Lightbringer (Empirium 3)

Simon led her forward, his hand hard around her upper arm. It was only then that she realized she had been standing frozen at the closed doors. The shivering shadows on the staircase entranced her, so she did not fight Simon’s grip, but when they stopped ten paces from the foot of the stairs, sweat beaded on her forehead, and her palms turned clammy. She wanted to run and hide from whatever was coming down the stairs; she wanted to stay and look it in the eye.

A faint sensation of intrusion toyed with the edges of her mind. Invisible coy fingers, plucking and stirring. She shook her head as if to shake off drowsiness, and her vision shifted violently, a discordant sound scraping against her skull. Flashes of images appeared with each blink: a man in black sitting on a throne. A woman standing in a field of fire.

Eliana herself, ankle-deep in a shallow pool of black water, reaching for the star-dusted sky.

She touched one of the stars, and it burned her fingers. She tried to yank away her hand, but the star had fused with her skin and was bleeding down her arm, flooding her veins, bubbling up her throat to disintegrate her tongue.

The images abruptly disappeared, leaving her unbalanced. She watched the shadows gather as they floated down the stairs, joining to become a teeming black heart, and wondered wildly if a beast was coming for her, some feral, starved creature set loose from the city’s dungeons.

She shook herself, blinking hard. She could not trust her mind. Of course she couldn’t.

What nonsense, came a voice she recognized, sliding happily into her mind like a wriggling cat. Your mind is the only thing you can trust. It will show you what you must do to survive.

She looked up, eyes burning, and watched shapes emerge from the shadows, until at last there were boots and trousers, a fine white linen shirt, a long black coat, unbuttoned, knee length. A smiling face, pale and elegant. Eyes black and liquid. Soft dark hair curling against cheeks and nape.

The Emperor. Corien.

“And here you are at last,” he said. “The daughter of my great love. Time tried to separate us, Eliana, but we managed to find each other eventually, didn’t we?”

His voice was smooth and clear, so inarguably lovely that it sickened her. She could barely speak, her throat closing with fear. “Where is my brother?”

“I’ll tell you if you help me. I’ll bring him right here, and you’ll never be parted from him again.”

Stricken, she stared at him. “If I help you.”

He laughed softly. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to finally have the opportunity to learn everything about you.” He paused, his smile widening. “Well, I could tell you, in fact. I could make you feel my delight as keenly as I do. I can make you feel whatever I want you to feel. I could make you want to kiss me. I could make you rub yourself against me like a groveling dog.”

Circling her, he fell silent, and when Simon stepped away, Eliana felt the absurd, mortifying urge to reach for him and keep him close, despite everything.

“Awful, isn’t it? To love someone so very deeply? To love them enough that you would lose yourself to them, lose everything to them, if it meant they might stay beside you a little while longer?” There was mockery in Corien’s voice, with sympathy close behind. “I loved like that once, as you know. I loved many times before that, but never again since. It’s lonely to be loveless for a thousand years. Lonelier still to build an empire from the ashes of a world destroyed by your own mistakes, and to do that not once but twice.”

Corien stopped before her, close now. He considered her face, and she fought desperately not to blanch under that terrible unblinking scrutiny.

“Tell me where Remy is,” she said, her jaw clenched tight.

“I won’t make such mistakes a third time,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m sure you’ve guessed that. I’ve had centuries to plan for this moment. My hatred has grown for centuries. My hate for you, Eliana, and for all of your kind. My hate for the deceitful woman I loved. My hate for a God that would condemn me to this endless fate of war and grief and torment.”

Corien’s gaze was thoughtful, his voice calm. “Can you comprehend how deeply I hate you? I’ll allow you to attempt imagining it for a time, until I decide to share the feelings with you directly. I hate you, and yet I love you, in a strange way. It’s an unsettling dichotomy I long to tear from my mind, but I can’t—it’s lodged there, it’s part of me. I love you because you are hers. I loathe you because you are his.”

With no warning, he seized her chin, turned her face left, then right, inspecting her, and she was too terrified, too baffled, to react.

A small smile curved his lips. “I see her there.” He waved with his free hand, his voice lilting. “I see you, Rielle!” Then he released her, wistful. “You have her sharp jaw, her cheekbones. But you’re lithe where she was soft, and darker than she was. And you’ve his mouth, his nose. His great brown cow eyes.”

It was the mention of Audric that jarred her, awakening within her a surprising spark of defiance. Of the Lightbringer she knew only the old songs, Remy’s beloved tales. The dilapidated statue near the river in Orline—King Audric, proud and sad, mounted on the chavaile that had once been loyal to the Blood Queen, both of them looking toward the rising sun.

Eliana bristled at the derision in Corien’s voice. Cow eyes. As if the Lightbringer had been a mere pitiful beast.

“Considering all your mighty power,” she said, forcing the words through her teeth, “I’m surprised it took you so long to find me. I arrived in this time eighteen years ago. Surely your angelic mind should have found me much sooner than this. And yet you needed a crude human tool to scour the world and do your work for you.”

She refused to look at Simon.

But Corien only spread his arms, palms up. “You’re right, of course. If our world was as it should be, if my beloved hadn’t permanently damaged the empirium when she died”—he gestured to his ink-black eyes—“I would have found you within hours. My former glorious mind would have found you at once, right where you lay in Rozen Ferracora’s arms, and would have held both of you immobile until my soldiers came to fetch you. And then they would have slit Rozen’s throat, and Ioseph’s too, which would have been a shame, because out of all the bodies Ravikant has possessed, Ioseph’s is his favorite. But perhaps that’s only because he was so eager to see the look on your face when you realized what your adoptive father’s body was being used for.”

He clasped his hands, gazing at her with an admiration that reeked of mockery. “I saw it, you know. I saw everything that happened that day. My soldiers are my eyes and ears, and I saw you on that beach, your hands blazing as you ran toward the water. Oh, dearest Eliana, you were so full of hope. It was really quite charming. I saw your face when you realized Ravikant lives in Ioseph’s body. And then, when Simon shut you into your cell? Splendid. A magnificent portrait of disbelief and devastation. It was almost like I could see your heart breaking. Which has always struck me as an odd expression. A heart can’t break, can it? It can burst, it can be torn to shreds, it can be stomped upon and smeared across the ground, but it can’t break in the way a bone does.” led her forward, his hand hard around her upper arm. It was only then that she realized she had been standing frozen at the closed doors. The shivering shadows on the staircase entranced her, so she did not fight Simon’s grip, but when they stopped ten paces from the foot of the stairs, sweat beaded on her forehead, and her palms turned clammy. She wanted to run and hide from whatever was coming down the stairs; she wanted to stay and look it in the eye.

A faint sensation of intrusion toyed with the edges of her mind. Invisible coy fingers, plucking and stirring. She shook her head as if to shake off drowsiness, and her vision shifted violently, a discordant sound scraping against her skull. Flashes of images appeared with each blink: a man in black sitting on a throne. A woman standing in a field of fire.

Eliana herself, ankle-deep in a shallow pool of black water, reaching for the star-dusted sky.

She touched one of the stars, and it burned her fingers. She tried to yank away her hand, but the star had fused with her skin and was bleeding down her arm, flooding her veins, bubbling up her throat to disintegrate her tongue.

The images abruptly disappeared, leaving her unbalanced. She watched the shadows gather as they floated down the stairs, joining to become a teeming black heart, and wondered wildly if a beast was coming for her, some feral, starved creature set loose from the city’s dungeons.

She shook herself, blinking hard. She could not trust her mind. Of course she couldn’t.

What nonsense, came a voice she recognized, sliding happily into her mind like a wriggling cat. Your mind is the only thing you can trust. It will show you what you must do to survive.

She looked up, eyes burning, and watched shapes emerge from the shadows, until at last there were boots and trousers, a fine white linen shirt, a long black coat, unbuttoned, knee length. A smiling face, pale and elegant. Eyes black and liquid. Soft dark hair curling against cheeks and nape.

The Emperor. Corien.

“And here you are at last,” he said. “The daughter of my great love. Time tried to separate us, Eliana, but we managed to find each other eventually, didn’t we?”

His voice was smooth and clear, so inarguably lovely that it sickened her. She could barely speak, her throat closing with fear. “Where is my brother?”

“I’ll tell you if you help me. I’ll bring him right here, and you’ll never be parted from him again.”

Stricken, she stared at him. “If I help you.”

He laughed softly. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to finally have the opportunity to learn everything about you.” He paused, his smile widening. “Well, I could tell you, in fact. I could make you feel my delight as keenly as I do. I can make you feel whatever I want you to feel. I could make you want to kiss me. I could make you rub yourself against me like a groveling dog.”

Circling her, he fell silent, and when Simon stepped away, Eliana felt the absurd, mortifying urge to reach for him and keep him close, despite everything.

“Awful, isn’t it? To love someone so very deeply? To love them enough that you would lose yourself to them, lose everything to them, if it meant they might stay beside you a little while longer?” There was mockery in Corien’s voice, with sympathy close behind. “I loved like that once, as you know. I loved many times before that, but never again since. It’s lonely to be loveless for a thousand years. Lonelier still to build an empire from the ashes of a world destroyed by your own mistakes, and to do that not once but twice.”

Corien stopped before her, close now. He considered her face, and she fought desperately not to blanch under that terrible unblinking scrutiny.

“Tell me where Remy is,” she said, her jaw clenched tight.

“I won’t make such mistakes a third time,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m sure you’ve guessed that. I’ve had centuries to plan for this moment. My hatred has grown for centuries. My hate for you, Eliana, and for all of your kind. My hate for the deceitful woman I loved. My hate for a God that would condemn me to this endless fate of war and grief and torment.”

Corien’s gaze was thoughtful, his voice calm. “Can you comprehend how deeply I hate you? I’ll allow you to attempt imagining it for a time, until I decide to share the feelings with you directly. I hate you, and yet I love you, in a strange way. It’s an unsettling dichotomy I long to tear from my mind, but I can’t—it’s lodged there, it’s part of me. I love you because you are hers. I loathe you because you are his.”

With no warning, he seized her chin, turned her face left, then right, inspecting her, and she was too terrified, too baffled, to react.

A small smile curved his lips. “I see her there.” He waved with his free hand, his voice lilting. “I see you, Rielle!” Then he released her, wistful. “You have her sharp jaw, her cheekbones. But you’re lithe where she was soft, and darker than she was. And you’ve his mouth, his nose. His great brown cow eyes.”

It was the mention of Audric that jarred her, awakening within her a surprising spark of defiance. Of the Lightbringer she knew only the old songs, Remy’s beloved tales. The dilapidated statue near the river in Orline—King Audric, proud and sad, mounted on the chavaile that had once been loyal to the Blood Queen, both of them looking toward the rising sun.

Eliana bristled at the derision in Corien’s voice. Cow eyes. As if the Lightbringer had been a mere pitiful beast.

“Considering all your mighty power,” she said, forcing the words through her teeth, “I’m surprised it took you so long to find me. I arrived in this time eighteen years ago. Surely your angelic mind should have found me much sooner than this. And yet you needed a crude human tool to scour the world and do your work for you.”

She refused to look at Simon.

But Corien only spread his arms, palms up. “You’re right, of course. If our world was as it should be, if my beloved hadn’t permanently damaged the empirium when she died”—he gestured to his ink-black eyes—“I would have found you within hours. My former glorious mind would have found you at once, right where you lay in Rozen Ferracora’s arms, and would have held both of you immobile until my soldiers came to fetch you. And then they would have slit Rozen’s throat, and Ioseph’s too, which would have been a shame, because out of all the bodies Ravikant has possessed, Ioseph’s is his favorite. But perhaps that’s only because he was so eager to see the look on your face when you realized what your adoptive father’s body was being used for.”

He clasped his hands, gazing at her with an admiration that reeked of mockery. “I saw it, you know. I saw everything that happened that day. My soldiers are my eyes and ears, and I saw you on that beach, your hands blazing as you ran toward the water. Oh, dearest Eliana, you were so full of hope. It was really quite charming. I saw your face when you realized Ravikant lives in Ioseph’s body. And then, when Simon shut you into your cell? Splendid. A magnificent portrait of disbelief and devastation. It was almost like I could see your heart breaking. Which has always struck me as an odd expression. A heart can’t break, can it? It can burst, it can be torn to shreds, it can be stomped upon and smeared across the ground, but it can’t break in the way a bone does.”