Lightbringer
“Tomorrow?”
“We’re meeting with the queens—you, me, Ludivine, the Sun Guard, the royal advisers, and the Mazabatian high magisters. A war council.”
“And me,” said Kamayin, turning her wrists as her castings hummed. The spilled water evaporated; soon the bed was dry. “I’ll be there too.”
“I’m not meeting with anyone,” Audric said automatically. The very idea of facing all those watching eyes made him want to sleep forever.
“Fine, then. I suppose Merovec will remain on your throne, Corien will destroy us all, and meanwhile, you’ll be here, hiding in your bed, letting Miren’s reports go unread while she and everyone else at home live every day in confusion and fear.”
With that, Sloane marched out of the room, and when Kamayin quietly followed suit, a strange urge to be near another person flared inside Audric’s chest. He thought of calling for Ludivine and immediately decided against it.
“Wait, please,” he said.
Kamayin turned, watching him curiously.
“I am…” He paused, struggling to speak. He couldn’t bear to stand any longer and so sat on the rug, leaning back against the bed. “Could you sit with me for a while? If you have duties that need attending, I understand.”
“I’m a princess,” she said, not unkindly, “not a physician or one of your servants. Besides, we hardly know each other.”
“I know.”
“Wouldn’t you rather Lady Ludivine sat with you?”
He couldn’t keep the darkness from his voice. “No. I don’t want to see her just now.”
Kamayin nodded. “I always worry she’s poking around in my head.”
“A reasonable fear.”
“But you still love her.”
“Of course.”
Kamayin blew out a breath. Then she sat down next to him and hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s really terrible, what’s happening. What may happen. To all of us, I mean.”
Audric leaned his head back against the bedpost. “Yes.”
“I’ve been reading all about the Angelic Wars with my friend, Zuka. To prepare, you know. I don’t skip past the grisly bits. I read everything. I’m a bit obsessive about it. I’ve never seen a war.”
“I’m sorry that you may have to.”
Kamayin was quiet for a moment. Then, more softly, she said, “It’s also terrible, what’s happened to you. If I were you, my love gone and my home taken from me, I’d not get out of bed for an entire year. At the very least. My mothers’ advisers would have to drag me out, kicking and screaming.”
“And if they casted water at you while you slept?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she said matter-of-factly. “They would be too afraid to throw anything at me, and rightly so.”
Audric smiled a little and said nothing. He didn’t feel words were required of him. It was a relief, sitting quietly beside someone who seemed content to do all the talking. Someone who understood the reason for his grief but did not feel it herself, or ask him to explain it.
He slept, and when he awoke, stiff on the floor, it was dark, and Kamayin was gone, but she had left him a neat stack of books on the bedside table, and a note: From my own personal library. Novels with happy endings. If you bend or tear even a single page, we shall no longer be friends.
He retrieved the topmost book—The Hawk and the Dove. Then he crawled into bed and held the book to his chest for a long time, breathing in the scent of paper and ink, and thought of home.
• • •
He did not go to the meeting the next morning, despite Sloane’s threats.
Her justified fury made him all the more disgusted with himself. The angrier he became at his own inability to face what must come next, the further he sank into a toxic whirl of despair. He recognized his self-pity and still could not extricate himself from it. He knew a walk in the fresh air would benefit him but refused to leave the unwashed cocoon of his blankets. He began to wonder if someday Sloane might actually drag him from the bed kicking and screaming, but he imagined he had a while before she attempted that.
It was much easier to turn away from the look of disappointment on her face and pretend she wasn’t there, so that was exactly what he did.
• • •
Four nights after Sloane and the Sun Guard’s arrival, Audric awoke from a gluey, uncomfortable sleep to a strange series of shuffling sounds.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes and saw Atheria’s head resting on the mattress near his outstretched arm. She had settled herself on the floor by his bed and was staring at him with her enormous dark eyes.
“Sleeping in here with me now, are you?” he asked quietly.
She blew a hot breath on his fingers. He loved her snorts, her chirps in the morning as she watched the sky and imitated birdcalls. He knew she could bite clean through his arm if she wanted to with those sharp predator’s teeth, but in the quiet darkness, she was gentle beside him, a warm, familiar weight.
That night, he dreamed of riding Atheria. They flew east, toward the sunrise; he was tired and heartsick, but his sword arm was strong.
• • •
Audric did not attend the war council’s second meeting either. He knew when it was happening; Sloane visited every day to remind him of the date. She admonished and wheedled him by turns. Only once did she resort to begging.
“Merovec won’t know what to do when he comes for them,” she said quietly, and they both knew who he was. “Merovec thinks he can vanquish angels, but he doesn’t know them like you do. He’s hard, intransigent. And he doesn’t know Rielle.” She crouched beside him, her eyes bright with tears. “Audric. The day may come when she turns on Celdaria. You know this. And you know her. When that day comes, you may be the only one who can stop her.”
“I won’t hurt her,” he said, his voice so raw and vicious that it startled him as much as it quite obviously startled her. “Don’t ask me to do that. Ask me anything but that. Say it again, and I’ll never forgive you. And damn you anyway, Sloane, for being so persistently heartless.”
She stared at him for a moment, and then something in her deflated, as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time and finally realizing the depth of her disappointment. His shame was blistering; he revolted himself.
Sloane did not visit him after that, not for days, and then something happened without explanation one morning when Audric woke from a few hours of restless sleep. It had been eighteen days since the Celdarian entourage’s arrival. Nearly one month since he had last seen Rielle.