant to exist like this. He would always be separate from the empirium, no matter how often he prayed, no matter how diligently he studied. She pitied him deeply for it. She pitied them all.

She clasped his hand in hers. “Come, then.”

Evyline started toward her with a sharp protest, and Ludivine sent Rielle an urgent, faint plea: Don’t take him with you. It’s unkind to take him. The more he sees of your might, the more fervently he will despair.

But Rielle ignored them all. Atheria knelt in the rain, and Rielle climbed onto her back, helping Tal up behind her. He clung to her, shivering, and then Rielle remembered the boy Zuka and found Kamayin watching her thoughtfully from the ruined bed.

“I’ll find your friend, Your Highness,” she said. “And I’ll bring him home to you.”

Then she guided Atheria out the window and into the storm.

• • •

It was unlike any Rielle had ever seen, and she marveled at it.

The black clouds, miles high. The ferocious lightning cutting through the rain and wind like spears of white fire. Waves crashed against the shore, washing away dunes and tearing trees from the ground. Even Atheria fought to keep them airborne. Rielle lay low against her neck, Tal doing the same against her spine. The storm cracked open the ground, collapsing the pretty, white buildings nearest the shore.

“Well?” Tal shouted against her ear. The rain was cold, and so was the air, unseasonably so. They weren’t dressed for this weather. Tal’s fingers wrapped around her wrists like cold spiders. “Aren’t you going to stop it?”

But Rielle knew she couldn’t. Not yet. She read the beat of Atheria’s wings and the beat of Atheria’s heart and the beat of her own blood. The hands of the empirium were upon her, pulling her away from the sea.

“I can’t,” she shouted back through sheets of rain. “It’s a distraction. We can use it.”

“The Obex?” he cried.

She nodded. With the storm raging, the Obex would be afraid, maybe even frenzied. They would not see her coming.

Rielle waited until her mind cleared and found the empirium’s cold gaze at once. She felt it hovering above her, all around her, in the deepest pit of her stomach. It stared at the city’s heart, where delicately sculpted white buildings swayed amid a profusion of rain-slicked, broad-leafed trees.

She turned Atheria down into the storm, following the path of the terrible, ancient instinct with which she had been born.

• • •

It did not take long to find them.

They were hiding in the Holdfast—the largest of the city temples, with great domed roofs that stood firm against the storm’s onslaught. Trees and mountains had been carved into every inch of the exterior walls, and in the lightning, wind, and rain, the carvings shimmered and shifted as if they were alive.

Ludivine managed to send Rielle gasping surges of feeling. Through their connection, which seemed fragile and frayed as it never had before, Rielle felt a sensation like drowning.

Lu, please rest, she sent back to her gently. Leave us to our task.

I’m sorry, Ludivine replied, and her grief, her anger at her own incapacity, nearly overwhelmed Rielle. They chose to hide in the Holdfast because it is the largest of the temples, the one most likely to withstand the storm. They have the boy. Zuka. They are furious and afraid. They have barricaded themselves—