Kingsbane

Rielle stumbled out of the room, knocking over a chair.

“Get away from me!” she screamed. She could not bear the sight of Ludivine’s face. It would remind her of that northern fortress, her sleepless nights, Corien’s lips against her neck, the awful push and pull of him and Ludivine between her temples. “Lu, if you come here, I’ll kill you.”

“My lady, please sit down,” said Garver, following her. “I won’t touch you, but you need to sit. You’re not well.”

“No, I’m not,” she said, laughing a little. “Can you believe it, Garver? Another me.” She pressed her palm against her abdomen. Imagining the life growing inside her, picturing some infant copy of herself being set loose upon the world, a sick wave rose hot and swift up her throat.

Simon moved quickly, brought her a pail. She sank to her knees on the rug and emptied what remained in her stomach.

“Two Queens will rise,” she said. “Did you know, Garver, that Audric wants to marry me? To show everyone that the House of Courverie has absolute faith in me, he says. That the crown is loyal to me, as I am to the crown. I will be queen then, a real and true queen. I will be both Sun Queen and queen of Celdaria.”

“Lady Rielle, please don’t cry,” came Simon’s quiet voice.

“I would wager all the power I possess that my child will be a girl,” Rielle said bitterly. “Two Queens will rise. And here we are, rising, bringing with us the very doom that Aryava foretold.”

“Forget that damned prophecy and listen to me,” said Garver, taking her hands firmly in his. “You’re breathing too fast and too shallowly. Listen to the sound of my voice, and breathe when I tell you.”

She wrenched herself free of him. “One of blood. One of light. Which do you think I am, Garver? Do I have the power to save the world, or destroy it? And which will my daughter be? And would it be kinder to everyone if I turned myself over to the people who hate me and let them destroy us both before it’s too late?”

And then, Corien’s voice, haggard and horrified: It’s not true. You wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. Rielle, please tell me it isn’t true.

She ignored him, hurried out of Garver’s shop, found Atheria waiting for her in the courtyard.

“If you’re going to ride, do so gently,” Garver said, following her. “Otherwise you might miscarry.”

A small crowd had gathered on the street, held off by her Sun Guard. A chunk of rotting cabbage hit her temple. A foul, wet glob she could not identify thumped against Garver’s hip.

“Get Simon back inside, Garver,” she said, “and lock your door.” Then she climbed onto Atheria’s back, fighting hard against the urge to whirl on the people shouting her name and smash them all flat against the ground.

She buried her face in Atheria’s soft gray mane and tried to push out of her mind the image of the girl on the mountain—her trembling words, the brave way she held her chin, how her eyes were as wide and dark as Audric’s, her mouth full, like Audric’s, and her eyebrows high and arched like her own.

But she could not trust what she had seen. She could trust no one and nothing and certainly not her own thoughts, which briefly considered that the mountain girl was in fact speaking a wild, horrible truth. But her mind rejected the idea at once. It was too immense, too impossible. Thinking of it made her head spin and frightened her so completely that the fear hardly registered. She noticed her terror dully, as if watching the world move from a staggering height, and then turned away from it.

The girl had been a trick of Corien’s, a deception crafted to unbalance her.

She sent a swift thought to Ludivine: Don’t tell Audric about this, and then, if you love me as much as you claim, you’ll leave me be.

Then she whispered, “Take me away from here. Fly for hours. Fly until I feel nothing.”

She let the godsbeast carry her into the roaring quiet of the sky.

46



   Eliana

“Many of you will want to find me. You will want to see my face for yourself. But you will never find me. I am nowhere and everywhere. I fight for you in the shadows, and in the shadows I will remain, and if you ever did stumble upon me, I would tear your heart from your chest and your tongue from your throat, and the secrets of my face and name would die with you. Do not seek me. Hear me. Follow me. Trust me.”

—The Word of the Prophet

Eliana’s mind floated in a sea of strange colors: fuchsia, tangerine, ebony, the deep red of her recurring nightmares, the gold of embers, the roiling blue-black of the ocean at night.

A distant voice floated on the waves. It was familiar, this voice, and she did not want to hear it. She sensed it would hurt her, or that it at least hungered to hurt her, or perhaps simply seize her for its own, but she could not move her arms to cover her ears. She had no arms; she had no ears. She was only her battered mind, and a ribbon of pain somewhere below her that grew more brilliant with every passing moment.

Then something grabbed hold of her hard, beneath her arms. She had arms, she realized, with a dull sort of astonishment. She opened her eyes to see the world. Flickering stars floated across her vision. She shook her head to knock them loose.

Pain gripped her head in two brittle hands.

“I’m sorry,” said Simon, very near. “I nearly dropped you. I can hardly stand.”

Eliana forced open her eyes, though the strange sea beckoned. She saw Simon—the flash of his eyes, blue like a summer sky, like twin hot flames, like sharp-cut jewels.

“Your eyes are like fire,” she whispered, reaching for him.

He staggered a little and lowered them both clumsily to the ground.

“Someone get out here and help us!” he roared over her head, and then he smoothed her hair back from her face.

“Let’s hope they know us,” he muttered, “and that they don’t shoot us on the spot.”

What an odd thing to say, Eliana thought, and then she thought no more.

• • •

She awoke, clear-headed, to a familiar ceiling. She knew at once that she was in her third-floor room at Willow. Memories of the day rushed back to her: Stepping through the violently lit ring of Simon’s threads. Emerging in that black mountain forest, at first utterly disoriented. She had been expecting a castle, a city, a throne room.

And then she had found Rielle.

Immediately, her heartbeat returned to its wild pace from the mountain. She sat up, too quickly, and a sharp pain tore across her abdomen. She touched her stomach and felt the stretch of a bandage beneath her shirt.

“Dani and Remy tended to your wounds,” said Simon softly. He sat in a chair beside her bed, so still and shadowed that she hadn’t at first noticed him.