Furyborn (32 page)

“That man’s an idiot. Why do you think
Audric comes to me instead?” Garver screwed a lid onto the jar and shoved it across the table at her. “Take a spoonful four times a day until it’s gone. Waspfog is a nasty poison. You’ll feel queasiness for days, can’t do anything about it, but this will help.”

“How much do I owe you for it?”

“Only this: next time you’re poisoned or almost murdered or stabbed or strangled or—”

“I get
the point.”

“Yes, well, next time, don’t wait a night before coming to see me.” Garver heaved himself up from his chair with a tired grunt. “Prompt,
proper
care conducted by healers who are not idiots can make the difference between life and death. Even for Sun Queens.”

With his back turned, Rielle rolled her eyes.

“I heard that,” he said mildly.

Rielle grinned, then looked out
the open door to the courtyard, where Audric was showing Garver’s little son, Simon, how the chavaile liked to be petted. Beyond the courtyard, people crowded at Garver’s front gate, gaping at the prince and the godsbeast, probably wondering why this boy was special enough to get an audience with the creature.

“It’s funny,” she murmured, watching tensely as Simon reached for the chavaile’s
neck with his eyes squeezed shut.

But the chavaile only closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

Garver had started to sweep. “Hmm? What’s funny?”

“Atheria doesn’t usually like it when people touch her.”

“Who in God’s name is Atheria?”

“The chavaile. Do you like the name?”

“Whatever her name is, I’d rather not have her stomping up my flowers.”

“Besides me,” Rielle
said, “Atheria only lets two people touch her. Audric, and now…” She smiled as the beast nibbled at Simon’s hair. The boy went perfectly still and stood wide-eyed while Audric shook with silent laughter. “And now, it seems, your son is the second.”

Eliana

“Tender lost lambs will wander into our fold, dumb and blind, driven by His call. Gather them close. Teach them His word. Remake them as He demands. Punish those who defy Him, for they are truly lost.”

—
The First Book of Fidelia

When the door opened, Eliana hurried out into the brightly lit corridor.

A male guard stood just outside, staring blankly at the wall.
A ring of keys dangled from his hand.

Eliana found the two keys Zahra had described—one a plain and dirty brass, the other thin and silver—and removed them from his ring. It was as Zahra had said: the soldier didn’t move or even blink.

She stepped back, watching his face.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

According to Zahra, a proper angel would be able to influence the man’s mind
for as long as necessary. But, as a bodiless wraith, Zahra could only affect him for seconds at a time. And even then, she’d told Eliana bitterly, her ability remained unpredictable and easily drained.

The man’s hand moved, as if in sleep. He blinked. His body shifted.

“Go.” His mouth moved, but Zahra’s voice emerged. “Hurry.”

The man would awaken—and soon.

Keys in hand, Eliana
ran down the deserted hallway in her bare feet. Metallic doors lined the gray stone walls.

She found the alcove that Zahra had told her about—the entrance to a supply closet—and pressed her body flat against the wall. Eyes watering after so long in darkness, she squinted up at the buzzing yellow lights lining the ceiling—and waited.

A minute passed. Then Zahra drifted into the alcove.

“Through here—quickly,” she whispered, gesturing at the closet door. “I’m sorry, Eliana. I wish my protection was as strong as you deserve. But the Fall damaged so many things, including the minds of wraiths.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re doing fine.” Eliana used the brass key to open the closet door and hurried inside. The space was long and narrow, lined with shelves crammed with tied bundles,
packs of food, boxes labeled with unfamiliar lettering.

She crouched, searching the lower shelves. “I don’t recognize that writing.”

“One of the old angelic languages,” Zahra explained. “To be initiated into Fidelia, you must learn all five.”

“And those lights outside, in the hallway. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Galvanized energy. One of the Emperor’s many experiments.
Have you found them?”

“Not yet. Wait.” Eliana opened a wooden crate with metal clasps. Inside was an array of weaponry and gear, including her own. Whistler, Nox, Tuora, Tempest. Only her beloved Arabeth was missing—lost forever, she supposed, on the filthy floors of Sanctuary. She strapped her holsters to her legs, her arms, her waist, sheathed the knives, and straightened with a sigh.

Zahra watched, a smile rippling across her face. “Better?”

“Much.”

“Before we go.” Zahra pointed at another shelf. “This is yours, I believe?”

Her necklace. Eliana’s heart lifted to see its battered brass face—though now the sight of those familiar lines reminded her of Zahra’s words:
the daughter of the Lightbringer
. Did she believe such a wild story? And if it was true, how much of
the truth, if any, had Rozen known?

And could she even still call Rozen her mother? And Remy her brother, Ioseph her father?

A fist of sorrow seized her heart, but she shoved away her questions. None of them mattered if she couldn’t first escape this place.

She settled the chain around her neck and said to Zahra, “Lead the way.”

They returned to the corridor, keeping to the shadows.

“Here,” Zahra said at last, drifting to a stop outside one of the metal doors. Black numbers reading 36 had been stamped on its surface.

Eliana’s pulse jumped as she fumbled with the long silver key and let herself inside.

“Navi?” she whispered, once she had pulled the door shut. “Don’t be afraid.”

The air in Navi’s cell was stale and squalid—waste and sweat and something acrid
and medicinal that made Eliana’s tongue tingle. She saw a small pile against the far wall, rushed over, hesitated, then took Navi gently by the shoulders and turned her over.

Hovering beside her, Zahra made a soft noise of pity.

“Oh, Navi,” Eliana breathed, unable to hide her shock.

Navi’s head had been shaved, and her skin was a mosaic of pain—ugly dark bruises, angry red wounds,
thin black markings with numbered figures beside them, as if Navi had been labeled with instructions for some malevolent seamstress. At Eliana’s touch, Navi moaned, her swollen face crumpling with pain.

Eliana whispered, “What have they done to her?”

“Their work is abominable,” Zahra said, her voice low and furious. “I have tried to stop them when I can, but without giving away my presence
to Semyaza, there is only so much I can do.”

Questions gathered angrily on Eliana’s tongue, but she would ask them later. She heaved Navi’s body off the ground and slung the girl’s limp arm around her shoulders. “Show me the way out of here.”

“I cannot hide you again,” Zahra whispered, wringing her smoky hands together. “I used the last strength I had on that soldier in the corridor.”

Navi mumbled something pained against Eliana’s shoulder.

“How long until your strength returns?” Eliana asked.

Zahra looked away, as if ashamed. “I cannot say. My queen, I swear to you, I wasn’t always so weak.”

“We’ll just have to escape like normal people. Let’s go.”

They left Navi’s cell and hurried down a maze of corridors, the strange galvanized lights humming overhead.
Zahra drifted ahead, then hurried back in time to warn Eliana of approaching Fidelia soldiers.

Eliana crouched with Navi in the shadows of a small alcove, her hand gently over Navi’s mouth. The soldiers passed, carrying a dead-eyed woman on a canvas stretcher. Bulbous dark growths marred her body.

Eliana’s stomach turned.

“It’s clear,” Zahra whispered and led the way once more.

Gritting her teeth against the persistent nausea of Zahra’s nearness, Eliana followed. When they exited the compound into a flat dirt yard bordered by tall stone walls, they took cover behind crates piled high with stinking wrapped heaps that she suspected were bodies. Night stretched vast above the compound, with faint blue at the horizon.

“Are we on a mountain?” Eliana whispered.

“Yes,”
answered Zahra, “and not far from the northern border of Ventera.”

That explained the cold and the wind. “How far from Rinthos?”

“Four days’ ride.”

Eliana whipped her head around to stare at the wraith. “Four
days
? How long have we been here?”

“A week.”

Eliana closed her eyes, fighting back a swell of panic. Eleven days since their capture. Eleven days away from Remy, and no
idea of where he might now be.

Navi moaned quietly, her head lolling against Eliana’s shoulder. “Eliana?”

“We’re going to have to run soon,” Eliana said quietly. “Can you wake up for me, Navi?”

Zahra uttered a hissed curse.

Eliana tensed. “What is it?”

“Semyaza is here.” Zahra jerked her head at the perimeter wall. “He was supposed to be out on tonight’s hunt. He must have
realized you were gone or sensed my own presence.”

Eliana squinted across the yard, seeing nothing—but then, a disturbance rippled in the air. There was a shift, a flicker of a dark shape. A man, but taller and longer-limbed than a human.

Fear dried out her mouth. “What do we do?”

“I’ll take care of Semyaza,” Zahra said, her voice hard—and, Eliana thought, rather delighted. “You’ll
hear a loud crash when I hit him and see a slant in the air. Run for the gate on the eastern wall. Run until you can’t anymore, then hide in the forest. I’ll find you, if Semyaza doesn’t trap me first.”

“Trap you?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“But the guards.” Eliana gestured at the Fidelia guards patrolling the yard. “I can’t fight off all of them, especially not with Navi.”

“What we
need,” Zahra mused, “is a diversion.”

The western wall exploded.

Eliana ducked low over Navi as stone and wood went flying across the yard, then peered through the clouds of dust to see that a thirty-foot section of the wall was now gone.

Zahra stretched to her full height. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “that will work.”

Then she zipped out into the chaos and disappeared.

Eliana
waited, wiping sweat from her forehead.

A low boom rattled the yard, as of two winds colliding. Fifty yards away and ten feet above the ground, a patch of light shifted and warped, swirling like a whirlpool’s mouth.

Zahra had found Semyaza.

Eliana hefted Navi back to her feet and slapped her across the face. Her drug-clouded eyes snapped open, and Eliana was pleased to see a spark
of anger inside them.

“We have to run, now,” Eliana told her, “or we’ll die.”

Navi nodded, set her jaw.

“Hold on to me.” Eliana turned, Navi’s arm once more slung around her shoulders, and ran into the yard. Beside her, Navi’s breathing came labored and thin. In the bedlam of dust and shouting soldiers, no one saw them—until they had almost reached the abandoned eastern gate.

A Fidelia soldier jumped down from the gate’s watchtower, a crude revolver in hand and a belt of ammunition strapped to his torso.

Eliana skidded to a halt.

The Fidelia soldier smiled kindly.

“There, now, lambs,” he said, gesturing with his gun, “you’ve gotten turned around in all this ruckus.”

Eliana watched him approach, saw him glance at the knives she had strapped to her body.
His gaze hardened; his smile remained.

“Poor lambs.” His gun still pointed at Eliana’s chest, he brushed a lock of matted hair out of her eyes and clucked his tongue. “So lost, so young.”

A shift in the darkness behind him was Eliana’s cue. She lowered her eyes to the ground, nodded forlornly.

“We didn’t mean to do wrong,” she whispered—and then heard the familiar sound of Arabeth
finding a home in someone’s heart.

She looked up as the Fidelia soldier grunted, gaped down at Arabeth’s jagged blade protruding from his chest, coughed up a pool of dark blood.

Behind him stood the Wolf, mask in place.

Eliana’s exhausted body nearly buckled with relief. Despite everything, she said, “Thank you.”

Simon wiped Arabeth clean on his cloak and handed it to her. “I’ll
trade you.”

Eliana complied, shifting Navi into Simon’s arms. They hurried together out of the yard and into the night, down a rocky slope cluttered with flat pale stones that crumbled underfoot.

“Remy?” she asked.

“Safe and hidden.” Simon’s mask glinted, moon-colored. “We’re going to him now.”

And when we get there
, Eliana thought, tightening her grip on Arabeth as she ran,
we
will speak alone, with my blade at your throat.

Rielle

“No one can be sure of Audric the Lightbringer’s last words, but in the days before the Fall, whispers traveled fast across the world. His last words, the whispers said, were for his murderer: ‘I love you, Rielle.’”

—
The Last Days of the Golden King
author unknown

Three days.
Rielle dragged herself up to her rooms long after the sun had set.
Three days until the
fire trial.

And then…what?

“My lady,” chided Evyline from the door, “you really must try to get more sleep, at least until the trials are over.”

“You’re right, Evyline,” Rielle replied. “It’s only that when you’re soon to be thrown into a death pit of flames, you find yourself wanting to study your prayers as much as you can.”

“Prayers are well and good, my lady, but sleep is better.
You can neither pray nor fight fire if you’re exhausted.”

Rielle, yawning, untied her braid and shook her hair free. “I’m inclined to agree. My father, however, is not.”

After checking to make sure Atheria had taken her usual nighttime post on the terrace, Rielle stumbled into her bathing rooms.

And froze, suddenly and wholly awake.

Audric sat on a settee by the far window. His
hair was a mess of curls, as though he’d been running his fingers through it for hours. He stood to face her, hands clenched at his sides.

He gave her a tight smile. “Hello,” he said quietly.

Rielle stepped back into her bedroom. “Evyline,” she called over her shoulder, “I hope you don’t mind, but I wonder if you might give me some time alone.”

“My lady, it isn’t safe—”

“I’m quite
safe with Atheria on my terrace.”

As if on cue, the chavaile snorted from beyond the curtains.

“Grant me this wish, would you please?”

“Just tonight,” Evyline said sternly, after a moment. “The least I can do, I suppose, after everything you’ve been through.”

“That’s right.” Rielle ushered her out as kindly as she could manage. “Good night, Evyline, and thank you for your vigilance.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Rielle shut the door, locked it, took a breath to brace herself. When she turned around, Audric was standing in the middle of the room, looking rather abashed.

“I’m sorry for sneaking in,” he said, “but I wanted to see you. I won’t make a habit of it, I promise.”

“Maybe you should,” Rielle teased—but her voice came out shaky.

Audric’s dark gaze searched
her own, then fell to the floor.

A flurry of nerves danced up her breastbone. “Did you want to talk to me about something?”

“Yes, it’s—” Now his voice was the unsteady one. He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid, though, that I shouldn’t. That I’m a fool for coming here tonight.”

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“I know.”

“Then talk to me.” She reached for him. “What is it?”

He brought her hand to his lips. “Rielle,” he whispered against her skin, “Rielle, Rielle…”

“You’re frightening me. Say something other than my name. Say something real.”

“Something real.” He laughed a little and stepped away from her. “It’s just…”

When he fell silent again, Rielle thought she might scream. “Audric, if you don’t start talking this instant—”

“You understand what
all of this means, don’t you?” He gestured at the castle around them. “I will be king someday, and you will be the Sun Queen.”

“Well, not if the fire trial—”

“Oh, Rielle. You’ll conquer that trial as you have all the others. You’ll be glorious, and then…” He dragged a hand through his hair, turned away, then back to her. “Then you will serve me, and if I have to send you into battle to
save the kingdom, I will do it. That is the Sun Queen’s foretold purpose: to defend and protect. And I cannot stray from that simply because I love you.”

His voice caught on the last words.

Rielle approached slowly, her heart pounding. She touched his arm, and when he looked down at her, his eyes warm and troubled, she cradled his cheek in her hand.

He leaned in to her touch, cupped
her hand in his, and kissed her palm. “I know I shouldn’t touch you,” he said, his voice rough. “We decided it. We had good reasons. But, God help me, I’ve been able to think of little else since that day in the gardens.”

Rielle moved closer to him, drawing his hand down to her waist. “Remember, Ludivine doesn’t care. She wants us to.”

“It’s not Lu or her family. Not anymore. Now I’m wondering…”
He leaned his forehead against hers, closed his eyes. “If only I could stop loving you.”

“What are you saying?”

“As Sun Queen, you will be sacred to our people, Rielle. A symbol longed for and prayed for since the dawn of our age.”

“Let’s not call me that unless it actually happens. I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“The Archon will bless you in front of the entire city. I cannot interfere
with that. I cannot tarnish it.”

She stepped back from him. “Are you saying taking me into your bed would tarnish me somehow?”

He looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know how to both love you and be the person who sends you to war.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you just now realizing that could happen? What did you think the trials were for, exactly?”

He turned away,
eyes bright.

She followed him. “Audric, I want you to listen to this, for I will only say it once.”

He looked up at the change in her voice.

“If you ever sent me into battle,” she said, “I would go gladly, and I would burn our enemies to ashes. But I would not do it for you—or because of the prophecy. I would do it because this is my home too. And if you tried to keep me near you for
love of me, you would fail.”

He stared at her, the air between them snapping taut and furious. She lifted her chin and dared him silently to defy her.

But he didn’t. Instead he strode toward her and caught her mouth hungrily with his.

She gasped into his kiss, stumbling back from the force of it. He steadied her, hands at her hips, and moved with her until she stood pressed between
the wall and his body. She opened her mouth to him, wound her fingers through his hair.

His hands were everywhere—first cradling her face, then cupping her hips to pull her closer against his body. When he trailed his lips down her neck, and lower, kissing along the neckline of her gown, Rielle arched her body up into his.

The fire popped and hissed.

“Yes,” she whispered, tugging up
his shirt to find bare skin. “
Yes.
”

His voice was a low rumble. “Yes what, darling? Tell me where to touch you.”

“Where you did before. Please, Audric.”

He moved back to her mouth as he gathered up her skirts, then slid his palm across her thighs. At the first touch of his hand on her belly, Rielle jerked against him with a gasp.

“Spread your legs for me, Rielle,” he murmured,
his voice shaking at her ear. “I’ve got you.”

She complied, and when his hand found her, stroking softly between her legs, she cried out and clutched his shirt in her fists.

The wall at her back trembled.

He slid one finger inside her, his thumb still stroking her. “Every night since that day,” he whispered against her mouth, “I’ve dreamed of this. I wake with your name on my lips.”

No matter how Rielle moved, she could not get enough of him. She dug her fingernails into the small of his back, pulling him closer. “Faster, Audric. Harder,
please
.”

He obeyed. “Like this?”

“Yes,
yes
.” She felt herself stretch around his fingers; he had added another, thrusting faster. “Like that, oh, God—” She let out a sound she had never made, a low, throaty groan that shook her
to her toes.

“That’s it.” Audric kissed her temple, her hair. His voice was full of wonder. “That’s it, Rielle.”

She clung to him, ground her hips against his hand until the tingling wave that had been building deep inside her crested, sweeping across her skin and down her spine. She jerked against him, gave a sharp cry, and shattered.

The room shook around them.

The lit candles
across the room sparked, jagged flames leaping inches into the air. The hearth fire snapped; embers scattered across the carpet. The walls quivered for a few seconds, as if caught in a small quake, then fell silent.

“What was that?” Audric whispered.

“It was me.” Rielle closed her eyes, her cheeks flaming. “I’m sorry.”

“You?”

“We shouldn’t have done that. Let me go, please.”

He released her, and she moved away unsteadily, straightening her gown. She could think only of her father’s voice, so many years ago:

You might lose control one day, hurt him.

The last thing Audric needs is someone like you hovering about.

“You should go,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.

Audric was quiet for a moment. “I will, of course, if that’s what you want. But
first, would you tell me what happened?”

“Four trials, and I was fine. I made it through; I felt stronger than ever before. And now? A few moments with you, and I make the room fall apart.”

“Nothing’s fallen apart. Rielle, it was only a little tremor.”

She whirled on him. “Only a little tremor? And what if we had kept on? What if I had lost control? What if the floor had cracked open
beneath our feet? My father was right. He could see it before I did.”

“What did he see?”

“That I love you!” she burst out, tears splitting her voice. “That for all my years of work, every night alone, every prayer… It’s undone when I’m with you. You touch me and I burn, and I could take everything burning down with me!”

“Rielle, look at me.” Audric took hold of her hands so gently
that she began to cry in earnest.

“I’ll hurt you,” she whispered.

His eyes were steady and warm on her face. “You won’t.”

“If anything happened to you because of me, I couldn’t bear it, Audric. I won’t do it. I’ll be alone forever if I must.”

“No, no, not you.” He tenderly turned her face up to his, feathered soft kisses across her cheeks. “You deserve only happiness. Not a cold
bed and an empty room.”

She closed her eyes at his touch. “I’m too dangerous.”

“You’re just my kind of dangerous.”

“This isn’t a joke, Audric. This is your life—and mine.”

“And my life is pale without you in it.” His hands cupped her face. “I’m not afraid of you, Rielle. I trust you, and I want you.”

Rielle leaned into his chest, breathed him in—his sun-warmed skin, the cotton
of his tunic.

“What if I asked you,” she said at last, “to kiss me again?”

“I would kiss you all night and never tire of it.”

She pulled back to look up at him. “And if I asked you to take me to bed?”

“Then I would take you there,” he said, “and not rest until you’d had your fill of me.”

“That’s just what I want.” She kissed the triangle of skin above his collar and whispered,
“I want you to fill me.”

She stretched onto her toes to kiss him before he could reply, and when his arms came feverishly around her, she grinned against his mouth and let out a delighted laugh.

“Bed,” she whispered, pulling him blindly toward it.

He backed her up against one of the bedposts, his mouth never leaving hers. He kissed her as if the air inside her was what he needed to
survive. She put her hands behind her, against the post to brace herself, and arched toward him.

“Yes,” he said breathlessly, fumbling with the line of buttons down the front of her gown. He slid the bodice down her torso so that it pooled around her waist. Her breasts fell free, and he lowered his mouth to them at once, groaning against her skin.

Rielle twisted beneath him until she could
bear the ache between her legs no longer. “I need you,” she gasped, clutching his shoulders. “Please, Audric.”

He pulled his tunic over his head, then undid his belt, kicked off his boots. He moved her toward the bed, sucking gently on her bottom lip. Together they tugged on her gown until it fell to the floor.

Audric murmured, “My God, Rielle, you’re beautiful,” and helped her down onto
the pile of blankets strewn across the bed. His hands traced the curves of her breasts, her waist, her hips. He kissed each of her bruises from the shadow trial, murmuring her name against her skin more lovingly than any prayer.

When his hips settled on hers at last, Rielle barely managed to stifle her scream. He threaded his fingers through her own, pressed her hands gently back against the
pillows. At each shift of his hips, a new wave of pleasure surged inside her.

Shaking beneath the hard, warm lines of his body, she said desperately, “Audric,
please
.”

“Wait.” He kissed the curve of her chin, pulled slightly away. “Wait a moment.”

“No,
now
.”

“Before we do this—”

She heard the cautious note in his voice and understood. “I’m taking a tonic for it.” She tenderly
touched his face. “Please don’t worry.”

He nodded, lowered his mouth to hers, murmured, “I love you, Rielle,” and entered her in one smooth movement.

She cried out, bucking against him. She felt impossibly, deliciously full and touched his face with a breathless laugh.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

“Fine.” She clutched his arms, smiling up at him. “Don’t leave.”

“Never.
I’m sorry—”

“No. Don’t be sorry. I’m fine.” She touched two fingers to his lips, let out a shaky laugh. “I’m more than fine.”

He grinned, kissed the soft skin beneath her eyes, and began to move inside her. Rielle gasped, arching up against him.

“Look at me,” he urged her quietly, and when she locked eyes with him, the focused devotion on his face made her heart swell. “I’m right here,
and I love you. I love you, I love you.”

“Kiss me,” she whispered, trembling.

He obeyed, his mouth warm and slow on hers, echoing the gentle thrusts of his hips.

“Should I stop?” He kissed along her jawline. The soft scrape of his teeth sent delicate chills across her skin. She closed her eyes and shifted beneath him. Pleasure swelled slowly up her body, warm and unhurried.