Lightbringer (Empirium 3)

Her acolytes wondered, as they glanced at her, what she was seeing. They looked at her black eyes, half-lidded as she worked, and shuddered. Even though they loved her, the sight of her sometimes unsettled them. After all, her eyes were black like his. Her mind was ageless and unknowable like his. Even if she did tell them what she saw as she sat motionless in her chair, they wouldn’t be able to understand it—how she could see so much at once, how her mind could be so immense and yet remain hidden right under his nose.

What did she see?

A city once grand and white, obnoxious in its swaggering beauty, now overrun with monsters.

A bruised eye hovering above the city. Crimson and pulsing violet, like a fresh wound, and edged with crackling blue light. Out of it poured a black river of wings and scales, claws and fur. Clever sinuous heads with gnashing teeth. Sharp beaks snapping for prey.

Once, Ludivine would have grown angry to see the destruction Corien had wrought. The hysterical fear of his citizens, how hopelessly trapped they were. The people of Elysium had traded their families and their freedom to escape the savagery of war.

And now look at them.

But Ludivine was past anger now, had been past it for hundreds of years. She no longer knew grief or loneliness. She felt no regret, no shame, no lingering ache of lost love. All feeling had fused inside her, plating her insides with steel.

The only thing left was the end. It had burned in her chest for centuries, an immovable blue flame that grew as she did, brightening as the pieces of her plan fell into the places she had made for them.

She stretched her mind a little further.

There was Navi and the Red Crown captain Ysabet. Hob and Patrik. Navi’s brother, Malik, and ninety-two others. Zahra was leading them toward the city through the rocky fields, cloaking them from sight. Ludivine watched Zahra closely. The wraith had used much of her strength to hide the Queenslight as it navigated the Sea of Silarra, evading dozens of imperial warships.

She would die soon. Ludivine could see that clearly. Only thin threads of strength kept the wraith’s mind in one piece.

Hurry, Zahra, Ludivine commanded. The link between them remained steady, guiding the wraith through the city’s pandemonium. Centuries ago, she would not have been able to achieve such a thing—to find Zahra, one wraith in a sea of minds, and guide her halfway across the world.

It was astonishing what a millennium of heartbreak could do. Centuries of working alone in the dark to make her mind what it now was.

She smiled a little. What was Corien so fond of saying? I am infinite.

Now, he was no longer the only angel who could make such grandiose claims. Now, she was strong enough to match him.

Maybe strong enough to beat him, for she had been smarter than he had. More careful, more sparing with whom and what she chose to control.

She stretched her mind a little further.

There was Remy, wiry and silent as he followed her path through the city. He had an open mind, clever and pliable, and he accepted her guidance as his own instinct. She saw the scars Elysium had left in his mind—the horrors of Vaera Bashta, the torment of Corien, his parents’ deaths, Jessamyn’s brutal tutelage—and was pleased. He would be more helpful to Eliana this way.

And in the end, if they succeeded, his scars wouldn’t matter.

Remy climbed up one of the palace gutters and slipped inside a smashed window. Someone had thrown a head through the glass. The prisoners of Vaera Bashta were gathering at the palace doors, roaring to be heard, pounding on the walls, begging for entrance. Corien’s troops had scattered through the city to fight the cruciata, desperate to avoid the bright blue sprays of blood. Using vaecordia, the same massive mechanized cannons that Corien had sent to the Gate, a regiment of angels fired at Ostia and the cruciata scrambling out of it.

Ludivine, sitting quietly at the outermost edges of Remy’s mind, led him into a small chamber on the palace’s third floor. The nurses’ ward, where Corien’s physicians patched up mutilated human bodies until they were suitable for angelic use. Remy had stolen weapons from the Lyceum before the prisoners had invaded it—two little daggers and a sword strapped to his back. Jessamyn had trained him well in their short time together, and the four adatrox hovering listlessly at the doors were useless fighters. Angels no longer guided their movements. They moaned wordless cries of agony, swung their blunt fists, tried to ram Remy against the wall.

He darted between them, slashed their throats, then hurried inside the room.

There was Jessamyn, gritting her teeth as she pulled on her boots and jacket over her bandages. Ludivine felt them lay eyes on each other. Jessamyn: surprised relief. Remy: weary gladness. He hadn’t thought he would be lucky enough to find her.

The cruciata have invaded the city, he told Jessamyn.

I can see that. Her wry reply.

He approached her carefully. Ludivine sensed how prepared he was to kill her if she tried to stop him. She was wounded; he might manage it.

I need your help, he said. I don’t know the palace. You do. And you’re a better fighter than I am. We need to get Eliana out of here.

Jessamyn nodded. I’d thought of that. Who else can stop the beasts? The Emperor certainly can’t. She eyed his belt. I need a knife.

He tossed her one, and they ran. Ludivine watched them weave through the palace toward Corien’s favorite theater. Music began to play, accompanying their quick, light footsteps. Brass horns set high in the rafters crackled with sound. Lights flashed at each juncture of wire that connected them—galvanized power, sparking as it worked. Lamps flickered in their casings.

The music was choral, sweeping, triumphant. Ludivine recognized it as the symphony Corien had commissioned from a recent acquisition—a young composer from Mazabat, prodigiously talented, who had surrendered to save her wife.

Ludivine dared to brush her mind across the theater, the barest sweep of a touch. She saw Corien lounging in his favored curtained box, flush with wine. He had locked the doors; he was brooding. The city was falling down around him, and he was ignoring it. He had nearly killed Eliana, and realizing that had frightened him. So there he sat, furious and terrified, unwilling to face the reality of his failure.

Or so Ludivine supposed; she would not dare touch his mind. But after thousands of years, she knew him well enough to guess.

Below, the audience—bloodstained and wild-eyed, plucked from the city by Corien’s generals to enhance the evening’s entertainment—applauded frantically for the orchestra. Ludivine felt the frenzied buzz of their thoughts: maybe, if they cheered loudly enough, the Emperor would let them stay inside, locked away and safe.

And sitting in a chair near Corien was Eliana, unconscious and horribly pale, sweating out nightmares Corien had left wedged in the brittle glass of her mind.

Only when she looked at Eliana did Ludivine feel pain. Her face was the perfect combination of Rielle’s and Audric’s. His full mouth, her arched brows. Her sharp jaw, his lovely brown eyes. colytes wondered, as they glanced at her, what she was seeing. They looked at her black eyes, half-lidded as she worked, and shuddered. Even though they loved her, the sight of her sometimes unsettled them. After all, her eyes were black like his. Her mind was ageless and unknowable like his. Even if she did tell them what she saw as she sat motionless in her chair, they wouldn’t be able to understand it—how she could see so much at once, how her mind could be so immense and yet remain hidden right under his nose.

What did she see?

A city once grand and white, obnoxious in its swaggering beauty, now overrun with monsters.

A bruised eye hovering above the city. Crimson and pulsing violet, like a fresh wound, and edged with crackling blue light. Out of it poured a black river of wings and scales, claws and fur. Clever sinuous heads with gnashing teeth. Sharp beaks snapping for prey.

Once, Ludivine would have grown angry to see the destruction Corien had wrought. The hysterical fear of his citizens, how hopelessly trapped they were. The people of Elysium had traded their families and their freedom to escape the savagery of war.

And now look at them.

But Ludivine was past anger now, had been past it for hundreds of years. She no longer knew grief or loneliness. She felt no regret, no shame, no lingering ache of lost love. All feeling had fused inside her, plating her insides with steel.

The only thing left was the end. It had burned in her chest for centuries, an immovable blue flame that grew as she did, brightening as the pieces of her plan fell into the places she had made for them.

She stretched her mind a little further.

There was Navi and the Red Crown captain Ysabet. Hob and Patrik. Navi’s brother, Malik, and ninety-two others. Zahra was leading them toward the city through the rocky fields, cloaking them from sight. Ludivine watched Zahra closely. The wraith had used much of her strength to hide the Queenslight as it navigated the Sea of Silarra, evading dozens of imperial warships.

She would die soon. Ludivine could see that clearly. Only thin threads of strength kept the wraith’s mind in one piece.

Hurry, Zahra, Ludivine commanded. The link between them remained steady, guiding the wraith through the city’s pandemonium. Centuries ago, she would not have been able to achieve such a thing—to find Zahra, one wraith in a sea of minds, and guide her halfway across the world.

It was astonishing what a millennium of heartbreak could do. Centuries of working alone in the dark to make her mind what it now was.

She smiled a little. What was Corien so fond of saying? I am infinite.

Now, he was no longer the only angel who could make such grandiose claims. Now, she was strong enough to match him.

Maybe strong enough to beat him, for she had been smarter than he had. More careful, more sparing with whom and what she chose to control.

She stretched her mind a little further.

There was Remy, wiry and silent as he followed her path through the city. He had an open mind, clever and pliable, and he accepted her guidance as his own instinct. She saw the scars Elysium had left in his mind—the horrors of Vaera Bashta, the torment of Corien, his parents’ deaths, Jessamyn’s brutal tutelage—and was pleased. He would be more helpful to Eliana this way.

And in the end, if they succeeded, his scars wouldn’t matter.

Remy climbed up one of the palace gutters and slipped inside a smashed window. Someone had thrown a head through the glass. The prisoners of Vaera Bashta were gathering at the palace doors, roaring to be heard, pounding on the walls, begging for entrance. Corien’s troops had scattered through the city to fight the cruciata, desperate to avoid the bright blue sprays of blood. Using vaecordia, the same massive mechanized cannons that Corien had sent to the Gate, a regiment of angels fired at Ostia and the cruciata scrambling out of it.

Ludivine, sitting quietly at the outermost edges of Remy’s mind, led him into a small chamber on the palace’s third floor. The nurses’ ward, where Corien’s physicians patched up mutilated human bodies until they were suitable for angelic use. Remy had stolen weapons from the Lyceum before the prisoners had invaded it—two little daggers and a sword strapped to his back. Jessamyn had trained him well in their short time together, and the four adatrox hovering listlessly at the doors were useless fighters. Angels no longer guided their movements. They moaned wordless cries of agony, swung their blunt fists, tried to ram Remy against the wall.

He darted between them, slashed their throats, then hurried inside the room.

There was Jessamyn, gritting her teeth as she pulled on her boots and jacket over her bandages. Ludivine felt them lay eyes on each other. Jessamyn: surprised relief. Remy: weary gladness. He hadn’t thought he would be lucky enough to find her.

The cruciata have invaded the city, he told Jessamyn.

I can see that. Her wry reply.

He approached her carefully. Ludivine sensed how prepared he was to kill her if she tried to stop him. She was wounded; he might manage it.

I need your help, he said. I don’t know the palace. You do. And you’re a better fighter than I am. We need to get Eliana out of here.

Jessamyn nodded. I’d thought of that. Who else can stop the beasts? The Emperor certainly can’t. She eyed his belt. I need a knife.

He tossed her one, and they ran. Ludivine watched them weave through the palace toward Corien’s favorite theater. Music began to play, accompanying their quick, light footsteps. Brass horns set high in the rafters crackled with sound. Lights flashed at each juncture of wire that connected them—galvanized power, sparking as it worked. Lamps flickered in their casings.

The music was choral, sweeping, triumphant. Ludivine recognized it as the symphony Corien had commissioned from a recent acquisition—a young composer from Mazabat, prodigiously talented, who had surrendered to save her wife.

Ludivine dared to brush her mind across the theater, the barest sweep of a touch. She saw Corien lounging in his favored curtained box, flush with wine. He had locked the doors; he was brooding. The city was falling down around him, and he was ignoring it. He had nearly killed Eliana, and realizing that had frightened him. So there he sat, furious and terrified, unwilling to face the reality of his failure.

Or so Ludivine supposed; she would not dare touch his mind. But after thousands of years, she knew him well enough to guess.

Below, the audience—bloodstained and wild-eyed, plucked from the city by Corien’s generals to enhance the evening’s entertainment—applauded frantically for the orchestra. Ludivine felt the frenzied buzz of their thoughts: maybe, if they cheered loudly enough, the Emperor would let them stay inside, locked away and safe.

And sitting in a chair near Corien was Eliana, unconscious and horribly pale, sweating out nightmares Corien had left wedged in the brittle glass of her mind.

Only when she looked at Eliana did Ludivine feel pain. Her face was the perfect combination of Rielle’s and Audric’s. His full mouth, her arched brows. Her sharp jaw, his lovely brown eyes.