“Does it hurt?” she whispered.

“Not yet,” he said dryly.

She smiled a little, and when she opened her eyes, her vision was a hazy gold, but Simon’s eyes—that brilliant, burning blue—cut through the shimmer to lock on to her.

Each time she accessed her power, it became easier to fall into the realm of the empirium. To let her mind loosen and stretch, to direct her vision to peel away the veneer of the human world. How precious it was, how simple and fragile, the shell upon which they all walked and fought and loved—wind and water, earth and flame. And beneath that, a diamond world, a glittering country. The true golden vastness that had existed, always, and would continue to exist, always, no matter what empires ruled the world or what queens rose and fell.

She shuddered, letting out a cracked breath. For as she slipped inside the roaring river of her power, letting its currents bear her farther and farther away from where her body sat in the dirt, she began to see Simon, truly see him, as she never had before. Just as she had seen Remy, and Patrik, and Jessamyn, in that horrible pasture in Karlaine. The light they carried, the light that made them. Creatures of the empirium, all. Jagged and lacking where wounds had carved bits of them away.

“Oh, Simon,” she whispered, for now she saw the light of him, how he blazed and teemed. And even more clearly, she saw the hurt that had been dealt him. As she had seen Jessamyn’s wounded legs and Patrik’s broken arm, so did she now see the scars mapping Simon’s body like a snarl of shadows encasing the sun. Scars up and down his limbs, his abdomen, his face and chest. Even more brutal, the cruel lattice of his back, where the marque wings had once lived. And these weren’t even the worst of his scars. Those lived in his mind—pulsing and wicked, a thick black web so dark it surpassed her understanding.

But she felt them through the golden reach of her power. She felt the jarring pain of every blow, the cut of every blade, and what each had done to his tired mind.

“What is it?” His voice came to her softly. “What do you see?”

She shook her head and leaned forward, gathering him closer. Her forehead met his.

“Please tell me I’m not hurting you,” she said, tears clogging her voice.

“You’re not.” His hands slid up her arms to cup the back of her head. “I’ll tell you if you do.”

“I see everything that’s been done to you. Every lash, every cut and cruelty. I can’t even understand all of what I see. Simon.” She said his name again and again, as if every utterance could restore a stolen piece of himself. “Simon, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t cry for me.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek, to the corner of her mouth. “Please don’t.”

But she would cry, and she would help him. She couldn’t possibly do it all at once in this garden, and maybe not ever. Those scars in his mind—they were too deep for her to soothe. She sensed the truth of that. They were too cruel, had been carved too skillfully. Maybe, if she had years to study her power and practice. But that was time they did not have.

Still, she moved her hands down his face. She traced soft lines with her fingers, drawing paths through the golden sea of the empirium, and pressed her palms against the broad, solid plane of his chest. She found a gnarled scar that had been carved across his breastbone—jagged and wide, uglier than the others.

A cruel cut from Rahzavel’s blade, inflicted upon Simon weeks ago, just before their battle against the crawlers in Karajak Bay. In a shuddering, liquid-gold flash, she saw the Invictus assassin’s grinning white face bearing down on her. She felt the blade piercing her own chest as it had pierced Simon’s, carving away skin and muscle. She heard Simon’s terrible, ragged howl, and a second scream—Rahzavel’s—mocking him.

“No,” she whispered again and again, drawing her fingers up and down the scar slowly, until she knew the map of it. Until it was as familiar to her as the bones of her own hand. Then she pressed her palms against it—twin suns against one dark hurt. She poured all the energy she could summon into him, into the lack where Simon should have been, and then, trembling, she felt his hands in her hair.

“Eliana,” he said, his voice thick, “open your eyes. Look.”

She did, feeling supple and faint, her vision clearing just enough to see what Simon saw.

Threads—a dozen of them, perhaps more. Bright and unwavering. They hovered in the branches just overhead and in the cool misting air around them and in the tangled grass. Immediately Eliana sensed their strength, their steadiness. How they yearned for Simon’s power as her own castings longed for hers.

Slowly he released her, reaching for the threads, and his face was open and soft, as it had been in Karlaine, and this time Eliana did not look away. She watched him until the burn of her eyes became unbearable. She blinked, wiping her wet face with unsteady fingers.

And then Simon murmured, “Go. Through that passage, there.”

He had woven the threads into a shimmering hoop of light. It outlined a shift in the air, a discoloration. One of the threads, the brightest, clung to his palm.

“Where does it lead?” she asked.

“To the house.” His focus was remarkable and carried a weight, as if a net of steel wires bound him to the threads shimmering before him. His voice was soft and deep, sleep-colored. “It’s all right. It’s quite safe. I can feel its strength.” And then he glanced at her, once, and she would never forget that unguarded expression on his face—how in awe he was of what was happening and how completely he understood that it was her doing.

“Go, Eliana,” he said quietly. “I’ll hold on to you. It will feel like walking into winter, for a moment, and then out again.”

She stood, shaky, hating that it was necessary to walk away from him, and as she stepped through the ring of shifting light, the reality of what had happened truly registered. It was her power that had made this possible. Her strength, her focus.

Your father was the Lightbringer, Simon had said, and you are the light.

And here she was, proving this to be true. Her power could destroy, but it could also restore. It could heal and illuminate. She could summon storms, but she could also mend hurts. Her power was full of rage, and yet capable of extraordinary tenderness, a dichotomy of darkness and light existing as one.

An immensity of relief overcame her as she stepped out into one of the mansion’s sitting rooms, where Harkan sat with Remy by the fire, mending torn shirts.

Remy was on his feet at once, grinning. “I told you it would work,” he told her, and then he was leading her to a chair beside Harkan. “Is Simon coming?”

“In a moment, I expect,” murmured Eliana tiredly.

Remy jumped to his feet and hurried toward the receiving hall.