Kingsbane (Empirium 2)

Eliana stumbled and caught herself on the rocks below. Her hands slammed against stone. Dazzling pain ricocheted from her palms up her arms, burning tears from her eyes.

“My hands,” she whispered, too afraid to look at them.

Harkan pulled her up, coughing. The air was full of smoke. It suffused the entire vast chamber, a toxic black cloud blotting out all light. Eliana looked over her shoulder once and glimpsed the massive terror of the fire she had created. Flames crawled to the stone sky above. Spitting tongues of fire trailed after her, marking her path. Explosions rattled the caverns, echoing each of her frantic breaths—the fire, perhaps reaching storage rooms full of smuggled explosives.

They ran until they were climb-crawling alone through damp, sloping tunnels of stone. The pain in her hands was extraordinary. She wanted to sit and scream over them, but Harkan wouldn’t let her stop. She concentrated on the weight of the horrid copper box in her pocket, the slap of Harkan’s bag against her side.

She didn’t understand what had happened to Zahra. She couldn’t imagine what they would do if the antidotes they had stolen didn’t save Navi. Her mind was a roar of impossible questions, each of them exhausted.

They stopped running. Harkan put a hand on her arm. He coughed, a terrible, harsh sound.

“Hold your breath,” he instructed, and she did, and the distant explosions stopped rattling the walls.

Then he said, “We’re going to swim now.” His voice was taut, worried. “Follow me, all right? Stay close.”

Eliana nodded and jumped after him into the water that she knew, thanks to a vague nudge of memory, would lead them back to Tameryn’s cave. When her scorched hands met the water, her castings hissed. The still black water bubbled, frothing.

A voice followed her as she swam, unmuddied by the water’s depths and the weight of the mountains above. She couldn’t understand the words, but she understood their sentiment, and the accompanying feeling of rage that gnashed its teeth at her toes.

And worse, a sense of loss and frustration so immense, so profound and old, that the sensation punched her chest in two and sent her clawing up to the surface, gasping for air in the darkness.

16

Rielle

“Some scholars refuse to discuss what lies within the pages of the book you are about to read. Certain holy figures would even declare it profane. But what we write is something the saints believed to be true: it is possible to reach beyond the elements to a deeper layer of the empirium. What lies there, we don’t yet know. But perhaps, someday, when Aryava’s Queens come at last, we will have the answer.”

—Beyond the Elemental by Kerensa Garvayne and Llora Maralia of the First Guild of Scholars

Resurrection.

The word moved constantly about Rielle’s mind—sometimes skittering, erratic. Distracting. Sometimes it slithered, sly and slow, and she could almost forget it was there.

At night, when she managed to sleep, in the warmth of Audric’s arms, the word whispered to her, sibilant and insistent. More than a sound—a sensation.

Sometimes it came in Corien’s voice, so faint that in her dream-addled mind, she had to strain to identify it.

She knew what the word meant, of course, in the broadest sense: to bring back to life that which was once dead.

But what kept her awake at night, what sent her haunting the royal libraries so often that the librarians began setting aside a workspace for her, sunlit and stocked with cake, was the sense of what resurrection could mean beyond that.

Restoring wounded flesh to its original wholeness.

Healing a painful scar that marked a friend’s arm.

Knitting together a new body out of an old one.

• • •

And then a change occurred. A bend in a wooded dark path, a shift in the ground underfoot.

It began with prayers.

The Archon had suggested it, and Audric and Ludivine readily agreed with him. Rielle would pray, in public, in a different temple every night, alongside the people of the city, and prove her piety. Her devotion to the saints. Her earnest love of Celdaria. By doing so, she would perhaps quell some of the unrest that had remained, simmering, since the fire trial. Since Ludivine had come back from death, while the other victims had not.

But this plan quickly went awry, for whenever Rielle prayed, Corien took the opportunity to visit her.

• • •

The first evening, kneeling at the feet of Saint Tameryn, with the Archon at her side and the temple roof open to the pale-violet sky above, Corien arrived softly.

What a good Celdarian you are, he murmured, his voice like the press of a petal against her nape. What a dutiful child of Katell.

Rielle gasped at his sudden nearness, too startled to disguise her shock.

The harsh sound was a crash in the quiet temple, with its gentle fountains and the shuffle of slippered feet across obsidian tiles. Citizens gathered on the prayer steps, their candles flickering before them, looked up—wide-eyed and curious, frowning and amused.

The Archon, beside her, eyes still closed, robes a sea of white around him, murmured, “Is there something wrong, Lady Rielle?”

“No, nothing,” she replied. “I apologize for the disruption.”

Corien’s laughter haunted her prayers like shadows.

• • •

The next evening, the Archon walked with her, arm in arm, through the softly lit courtyards surrounding the Holdfast, lush with greenery and the dim glow of whistblooms.

She, Audric, and Ludivine had told him, of course, everything that had transpired in the Sunderlands, but that was too sensitive a topic to speak of in the public gardens. So they discussed nothing of consequence, meandering toward the temple at a pace that made Rielle want to scream.

In the plain, earthen rooms of the Holdfast, surrounded by barefoot worshippers with their toes in the dirt, she prayed, a secret black hope in her heart.

Corien answered with a wordless vision: A wintry landscape, sharp with mountains so monstrously tall that Rielle knew it could be nowhere in Celdaria. Herself, climbing a snowy passage toward a dark mountaintop château, barefoot and freezing, her toes black with frostbite.

Horrified, she tried to shake loose the vision, but it would not release her.

Here, Corien whispered. Here, Rielle.

Tears in her eyes, she searched through the whirling snow and found him in a soft green clearing, sitting by a fire. She cried out, stumbling toward him. He opened his arms to her and wrapped her in the fur lining of his cloak.

She pressed her face against his chest. His lips touched her hair. In his arms, she bloomed, warming. The pain in her toes faded, and so did her fear. a stumbled and caught herself on the rocks below. Her hands slammed against stone. Dazzling pain ricocheted from her palms up her arms, burning tears from her eyes.

“My hands,” she whispered, too afraid to look at them.

Harkan pulled her up, coughing. The air was full of smoke. It suffused the entire vast chamber, a toxic black cloud blotting out all light. Eliana looked over her shoulder once and glimpsed the massive terror of the fire she had created. Flames crawled to the stone sky above. Spitting tongues of fire trailed after her, marking her path. Explosions rattled the caverns, echoing each of her frantic breaths—the fire, perhaps reaching storage rooms full of smuggled explosives.

They ran until they were climb-crawling alone through damp, sloping tunnels of stone. The pain in her hands was extraordinary. She wanted to sit and scream over them, but Harkan wouldn’t let her stop. She concentrated on the weight of the horrid copper box in her pocket, the slap of Harkan’s bag against her side.

She didn’t understand what had happened to Zahra. She couldn’t imagine what they would do if the antidotes they had stolen didn’t save Navi. Her mind was a roar of impossible questions, each of them exhausted.

They stopped running. Harkan put a hand on her arm. He coughed, a terrible, harsh sound.

“Hold your breath,” he instructed, and she did, and the distant explosions stopped rattling the walls.

Then he said, “We’re going to swim now.” His voice was taut, worried. “Follow me, all right? Stay close.”

Eliana nodded and jumped after him into the water that she knew, thanks to a vague nudge of memory, would lead them back to Tameryn’s cave. When her scorched hands met the water, her castings hissed. The still black water bubbled, frothing.

A voice followed her as she swam, unmuddied by the water’s depths and the weight of the mountains above. She couldn’t understand the words, but she understood their sentiment, and the accompanying feeling of rage that gnashed its teeth at her toes.

And worse, a sense of loss and frustration so immense, so profound and old, that the sensation punched her chest in two and sent her clawing up to the surface, gasping for air in the darkness.

16

Rielle

“Some scholars refuse to discuss what lies within the pages of the book you are about to read. Certain holy figures would even declare it profane. But what we write is something the saints believed to be true: it is possible to reach beyond the elements to a deeper layer of the empirium. What lies there, we don’t yet know. But perhaps, someday, when Aryava’s Queens come at last, we will have the answer.”

—Beyond the Elemental by Kerensa Garvayne and Llora Maralia of the First Guild of Scholars

Resurrection.

The word moved constantly about Rielle’s mind—sometimes skittering, erratic. Distracting. Sometimes it slithered, sly and slow, and she could almost forget it was there.

At night, when she managed to sleep, in the warmth of Audric’s arms, the word whispered to her, sibilant and insistent. More than a sound—a sensation.

Sometimes it came in Corien’s voice, so faint that in her dream-addled mind, she had to strain to identify it.

She knew what the word meant, of course, in the broadest sense: to bring back to life that which was once dead.

But what kept her awake at night, what sent her haunting the royal libraries so often that the librarians began setting aside a workspace for her, sunlit and stocked with cake, was the sense of what resurrection could mean beyond that.

Restoring wounded flesh to its original wholeness.

Healing a painful scar that marked a friend’s arm.

Knitting together a new body out of an old one.

• • •

And then a change occurred. A bend in a wooded dark path, a shift in the ground underfoot.

It began with prayers.

The Archon had suggested it, and Audric and Ludivine readily agreed with him. Rielle would pray, in public, in a different temple every night, alongside the people of the city, and prove her piety. Her devotion to the saints. Her earnest love of Celdaria. By doing so, she would perhaps quell some of the unrest that had remained, simmering, since the fire trial. Since Ludivine had come back from death, while the other victims had not.

But this plan quickly went awry, for whenever Rielle prayed, Corien took the opportunity to visit her.

• • •

The first evening, kneeling at the feet of Saint Tameryn, with the Archon at her side and the temple roof open to the pale-violet sky above, Corien arrived softly.

What a good Celdarian you are, he murmured, his voice like the press of a petal against her nape. What a dutiful child of Katell.

Rielle gasped at his sudden nearness, too startled to disguise her shock.

The harsh sound was a crash in the quiet temple, with its gentle fountains and the shuffle of slippered feet across obsidian tiles. Citizens gathered on the prayer steps, their candles flickering before them, looked up—wide-eyed and curious, frowning and amused.

The Archon, beside her, eyes still closed, robes a sea of white around him, murmured, “Is there something wrong, Lady Rielle?”

“No, nothing,” she replied. “I apologize for the disruption.”

Corien’s laughter haunted her prayers like shadows.

• • •

The next evening, the Archon walked with her, arm in arm, through the softly lit courtyards surrounding the Holdfast, lush with greenery and the dim glow of whistblooms.

She, Audric, and Ludivine had told him, of course, everything that had transpired in the Sunderlands, but that was too sensitive a topic to speak of in the public gardens. So they discussed nothing of consequence, meandering toward the temple at a pace that made Rielle want to scream.

In the plain, earthen rooms of the Holdfast, surrounded by barefoot worshippers with their toes in the dirt, she prayed, a secret black hope in her heart.

Corien answered with a wordless vision: A wintry landscape, sharp with mountains so monstrously tall that Rielle knew it could be nowhere in Celdaria. Herself, climbing a snowy passage toward a dark mountaintop château, barefoot and freezing, her toes black with frostbite.

Horrified, she tried to shake loose the vision, but it would not release her.

Here, Corien whispered. Here, Rielle.

Tears in her eyes, she searched through the whirling snow and found him in a soft green clearing, sitting by a fire. She cried out, stumbling toward him. He opened his arms to her and wrapped her in the fur lining of his cloak.

She pressed her face against his chest. His lips touched her hair. In his arms, she bloomed, warming. The pain in her toes faded, and so did her fear.