Lightbringer

And then he woke with Eliana curled tightly against him, her face knotted with anger even in sleep. He hardly breathed as he watched her. The tangle of dark hair falling over her cheek, her chapped lips, her bruised and tender skin—not from his own hands, though it might as well have been.

He would never forget her face that night. As they danced in the glittering Festival ballroom, she had clung to him. Afraid, but loath to show it. Only the tight, sweaty clamp of her hand around his as they waltzed betrayed her true terror. And then, on the admiral’s ship, he had stepped forward in his imperial uniform and had watched without feeling as all the light left her eyes.

Without feeling. Yes, just as Ludivine had taught him, and right from the beginning, he had been an excellent student.

And yet, there had been moments when he had nearly thrown it all to ruin.

He carefully moved away from Eliana to swing his bare legs out of bed. He dragged his hands through his hair, then held his head and stared at the floor.

He could not banish from his mind the image of her writhing as Corien crouched over her, mocking her screams with his own. The gallery of shattered glass around them, and Eliana reaching across the floor for him.

She had screamed for him, wept his name, and he had only stood and stared, a pillar of faultless stone, awaiting his orders. In his mind, Ludivine had said nothing, but he had heard her all the same.

Break, and doom us all.

Simon’s heart began to race, his breathing to quicken. He raised his trembling arms into the air and nearly laughed aloud, because even with these memories battering his tired mind, his power sprang to life at once. Threads spun easily from the air and clung to his fingers like burrs drawn to the rub of linen. Energy pricked at him; the air hummed with distant song.

He imagined the smooth stone corridor just outside his room. Low ceiling, iron brackets for torches. He would try that first, only a small jump from room to hallway.

The empirium lies within every living thing, and every living thing is of the empirium, he recited, heat rising fast in his throat.

Its power connects not only flesh to bone, root to earth, stars to sky, but also road to road, city to city.

Moment to moment.

But as Simon tried to focus his mind, it jerked and slipped away from him. The threads at his fingers flickered.

He set his jaw, his body stiff with tension, his hands alight with power gone uncomfortably hot. He was not used to working magic, and he could not quite fix his thoughts on the hallway outside this room. His room. Many nights he had lain awake as a boy, cold with dread, wondering if Ludivine would come to him for the next morning’s lesson silently, in his mind, or instead come padding quietly down the hallway outside his room. A tray of breakfast in her hands, and her steady black eyes holding inside them some new terror meant to unravel him.

He blinked sweat from his eyes. He didn’t even blame Ludivine for everything she had done. He blamed none of them—except for the angel licking his wounds up above and the monstrous queen he had so loved.

Simon nearly laughed to think of her. The Kingsbane, they had called her. How he had once adored her. Even near the end, when nasty rumors flitted up and down the streets of Âme de la Terre and music halls rang with the sound of foul songs written to insult her, even then Simon had believed their Sun Queen would come back to them.

But now his mind wouldn’t fix on the Kingsbane’s memory. He could barely recall her true name. He tried to force it, and his body twitched with pain.

Ludivine had taught him all too well not to think of her. And Corien…Corien liked no one to think of her but him.

Simon frowned at his rigid hands. They shook in the air as if straining against an unseen door. The threads brightened once, then faded.

He wedged his fingers in his hair and bent over his knees, a scream of frustration lodged in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut against the tumult of his mind. Too many images, too many voices. Too many cuts, too many scars.

Then something stirred behind him—a small sound, a question—and he held himself still, tense with wanting and hot with fear. When Eliana touched him, her soft hands tender on his arm, he let out a harsh sob. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. But he could not look at her. Even should they have a lifetime of years to share between them, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to convince himself that he deserved to look at her.

“I was trying to remember something,” Eliana said quietly after a time, “but I’m having trouble. I wonder if you could help me.”

Simon closed his eyes. He could have listened to her speak for the rest of whatever life was left to him. Her voice held shadows, but it was still hers. How he had missed it. How he had agonized in his quiet room at the palace, trying to ignore the distant echo of her screams.

“Of course I’ll help you,” he rasped.

“Well, it’s a bit of a funny thing. When we first met, you and I, in my house in Orline. We fought. You wore your mask.”

Simon reached for the memory. It was ragged, as were all the rest. Flashes of chaotic color trapped behind churning darkness. Ludivine shut up in her room, Corien shut up in his palace, each of them fighting the other—the ripples of their war battered him even now, protected in the deep heart of Ludivine’s home as he was.

“I remember,” he said at last. “We fought. You were very good.”

“I was,” Eliana agreed, “but here’s the thing I can’t quite recall.” She paused. “How many times did I punch you in the face? Three? Five?”

Harsh laughter burst out of him. He was not used to laughing. It sat strangely in his throat, left him dizzy.

“I pulled a gun on you,” he remembered. “You called me a cheater.”

“You were,” she said lightly. “I would have beaten you otherwise.”

“Unlikely.”

There was a pause. Then Eliana moved closer to him, her leg touching his. “I’ve tried to remember other things.”

He knew what she was doing. He felt the steady heat of her power reaching for him, as if she were indeed the sun come down to warm him. Already he could feel his power rising to meet hers. The air around him began to clear, and his thoughts along with it.

He blew out a long breath and raised his arms once more.

“What other things?” he asked. Light bloomed softly at his fingertips. A good burn.

“What your father’s name was. You told me once.”

“Garver,” he replied. The name dropped awkwardly from his tongue. His father’s face was but a faint smear of memory. “Garver Randell.”

“He was a healer.”

“Yes.”

“And a marque, like you.”