Lightbringer

I would let no one escape us. Corien’s thoughts slid inside her mind like the glide of a palm across her skin. If anyone saw you, I would kill them, or you would, and I would glory in the sight of you.

She blinked up at him. Would I?

You would, and I would kiss you after, he said, and then came the thought of him kissing her brow and her cheeks, and if her heart was still in uproar, she could not feel it and didn’t care to.

She was content, wrapped in Corien’s cloak. She wished to live forever inside it.

Across from Rielle, the little Kirvayan queen Obritsa climbed into her own seat, her face pinched, strips of her pale-brown skin visible above her ragged collar, under her fall of white hair. Corien insisted upon saving Obritsa’s strength for at least another week and traveling by foot instead. The girl was exhausted, having threaded herself, Artem, and Corien across the continent to Celdaria in time for the royal wedding.

A marque, secretly pretending true humanity as part of a revolution brewing in Kirvaya.

Rielle barely noticed the girl. She smiled a little to be polite, which was more than the staring little brat deserved. Then she shifted sleepily within the voluminous folds of Corien’s cloak and reached out to him. He was outside the carriage giving orders to Artem, Obritsa’s devoted guard, who would drive the restless team of snow-dusted horses onward and east.

Hurry and come back to me, she pleaded. Please, Corien.

His voice teased. So easily can your loneliness best you. Patience, my lovely one.

And all at once, her calm vanished.

Suddenly, the comforting fog was gone, and Rielle was alone, trapped with her own thoughts somewhere deep in her own dark mind. She tightened her grip on Corien’s cloak, panic crawling up her arms. Her body felt swollen and heavy, and she didn’t understand why. She stared at Obritsa, who watched her, frowning, and then Rielle looked away and shut her eyes, for she could not quite remember where she was, and this frightened her. She wondered if she was locked away, caged in a high tower, or if she was in a carriage in eastern Celdaria, or perhaps out on a soft gray sea with no one and nothing for thousands of miles.

In this empty space, a sudden roar of memories swelled, and Rielle’s eyes filled with tears.

It was not so long ago—only six days past—that she had stood in the gardens behind Baingarde. She remembered this now. She saw it plainly. Amid the mounting haze of this fear she could not explain, figures manifested. Audric. Her king. Her husband, now. Her dearest love. Only six days ago, he had turned away from her, his face twisted with loathing. He had commanded her not to touch him.

You’re the monster Aryava foretold, he had said. A traitor and a liar.

And what home was there in the world for a traitor? What heart would spare love for a liar?

She touched her temples. Her mind whirled with bewildering images, each fighting to rise faster than the last, and she could not find her breath. Corien? Where are you?

Rielle, I’m sorry, I was gone for too long, came his voice, and then he was climbing inside the carriage to greet her.

She reached for him, feeling pathetic and small, and yet she could not stop herself. The memory of Audric’s scorn, his disdain and hatred, was too close, too fresh. She had shed her wedding gown some miles back in the woods and now wore an ill-fitting woolen dress Corien had stolen from some farmer’s daughter he had found coming home alone from the market. The wool was scratchy and far too hot. She raked her fingers across her skin. She remembered the chaos of the capital as she had fled from it, thousands of people reeling from the revelations in the vision Corien had shown them.

No, not a vision—a truth.

Their new queen had killed the father of Ludivine and Merovec. She had killed her own father, and her mother too. She had killed their late beloved king, Audric’s father.

And she had lied about it. She had lied, and had nevertheless been crowned by the Archon’s own holy hands.

Rielle shut her eyes, her lips pressed together in a tight line. Perspiration beaded at her hairline. A din of screaming voices circled back to her—those belonging to the people she had sworn to protect, first as Sun Queen and then as the newly crowned queen of Celdaria. She had sworn this, and then she had abandoned her people. Their voices calling out her name were cruel black birds of memory winging in tight spirals on the winds of her mind:

Kingsbane!

Kingsbane!

Kingsbane!

She twisted Corien’s cloak hard. She was not ashamed of who she was, of what she was, and yet fear and guilt flooded her like twin rivers set afire, and she did not understand where she was now, or who this girl was who stared so closely at her, or where her own sweet gray fog had gone, so calm and quiet.

“Listen to me.” Cool hands cupped her face, and when she opened her eyes, Corien was there, dipping his head to kiss her. He gathered her into his lap and held her close until her trembling ceased.

“I hate them,” she whispered against his neck. “And yet I ache to think of leaving them all, of running away in the night like a villain.”

Corien’s laughter was soft. “You are a villain. At least in their simple eyes, you are. Let them think that. Let them hate you. They are nothing, and you know it.”

“Yes, but…”

She stopped before the words could form, but of course Corien had already heard them.

“You miss him?” he asked quietly.

Rielle felt the girl’s sharp eyes upon them. Obritsa was her name, she remembered, her mind roaring back to itself with Corien there beside her. Rielle pressed her palms against the solid broad reach of Corien’s chest and resisted the urge to fling out her hands, scorch Obritsa’s impertinent, keen-eyed face, and teach her a lesson. The thought cheered her; she’d forgotten, in her fear, that she could scorch. She could maim and pulverize. She could unmake.

Hush, now. Corien’s voice stroked her silent. The hot ripples of anger rising beneath her skin flattened and stilled. We need her, he reminded her. Gentle, Rielle. Do not overtax yourself. Hear me. Hush, my love.

Rielle’s thoughts smoothed out. Contented, heavy-lidded, she heard the distant crash of gray waves and felt faint with relief. Fog crept over her eyes, and she welcomed its softness. It was unnecessary, even silly, to get angry right now and call upon her power, or to be afraid, for of course she would always be safe with Corien. She understood that now. She remembered it.

She mumbled in mind-speak that Obritsa would have to learn not to stare and would also have to learn to transform her constant haughty expression into something less imperious, something more fitting of a servant. The moment they arrived in the north, Rielle would order Obritsa elsewhere, out of her sight, until she was needed again.

Of course, Corien said mildly. But now is not the time. I asked you a question, my love. Don’t you remember?