Lightbringer

“They made this so quickly,” she said, looking up at Corien. “Four days. How?”

It had started to snow. Whorls of it, tiny swift flakes, danced across the altar. A cold wind ruffled the hem of Corien’s black cloak. His collar of dark fur was dusted white.

He shrugged at her question, held out his hand. “They had no choice.”

She took his hand and rose. The light was dimming. Near the horizon, past the snow-spitting clouds, patches of indigo sky held the last gold of the sun.

“Bring me the next one,” she murmured, and kissed him distractedly. Her fingers tingled, hungry and eager. “I want to do it again.”

• • •

Corien came to her at dawn. He stood beside her in the gray light as the snow fell soundlessly from the sky.

In silence, he watched her weave wings for the reborn angel on her table. The body lay on its stomach, naked and stark white in the cold.

Once, Corien had shown her where the wings would join the back—not with joints of flesh and bone, as with birds or bats, but with a simple blooming growth of light. He had drawn pictures for her with his mind, shown her the look of the wings in flight. Not just any wings, but his own, long lost. For the first time, he had shown her himself as he once was: Kalmaroth, warmonger and rebel. His name meant “light undying” in Qaharis, and he had understood that to signify he was meant for greatness. Pale skin and dark hair, tall and slender, blazing blue eyes, and wings flaring out from his back—light at the root, shadow-tipped. Apart from the wings and the height of his body, Kalmaroth had looked very much as Corien did now.

Rielle thought of that as she worked. A smile played at her lips. She liked thinking of him years ago, escaping the Deep and finding a human who reflected his own lost beauty.

Like a patient weaver sitting at her loom, Rielle pulled strands of the empirium from the air. Her eyes saw gold, and in it were many things. There was the long, ridged cord of the corpse’s spine. There were the stormy dark places within the mass of muscle and sinew where the wings should begin. Her body churned with aches, hot spools of tension burrowing into her shoulders, her wrists, the small of her back. Despite the mountain’s bitter cold, beads of sweat raced each other down her brow.

But her mind was clear. Her thoughts soared like knife-winged birds of prey, swift and amber-eyed. She guided the empirium with the needle of her power, and with each swift silver stab, her blood leapt higher, seeking more.

When it was done, the angel lifted herself from the table and stumbled to her feet. One of the palace attendants, teeth chattering even in his furs, hurried forward to offer the angel a robe to cover herself.

But the angel ignored him and instead pushed herself into the air with a jubilant cry. Her wings were incandescent, twin stars of white light affixed to her back. They did not move like songbirds’ wings, that undignified flapping. Instead, they angled subtly when necessary to change the course of flight. They narrowed when diving; they expanded when rising.

Soon, the angel’s form had vanished. Only the light of her wings remained, gliding fast from peak to peak.

Rielle licked her chapped lips. “Bring me another.”

“We’ll eat first.” Corien retrieved her fur cloak from the ground. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I don’t need to eat.”

“You do. And you need to wear this.” He placed the cloak around her shoulders, over the thin red gown she had worn for days. The fabric, once fine, now reeked of sweat. “You’ll grow ill otherwise.”

She swatted him away. “I would prefer to continue working. Bring me another.”

His pale eyes were very still. “You’ve been working for seven days, Rielle, with very little rest.”

“I am aware. Bring me another.”

“You’re still human. You need sleep, food, and warmth.”

She laughed. “What nerve you have. You whispered in my dreams for months on end, stealing sleep from me until I came to you. And now you say I need to rest.”

Turning away from him, Rielle found one of his lieutenants, an ice-eyed female angel with honey-brown skin and black braids. She could not recall her name and did not care to try.

“You,” she said. “Bring me another at once.”

For hours, the lieutenant had been watching Rielle with shining eyes. She did not even glance at Corien before hurrying back to the fortress, two angels of lower rank at her heels.

Rielle looked up at the sky. Around her altar rippled a shifting ring of shadows as if she were deep underwater, looking up at the light through shivering waves. Hundreds of bodiless angels crowded near to watch her work. How she delighted in the feeling of their awe. Their eager thoughts tapped against her mind like moths hitting a window, clumsy as they chased the light beyond the glass.

“No, Rielle,” said Corien tightly, coming up beside her. “We will go inside now.”

“We will not. And if you won’t choose another angel for me, I’ll do it myself.”

She let her eyes unfocus, sent her power flooding out to illuminate the mountainside. In the golden realm of her vision, her power hit the angels’ minds like a blazing current crashing against rocks. The patterns of its waves were mesmerizing. With each ripple, sensations flew back to her, reporting. Tastes, sounds, textures.

Ah. There was one she liked.

She directed her power to the left. One of the angels peeled free from the rest and came flying to her open arms.

Queen of light and blood. The angel’s voice trembled as she drew him down to the dark table of her altar. Thank you for choosing me. You have my heart, my queen; you have my love and my loyalty.

Rielle held the angel steady against the stone, the fabric of his mind stretched between her hands like a canvas unrolled. Impatience prickled her skin. She glared at the walkway that led to the fortress. The snow was falling faster, veiling the black walls.

“Your lieutenants are slow,” she observed. “I need a body.”

Corien’s shoulders were rigid with anger. “Release him and come inside with me, now.”

“I want to do it again.”

“And you will, my love, but not until tomorrow.”

She set her jaw, fighting to still her trembling mouth. She knew he was right; she could feel how her hands shook, the sway of her balance. Her stomach and throat felt on the verge of collapse, dry and pinched, desperate for food.

If only he had not stopped her. While she worked, she noticed none of this.

“I have only resurrected three hundred angels,” she muttered.

He laughed quietly. “In seven days. A remarkable achievement.”