Lightbringer (Empirium 3)

“I’m not ready yet,” Rielle said at last. “I thought I could do it; I felt how close I was. I’ve been close.” She cried tears she did not ask for, registered a sadness that felt too far from her to touch. Her mind was wrapped in sheets of thick cotton. She wanted to lie down in the dirt and sleep for months. Her nose and mouth filled with the scent and taste of blood. Her thoughts crested and dove, darting from desire to desire, and she didn’t know how to quiet them.

Corien said nothing. He lifted her into his arms, held her close against his chest.

“You need rest,” he said quietly. “True rest. We have four castings now. There is time before we need to find the others.” He brushed a kiss across her cheek, then whispered, “I’ll show you my home. A place of industry and monstrous beauty. The water is black and cold, the snow endless and clean.”

Rielle hardly heard him. Her vision tilted, and she tipped into a rocking sea of half consciousness. Following her was Corien’s voice, and chasing that, a vision: herself robed in red, haloed with light. Stars and moons rained upon her open palms, waterfalls made from the night sky. At her feet knelt Corien, legions of angels behind him—all winged, all armored.

You will open the Gate, he told her, and you will remake the world.

But Rielle heard the doubt in his voice, the fear and worry.

As she spiraled into blackness, another voice came to her from the distant ocean of her power. A voice that rumbled and quaked. A voice of many, and of one. She recognized it at once. It was the endless ancient black of Atheria’s eyes. It was the roar of her own blood as she watched her shadow-dragon lick the Archon’s cheek, ready to devour him. It was the humming snap of power in her veins when she turned fire into feathers, when she tamed oceans, when she killed, and killed, and killed again.

It was the voice of the empirium, and it burned its cold, pitiless words into her mind like a brand she could not evade:

this power is yours

you are mine

mine is yours

take it

take me

I take you

I rise

I RISE

Simon

“Do you think I want to write this decree? Do you think I yearn for more death? No, my friend. But do you hear what they call us? Saint Katell the Magnificent. Saint Grimvald the Mighty. And yet we are holding together what remains of this world with only our own tired hands. I don’t know if the Gate will stand. But I know what I saw, and I know the true danger of marques just as well as you do. We cannot allow this all to happen again. The world will not survive it.”

—Undated encoded letter from Saint Katell the Magnificent to Saint Grimvald the Mighty, stolen from the archives of the First Great Library of Quelbani

Simon sat in a chair just outside the Emperor’s private study, pretending to read the book in his hands.

But what truly interested him was the young woman sitting nervously across from him.

Her name was Jessamyn, and she was a student of Invictus—the Emperor’s private regiment of human assassins, all of them ruthless, all of them devoted to the angelic cause. She had lightly freckled brown skin and a neat braid dyed bright red, which would no doubt change soon. The Lyceum, which housed the Invictus barracks and training yards, was as full of hair dyes, masks, and costumes as a playhouse.

Simon studied her. She was picking her nails, as if sitting in the receiving room outside the Emperor’s study was a terrible bore. But Simon knew better. All Invictus operatives were the same. He saw the sheen of sweat at her hairline. He saw her nervous gaze flit to the study’s closed door, to the Emperor’s secretary at his desk, to the attendants flanking the outer doors, then back to her nails.

She was terrified.

As she should be.

He smiled to himself. Corien would enjoy watching her squirm.

“You’re the Invictus trainee, aren’t you?” Simon said. “Jessamyn, yes?”

The girl’s expression soured, but then quickly calmed.

Simon expected as much. Her teacher had been Varos, an assassin Corien had been fond of, who had recently been killed during the attack on Festival. By Harkan, of all people. It was a shame to lose a good assassin, but it was a comfort to know that before Varos died, he had managed to dispose of that Venteran fool.

All of this had been in Jessamyn’s report. And in Varos’s journal, which Simon had confiscated on the Emperor’s behalf, there were many notes about Jessamyn herself—that she was desperate to prove herself to the Emperor. That she learned quickly and struck fast, and that she despised her human name.

What Varos hadn’t known, and what Jessamyn herself still did not, was that Eliana had known her, had fought with her—or at least she had known a Jessamyn who had existed but did no longer.

Thanks to him.

“Yes, Jessamyn,” she said tightly. “That’s correct.”

Simon inspected her, head to toe. “Interesting that he would want to speak with a person of so little consequence.”

To her credit, Jessamyn only inclined her head—though Simon saw a muscle in her jaw twitch.

“Nevertheless, I hope I can be of service to him,” she replied. “Do you know why he wants to see me?”

“The Emperor has heard much about you and is curious. He likes to know which students the Lyceum particularly prizes. He would like to see you for himself and express his sympathy for your teacher’s death. Also, a word of advice: You shouldn’t ask questions like that.” Simon closed his book and fixed her with a cold stare. “It makes you sound like a child, not a killer.”

From inside Corien’s study came the explosive sound of shattering glass.

Jessamyn flew to her feet, reaching for the dagger at her hip.

The Emperor’s black-eyed secretary jumped in his chair, and even Simon, who was used to such things, had to blink to adjust his vision, for the secretary’s body shifted and blurred, a dark aura forming about his skin.

He bolted out of his chair. He clutched his neck, his chest and arms, and let out a strangled cry before staggering out of the receiving room and into the corridor. Slightly disgusted, Simon watched him go. It wasn’t the first time a small disruption had shaken this particular secretary. He was a strong enough angel to hold on to a human body for a time, but not strong enough to keep that hold if something distracted him. His grasp of the empirium was tenuous.

As it was for all but the strongest angels, since the Fall of the Blood Queen.

“Follow him,” Simon ordered the waiting attendants. “He’s losing cohesion.” o;I’m not ready yet,” Rielle said at last. “I thought I could do it; I felt how close I was. I’ve been close.” She cried tears she did not ask for, registered a sadness that felt too far from her to touch. Her mind was wrapped in sheets of thick cotton. She wanted to lie down in the dirt and sleep for months. Her nose and mouth filled with the scent and taste of blood. Her thoughts crested and dove, darting from desire to desire, and she didn’t know how to quiet them.