Please, help me.
An answer came at once. I’m here.
Eliana sank to the ground. Is it safe to talk?
He is rather distracted by the evening’s events, the Prophet answered drily. With his mind in its current state, he is easily diverted by his own perversities. But you were right to run far before speaking to me.
Can I come to you? She felt like a frightened child, begging for comfort after a nightmare. Her head pounded with a primal fear, and she could think of little else. I don’t know where to go.
A feeling came to Eliana then, such a tenderness that her eyes grew hot.
We must wait a little longer, the Prophet said gently. When you come to me, he will find me soon after. Everything must be ready by then, all the pieces in place. Your friends are on their way, but you must keep fighting until they arrive.
Eliana wrapped her arms around her stomach, let out a single choked sob. She felt brittle, ready to fly apart from fear, as if the night’s horrors had ripped from her every plate of armor she had forged in the fire of her imprisonment. She could not even bring herself to ask what friends the Prophet meant. Instead, her skittering mind relived those moments with Corien in her bedroom, how he had smashed her face into her beaded gown as if to suffocate her. Simon at the door, his face hidden in shadows as she stared him down.
You need to focus, Eliana. The Prophet’s voice grew firm. The more scattered your thoughts, the easier it is for him to find you, and therefore find me.
Eliana’s exhaustion was a chasm; soon she would tip into it. If someone else tries to kill me, I might let them.
He won’t let them. Nor will I.
I have the right to choose my own death.
No, you do not, the Prophet said. Too much depends on you. I know you didn’t ask for this burden, but it is yours nonetheless. Listen closely. We won’t have a better opportunity than this for you to enter the Deep. Ostia has been growing. The fabric of the empirium there has become thin and fragile. I think you can do it with one more try. I think you can finish your Gate.
I cannot go back to the palace, Eliana replied, looking out across the city at the distant turrets.
No. Chaos is spreading fast across the city. It’s too dangerous to go all that way. If you are injured, it could undo the progress we have made.
Eliana wiped her face and drew a shuddering breath. Instead, I must find another place where the empirium is thin. Another way into the Deep.
Yes, and quickly, the Prophet replied. When he grows bored of this culling, he will end it.
Eliana recited the facts she knew, each thought bringing a little more steadiness to her mind. In the palace, the empirium guided me to that place in the garden. A place where I could open a seam to the Deep. It pulled upon me, and I listened.
Perhaps that’s true, said the Prophet thoughtfully. Or perhaps it was you who guided the empirium. You who told it what you needed and where to take you.
Eliana shivered in her wet dress, the blood-soaked fabric already growing stiff. She uncurled her tight fingers. In her palms, her castings held a hint of warmth. I cannot be afraid of them. I must use them to help me.
Your castings are of you, the Prophet reminded her. An extension of your body, your mind, and your power, not a separate thing. It is yourself you must not fear.
As if that were an easy thing. Eliana half formed a useless rude thought, then tossed it away. Under the arbor’s leaves, the screams of Elysium rising to meet her ears, she breathed. There was a chill breeze that raised the hair on her arms. The roof was made of white stone, and she felt the age of it, how long it had lived in the earth before it was carved free. There was water in the leaves shivering overhead, and there was sunlight somewhere beyond the horizon, where it was morning instead of night.
Her palms grew hotter. Even with her eyes closed, she could see their twin flares, how they beamed to see her. She welcomed her power, cupped her hands around it, and in its vast brilliance, she found the river she had first made with the Prophet so many weeks ago.
Never step out of that little river. She recalled the Prophet’s words, ran over the grooves of their memory in her mind. Keep your feet cool and grounded, even as your hands begin to blaze. He cannot find you here, little one, not in these waters.
Feet in cool water. Mind smooth and hard as a stone. Fire in her hands and stars behind her eyelids. Her veins a web of light.
I rise
The empirium’s voice boomed inside her, singular and many. A wave threatening to crest, hungry for the shore.
I rise
I RISE
“No,” Eliana whispered. “I rise.”
Then she stood. She opened her eyes and looked once more into the eerie, silvered night. She watched Ostia’s light shift slowly in the sky and listened to the thrum of her power, how it moved through her body and into the air and back again. Her blood pulsed with the great ancient heartbeat of the world. A map of the empirium expanded before her, its brilliant vastness unspooling at her command. Cords of light rippling in an endless sea. Planes upon planes of shifting gold, and within them an infinite number of paths to walk.
A beat, a held breath. Something pulled at her—the tightness of a sky ready to split with lightning. Arabeth in hand, she found the path she needed and followed it back down into the Emperor’s city, the screams of the hunted rising to greet her and the gold eyes of her castings open wide in her palms.
29
Rielle
“I have decided not to tell anyone of what I saw in Meridian. Knowing that Rielle killed Grand Magister Belounnon will bring no comfort to anyone here. But I cannot stop thinking of the look on her face as she incinerated him: The shadows on her gaunt face. The furious molten gold of her eyes. One moment he was there. The next, there was fire, and he was gone. And before Annick and I fled, I looked back at Rielle and saw her trembling in the rain. She wept, her skin glowing with a faint gold sheen, and gazed across the sea toward the black eastern horizon.”
—Journal of Garver Randell, dated February 17, Year 1000 of the Second Age
Rielle knew after her first resurrection that it was impossible to continue working underground. All that weight above her, the mountain’s cold black bulk. She needed to see the sky.
Corien asked for no further explanation. He ordered a dozen of his soldiers and an outfit of one hundred adatrox to construct an altar on the mountain beside his fortress. A stone walkway led from one of the windows on the highest floor of the fortress, near Corien’s own rooms, out across the snow to this towering black edifice, dark against the mountain’s endless white.
The altar’s structure reminded Rielle of the Gate, which delighted her. Three steps led up to a flat plinth of black rock. There was a table of stone for the bodies to lie upon, and stone pillars flanked the spot where she would stand. The plinth itself was freshly engraved with wings, a whole storm of them, feathers so fine that Rielle knelt in her furs to run her fingers over their delicate grooves. e, help me.
An answer came at once. I’m here.
Eliana sank to the ground. Is it safe to talk?
He is rather distracted by the evening’s events, the Prophet answered drily. With his mind in its current state, he is easily diverted by his own perversities. But you were right to run far before speaking to me.
Can I come to you? She felt like a frightened child, begging for comfort after a nightmare. Her head pounded with a primal fear, and she could think of little else. I don’t know where to go.
A feeling came to Eliana then, such a tenderness that her eyes grew hot.
We must wait a little longer, the Prophet said gently. When you come to me, he will find me soon after. Everything must be ready by then, all the pieces in place. Your friends are on their way, but you must keep fighting until they arrive.
Eliana wrapped her arms around her stomach, let out a single choked sob. She felt brittle, ready to fly apart from fear, as if the night’s horrors had ripped from her every plate of armor she had forged in the fire of her imprisonment. She could not even bring herself to ask what friends the Prophet meant. Instead, her skittering mind relived those moments with Corien in her bedroom, how he had smashed her face into her beaded gown as if to suffocate her. Simon at the door, his face hidden in shadows as she stared him down.
You need to focus, Eliana. The Prophet’s voice grew firm. The more scattered your thoughts, the easier it is for him to find you, and therefore find me.
Eliana’s exhaustion was a chasm; soon she would tip into it. If someone else tries to kill me, I might let them.
He won’t let them. Nor will I.
I have the right to choose my own death.
No, you do not, the Prophet said. Too much depends on you. I know you didn’t ask for this burden, but it is yours nonetheless. Listen closely. We won’t have a better opportunity than this for you to enter the Deep. Ostia has been growing. The fabric of the empirium there has become thin and fragile. I think you can do it with one more try. I think you can finish your Gate.
I cannot go back to the palace, Eliana replied, looking out across the city at the distant turrets.
No. Chaos is spreading fast across the city. It’s too dangerous to go all that way. If you are injured, it could undo the progress we have made.
Eliana wiped her face and drew a shuddering breath. Instead, I must find another place where the empirium is thin. Another way into the Deep.
Yes, and quickly, the Prophet replied. When he grows bored of this culling, he will end it.
Eliana recited the facts she knew, each thought bringing a little more steadiness to her mind. In the palace, the empirium guided me to that place in the garden. A place where I could open a seam to the Deep. It pulled upon me, and I listened.
Perhaps that’s true, said the Prophet thoughtfully. Or perhaps it was you who guided the empirium. You who told it what you needed and where to take you.
Eliana shivered in her wet dress, the blood-soaked fabric already growing stiff. She uncurled her tight fingers. In her palms, her castings held a hint of warmth. I cannot be afraid of them. I must use them to help me.
Your castings are of you, the Prophet reminded her. An extension of your body, your mind, and your power, not a separate thing. It is yourself you must not fear.
As if that were an easy thing. Eliana half formed a useless rude thought, then tossed it away. Under the arbor’s leaves, the screams of Elysium rising to meet her ears, she breathed. There was a chill breeze that raised the hair on her arms. The roof was made of white stone, and she felt the age of it, how long it had lived in the earth before it was carved free. There was water in the leaves shivering overhead, and there was sunlight somewhere beyond the horizon, where it was morning instead of night.
Her palms grew hotter. Even with her eyes closed, she could see their twin flares, how they beamed to see her. She welcomed her power, cupped her hands around it, and in its vast brilliance, she found the river she had first made with the Prophet so many weeks ago.
Never step out of that little river. She recalled the Prophet’s words, ran over the grooves of their memory in her mind. Keep your feet cool and grounded, even as your hands begin to blaze. He cannot find you here, little one, not in these waters.
Feet in cool water. Mind smooth and hard as a stone. Fire in her hands and stars behind her eyelids. Her veins a web of light.
I rise
The empirium’s voice boomed inside her, singular and many. A wave threatening to crest, hungry for the shore.
I rise
I RISE
“No,” Eliana whispered. “I rise.”
Then she stood. She opened her eyes and looked once more into the eerie, silvered night. She watched Ostia’s light shift slowly in the sky and listened to the thrum of her power, how it moved through her body and into the air and back again. Her blood pulsed with the great ancient heartbeat of the world. A map of the empirium expanded before her, its brilliant vastness unspooling at her command. Cords of light rippling in an endless sea. Planes upon planes of shifting gold, and within them an infinite number of paths to walk.
A beat, a held breath. Something pulled at her—the tightness of a sky ready to split with lightning. Arabeth in hand, she found the path she needed and followed it back down into the Emperor’s city, the screams of the hunted rising to greet her and the gold eyes of her castings open wide in her palms.
29
Rielle
“I have decided not to tell anyone of what I saw in Meridian. Knowing that Rielle killed Grand Magister Belounnon will bring no comfort to anyone here. But I cannot stop thinking of the look on her face as she incinerated him: The shadows on her gaunt face. The furious molten gold of her eyes. One moment he was there. The next, there was fire, and he was gone. And before Annick and I fled, I looked back at Rielle and saw her trembling in the rain. She wept, her skin glowing with a faint gold sheen, and gazed across the sea toward the black eastern horizon.”
—Journal of Garver Randell, dated February 17, Year 1000 of the Second Age
Rielle knew after her first resurrection that it was impossible to continue working underground. All that weight above her, the mountain’s cold black bulk. She needed to see the sky.
Corien asked for no further explanation. He ordered a dozen of his soldiers and an outfit of one hundred adatrox to construct an altar on the mountain beside his fortress. A stone walkway led from one of the windows on the highest floor of the fortress, near Corien’s own rooms, out across the snow to this towering black edifice, dark against the mountain’s endless white.
The altar’s structure reminded Rielle of the Gate, which delighted her. Three steps led up to a flat plinth of black rock. There was a table of stone for the bodies to lie upon, and stone pillars flanked the spot where she would stand. The plinth itself was freshly engraved with wings, a whole storm of them, feathers so fine that Rielle knelt in her furs to run her fingers over their delicate grooves.