Audric
“The most remarkable thing has happened. I’ve met an ice dragon. A godsbeast, a creature of lore made flesh. Her name is Valdís, and she travels with one of the Kammerat, the legendary dragon-speakers—a man named Leevi. He looks to be Audric’s age, perhaps a year or two younger than I, and has told me an astonishing story. Leevi and Valdís have escaped a place called the Northern Reach. For long weeks they’ve been traveling to the High Villmark, where other Kammerat live in secret, guarding their dragon companions. Valdís has been ill, poisoned by angels, and I think Leevi might have killed me when I stumbled upon them, were it not for Valdís, who sensed in me the blood of Grimvald and found strength Leevi says she hasn’t shown in months. Tomorrow, we will ride together to the Kammerat. Leevi wants them to help free the others imprisoned in this angelic fortress. He says I, as Borsvall’s king, can help convince them. But how can we hope to win a war against beings so cruel and ingenious? I don’t know the answer, but I do know this: Tomorrow, sweet saints, I will ride a dragon.”
—Journal of Ilmaire Lysleva, dated January, Year 1000 of the Second Age
There she was—Rielle, in some distant Astavari forest, surrounded by ferns and brambles. Damp curls of hair clung to her cheeks and neck, and she sat in a bed of moss, wearing only dark tights and a thin white tunic, her hands and clothes stained with mud.
Audric nearly fell to his knees at the sight, fighting every instinct he possessed not to rush toward her at once. He tried to say her name, but it came out a whisper.
“Audric?” Rielle stared up at him, her cheeks wet with tears, her eyes shadowed and sleepless.
“Yes, I’m here. But not for long.” He took a halting step forward. He remembered Ludivine’s warning: pushing the boundaries of the mental connection she had reawakened between the three of them, forcing the vision beyond its limits, could cause it to lose its cohesion immediately—or worse, draw Corien’s attention.
“He’ll find me soon,” Ludivine said, behind him and to his left. Through the link of their minds, Audric could feel her trembling with exertion. Waves of longing butted gently against him, and he found it comforting to know that Ludivine was also in agony—to see Rielle, and yet not be able to touch her. A torment that stole away his breath.
“I’ve been practicing, Rielle,” Ludivine said, “growing stronger, working to extend the reach and stealth of my mind, but it still requires…” She paused, and Audric felt the breath of her exhaustion pass through him. “It requires enormous effort, and I have much still to learn.”
Rielle watched them in silence. Wherever she was, the light shifted, drawing out a strange gleam in her eyes.
“Darling, are you hurt?” Audric asked, struggling to keep his voice calm. “How are you feeling?” He searched her body for signs of injury and drank in all the things he had missed—the wild dark fall of her hair, the turn of her jaw, the space she occupied in the world. He imagined her warmth, the sweet weight of her body beside him, her head tucked under his. She seemed softer, somehow, even though her shadowed face was worryingly gaunt. Clearly, she was neither sleeping nor eating well.
Suddenly, he could no longer stand there and pretend to be strong. If he didn’t touch her—even only this pale, half-real brushing of his mind against hers, buoyed on the river of Ludivine’s power—if he did not reach out to her, cup her face in his hands, rest his brow against hers and feel her breathe with him, the ache in his chest would consume him. If he could not protect her, could not help her, he could at least try to reach for her.
He hurried forward, choked out her name, ignoring Ludivine’s backward tug of alarm—but Rielle scrambled away from him. As if he would hurt her, as if he had cornered her.
Immediately, Audric stepped back, his stomach pitching with shame.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He held up his hands. Tears built behind his eyes, but he refused them. “There is no excuse for the things I said to you that night. I understand why you left. Rielle…” But the memory of their wedding night, the bitter echo of what it could have been, was too terrible, too heavy, and it cracked his voice in two. “I am so sorry, my love.”
Rielle watched him in silence, her gaze bright and hard. It flickered to Ludivine, then back to him, and then, saying nothing, she rose to her feet and smoothed her hands down the front of her tunic, flattening it against her torso.
Audric nearly laughed with relief to see her standing there, her shoulders square and tense. Because there she was—his beloved, his Rielle—and there were her arms, there was the dip of her throat, the folds of tunic and trousers around her every curve.
He saw the change at once, and at the sight of her rounded stomach, her swollen breasts, he let out a small, strange sound that was neither laugh nor sob.
A smile flickered across Rielle’s face. There was a soft light in her eyes, and he rejoiced to see it.
But he could not quite dislodge the sudden fear that jumped into his mind. It was a horrible thing to wonder, a jealousy that deserved no place in this moment.
Was the child his? Or was it Corien’s?
He dismissed the thought as soon as it formed. The child was Rielle’s, and he would love it with all his heart.
“Oh, Rielle,” he breathed, smiling, and his desperate longing to hold her in his arms was a spear through his chest. “How are you feeling? Are you seeing a healer? I know you must be frightened and worried. The prophecy—”
“I saw that,” she said, her distant voice thistle-sharp. “I saw your face.” She let her arms fall, her hands in fists and her eyes snapping with fury. “That’s the first thing you think after all this time apart? Whether or not the child is yours.”
Audric’s heart sank. “No, Rielle, that doesn’t matter to me. The first thing I thought was how relieved I am to see you unhurt.”
“Liar,” she said coldly. Her gaze sparked an angry gold. “Rest assured, Audric—you were the one who did this to me. All of this.”
A violent force sliced the moment in two, falling between them like the drop of an ax.
Audric staggered back and collapsed, his head and shoulders forced to the floor, and by the time he was able to move again, the wood had disappeared, and so had Rielle.
He was in his apartment in the palace of Queen Bazati and Queen Fozeyah, and apart from Ludivine, he was alone.
His vision spinning, despair sewing his throat shut, Audric pressed his brow and fists into the soft rug. Vaguely, he heard Ludivine moving, and he looked up as she settled beside him, her face sweating and pale. Beyond her, the open windows framed a calm sea, the sun cheerfully lighting the water, the city, the ravaged beach. Darkness brewed at the horizon kissing the open sea, painting the sky a buttery slate blue.
“He found her,” Ludivine said, gently touching his knee. “I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.” She drew in a shaky breath. “He is stronger than he has ever been.”
Audric said nothing. He found the edge of the rug, where Rielle’s image had been moments before. He pressed his palms against it, hopelessly seeking the warm echo of her body.
After a long moment, Ludivine said softly, “The child is yours, Audric.”
“I wasn’t lying when I said it doesn’t matter to me.” The words were ash in his mouth and came too late. “She’ll be terrified regardless, and she’ll hate it and love it too, and that I can’t help her through this is a great unkindness dealt to us both. One I deserve but she does not.”
“I should tell you that Rielle knew before your wedding, as did I.”
Audric laughed bitterly. It was agony to imagine a world in which he and Rielle would be able to celebrate and worry together. He would dote on her, provide her with anything she desired. She would have everyone in Âme de la Terre fussing over her—or no one, if she preferred it.
“You knew a piece of information that was important for me to know,” he said, “and yet you kept it from me? Astonishing. Unprecedented.”
Ludivine was quiet. “She told me not to tell you. I could not ignore that.”
“If I’d known…”
He stopped himself, looked away.
“If you’d known,” Ludivine said, “you would have treated her more kindly in the gardens? You would have stopped to think? You would have shown your child mercy and understanding that you did not grant your wife?”
Audric stared at the floor until he recovered his voice, then glared at Ludivine. His blood was a quiet drum of anger.
“If I’d known,” Audric said tightly, “we would have had this joyful thing between us, a light to illuminate the darkness of that day. An anchor to help us weather its storms. You’re not wrong to accuse me of rashness, of foolishness, even of unkindness. But I am not alone in my mistakes. And none of that absolves you.”
Ludivine met his eyes for a long moment. The feeling of her own shame rose to meet his.
“Absolution,” she said at last, “is something I neither seek nor deserve.”
“On that, we can agree,” he said, which was perhaps unfair, but he could feel himself slipping back into the quiet black depths that had ruled his life for those first long weeks in Mazabat, and the hopelessness of that feeling, the inevitable weight of it, acted upon him like a drug, plying his tongue.
He rose, gathering the shreds of his voice, and sent her a silent dismissal.
“Thank you for your help,” he said aloud. “It was a gift to see her face again.”
Ludivine hesitated, then gently opened up all her love to him before leaving him to his solitude and the escape of sleep.
• • •
Not two hours later, Audric awoke to the feeling of rain on his face.
Audric, hurry, came Ludivine’s urgent voice. They need you.
The doors to his apartment burst open. Evyline rushed in with the rest of the Sun Guard.
“My king, we must move quickly,” Evyline said, her gaze darting to the windows.
Audric sat up and wiped his face. Atheria stood near the bed, shaking out her wings and mane. She pawed the rug, nostrils flaring.
Audric, glancing past her, immediately saw why.
He hurried to the windows, beyond which the world was dark, the tide high and furious. Huge churning waves spilled across the shore. Trees shook at a slant in the roaring wind. Even the castle seemed to sway. The sky swirled black with clouds, illuminated by jagged fans of lightning. Bells from the city’s seven temples chimed, faint through the howling storm.
Quickly, he found his clothes, threw on his jacket, pulled on his boots.
“Are they evacuating the city?” he asked.
“Yes, my king,” Evyline replied. “But there is much confusion, and many of the roadways are already flooded. They have seen hurricanes before, my king, especially in recent months, but have always had adequate time to prepare.”
Audric found Illumenor beside his bed. When his hand closed around the hilt, the familiar tremor of power flew from palm to shoulder. “Why did no one wake me sooner?”
“It came upon us in minutes, my king. Ten minutes ago, it was a clear day, the clouds distant.”
An ill feeling brewed in Audric’s chest. This was the Gate’s doing. “It is no ordinary storm, then.”
“I had wondered, my king,” said Evyline gravely.
A wave of screams from outside drew them out onto the terrace, where sheets of rain rippled like black veils. Atheria used her wings to shield them from the worst of it.
Audric squinted through the storm. What had once remained of the damaged beach had disappeared beneath climbing waves that must have surpassed one hundred feet, more whitecap than water. He watched in horror as great piles of wreckage swept out with the tide—bungalows and piers, the lookout towers that dotted the coastline, the market district, an entire neighborhood of apartments. With each wave, another piece of the city fell into the sea.
Ludivine appeared at his side, her expression solemn.
“How many people have died?” Audric asked her.
“Five hundred and two,” she said quietly.
“Where is Kamayin? The queens?”
“Organizing their elementals near the water, trying to fend off the worst of it.”
Audric turned at once and climbed onto Atheria’s back. He reached down to Ludivine, helped her settle behind him.
Evyline lurched forward. “My king, no!”
But Atheria had already pushed off into the wild air, and soon the terrace was far behind them. The chavaile dove through the rain and wind, dodging chunks of debris—uprooted trees, shattered wooden shutters, shards of roof tiles, black sprays of dirt and rock. As they flew, Audric surveyed the devastation below. Churning water surged through the flooded streets, carrying wreckage and drowned animals. The citizens of Quelbani climbed frantically for higher ground.
Atheria brought them to a broad stretch of road that had become the new shoreline, littered with seaweed, shells, and beached fish. Queen Bazati and Queen Fozeyah directed squadrons of elementals. Earthshakers struggled to stabilize the sodden ground. Windsingers, arms in the air, wrangled what wind they could.
And Princess Kamayin, her gown plastered to her body, the castings around her wrists flashing like trapped stars, shouted orders to a band of waterworkers gathered in a triangle. Their efforts subdued a crashing wave, shoving it back toward the sea—but more waves were just behind it, relentless and raging, and though Kamayin’s elementals fought valiantly, a helpless panic was writ plain on their faces.
They knew this was not a storm of the natural world.
They knew they might not survive it.
Audric guided Atheria down to land beside the queens, then leapt to the ground and drew Illumenor. The sun was distant, diminished by the storm and the late hour, but Audric nevertheless felt light everywhere around him. The infinite, familiar warmth of it, forever bright beyond the clouds, tugged at his heart like the rhythm of a long-beloved song.
As he focused on the connection between him and the light, on the power speeding faster and faster through his body, Illumenor began to glow. And when it had reached a brilliant shine, Audric released the tension in his body, directed his power outward, and cast broad rays of sunlight in a circle, himself the blazing heart.
He held the light in place, his mind gripping the vibrating reins of his power. The heat turned the rain to steam before it could hit the ground, and while standing within the bounds of Audric’s light, the elementals nearest him could wipe their faces and catch their breaths.
As he held his power steady, Audric glanced to his left and noticed Sanya, the soldier who had confronted him in the training yard. She was not, it seemed, an elemental. Instead, she was working with other soldiers to build high piles of debris and canvas bags filled with sand.
“Sanya!” he called out. “Bring me chains, rope—anything that can hold against the wind. The strongest things you can find!”
Sanya, her face screwed up against the lashing rain, leapt to obey, calling others to help her.
Kamayin rushed over, the castings around her wrists still faintly aglow, her soaked brown skin gleaming in Audric’s casted light. Beyond her, the queens continued shouting commands.
“What are you planning?” Kamayin cried.
Audric yelled to be heard. “I think I can break apart the storm.”
Kamayin’s gaze flitted over his sword, his arms. “You’re strong enough for that?”
An image flashed into his mind—Rielle riding Atheria out to meet the tidal wave that threatened Borsvall’s shores. How brilliantly she had burned against that dark wall of water, a beacon of hope for everyone who saw her.
He held the image close, aching with love. “I can do it. Lu, help them as you can. Focus their minds, boost their confidence.”
He expected her to protest, but she simply nodded, her pale eyes grave, locks of gold hair gone dark against her cheeks.
A burst of screams made Kamayin turn and cry out in despair.
Audric glanced back in time to see a massive wave bearing down on a section of beach some thousand yards away. The wave crested with a roar and then crashed down hard, flattening everything in its path.
“Here!” Sanya rushed over along with another soldier. Between them, they carried a length of huge, sand-crusted chain and a coil of sodden rope.
Audric called out to everyone gathered, “I’m going to release the light! Prepare yourselves!”
Elementals and soldiers alike turned back toward the storm, their expressions resolute. The windsingers raised their arms, and Audric felt the air tighten as they focused their power.
Then he released his hold on his own. Illumenor darkened, as did the beach. The rain crashed back down, and the soldiers resumed constructing their wall.
Audric climbed onto Atheria, shouting over the rain and wind, “The chain! Tie it around us! Tight, but not enough to hurt her!”
Sanya and the other soldier, Kamayin, and Ludivine all hurried forward, helping Audric wrap the lengths of chain around his legs and waist and around Atheria’s stomach until he was anchored snugly in place between her trembling wings.
Then, reading his intentions, Atheria knelt, looked over at Sanya, and snorted.
Sanya hesitated, clutching the coil of rope in her hands. “My lord…the storm will blow your godsbeast from the sky.”
Audric raised his hands, Illumenor gripped between them. “As tight as you can, Sanya. Tighter than you think you should.”
Sanya shot him a single worried look, then hurried to obey, wrapping the rope several times around his hands and Illumenor’s hilt, so tightly his hands bloomed with pain.
More screams rose from behind him, at the city’s edge, but he did not turn back to look.
Ludivine sent him a sharp hot wave of encouragement. Go, my darling.
Audric closed his eyes, sending Atheria a silent apology.
“With the dawn I rise,” he prayed. “With the day I blaze.”
Then he roared, “Fly!” and Atheria pushed hard off the sand and into the air—where the wind immediately knocked them violently to the side. Atheria recovered fast, her wings beating furiously.
The storm was immeasurable, colossal. Wind howled and wailed, pounding against them as the waves below battered the shore. Atheria fought hard to stay aloft, bowing her head against the wind. Feathers were ripped from her wings and went spinning off into the clouds. Her body quaked beneath him, and he knew a lesser creature would already have been decimated.
Ahead of them towered a black wall of clouds, lit with lightning.
Past that, said Ludivine in his mind, lies the eye of the storm. It is calmer than the rest.
Audric closed his eyes, forcing past the fear racking his body to focus his thoughts and envision the task ahead. It was a wild theory, one that was very possibly wrong: that a burst of raw power, if it was strong enough, if it struck true, could shift the empirium itself and break apart the storm at its foundations.
Such an act could also kill him. If he threw every scrap of his power at the storm, what would be left of him without it?
But he could not dwell on thoughts of death. Instead, Audric imagined himself and Atheria flying through that thick wall of clouds, then bursting into light and safety on the other side.
And the vision of Rielle stayed with him like a swell of warmth in his heart—she and Atheria, a small starburst of light fighting that raging wall of water in the Northern Sea.
Audric forced open his eyes and saw nothing but furious black clouds. A blast of wind slammed into Atheria, knocking their course askew and sending Audric’s stomach down to his toes. But then Atheria pushed herself back up, battling the wind’s relentless fists.
A bolt of lightning erupted so close that Audric’s head rang with the crackling heat of it. His teeth ached, and his mouth and nose filled with a sour, hot smell that reminded him of the acrid stench that had scorched the air when Rielle had tried and failed to mend the Gate.
His body buzzed with energy that was not his own. It came from the storm, this Gate-made hurricane. It raged against his skin, it burned his lungs, and he began to fear that he had made a terrible mistake, that whatever he could do would not possibly be enough in the face of such godly power. The Gate was made in a time of bloodshed and desperation. This storm’s very nature, its lineage, was that of fury.
Shakily, he reached out with his mind. Lu?
I’m here, came her steady voice. And so are you, Lightbringer. Show yourself.
Audric closed his eyes once more, sucked in a breath, and thrust his hands into the air, Illumenor clutched tightly between them.
Immediately, the wind caught the broad blade and sent them spinning until Atheria righted them and pushed forward with a piercing cry.
Audric, his head reeling as if he had been struck, faced the spitting clouds and began to pray. With the dawn I rise.
Memories flooded him: himself as a child, training in the royal gardens with Magister Guillory, every fern and pine of that shadowed green world ornamented with sunbursts he had pulled down from the sky.
With the day I blaze.
His eight-year-old hands, pudgy and sweaty but nevertheless steady in the air, keeping those countless lights suspended and slowly turning. Nearby, watching proudly, his mother and father, arm in arm.
And now, even caught in the thrashing storm, Audric felt the sunlight rising around him, responding to the call of his power. Illumenor blazed in his hands, so bright he could no longer see past it. Its brilliance was his entire world, and it burned its shape into his eyes.
Then a concentrated gust of wind burst to life behind them, pushing them forward into the black wall of clouds.
With the dawn I rise.
He realized, as the Sun Rite raced through his thoughts, that the push of wind had been too precise, too focused, to be natural. And the feeling of it—teeming with hope and gratitude, vibrating with power—confirmed his guess.
The windsingers down below had sent this wind to him. Together, they had mustered up enough power to help him and Atheria make this last desperate push.
With the day I blaze, Audric thought, his hands tingling with power, and when he and Atheria burst through the wall of clouds and into the storm’s eye, his relief was so immense that he cried out, and his power erupted with joy. Energy coursed through him, so violent and vivid that he felt certain it would tear him in two. He imagined the full breadth of the storm, sprawling black and angry over the sea, and the infinite layers of the empirium that wove through it like panes of golden glass. They touched the clouds and the lightning, the blade in his hands, the power in his veins. Broad spears of light exploded from Illumenor, and the world blazed white and hot.
In the ringing silence that followed, his vision slowly returned to him, though his head pounded with pain that blacked out half the world. Dimly, he realized that Atheria was flying desperately back to shore. He looked around, blinking darkness from his eyes. The storm had lost cohesion, its clouds scattered and quickly disintegrating. Calm winds rushed past him, cooling his scorched cheeks as Atheria bolted over the water.
He felt a dull ache pounding up his arms and looked down at his hands.
Illumenor’s hilt glistened with blood. His palms screamed with a blistering agony so ferocious it stabbed his teeth.
Ludivine reached for him, the gentle wash of her tenderness muting all sensation. Soon, he could feel no pain.
You can let go, Audric, she told him. They’re safe.
He did, letting his arms drop. Swaying on Atheria’s back, woozy, he watched firewheels of color spin before his eyes. He wondered if he was dying, if he would ever see Rielle again, and what she would think when she learned what he had done. Then he collapsed against Atheria’s neck.
• • •
Gently, at the sound of a familiar voice calling his name, Audric began to stir, and he only let himself rise to wakefulness because the voice was Rielle’s.
He followed it skyward, pushing through the painful weight that pressed against him, this pressure that wanted to bury him. An immensity of exhaustion.
Then he saw her—his love, his Rielle, dressed in white, her hair loose and her face shining with love. She reached for him; she bid him climb.
But when Audric opened his eyes, her name on his lips, the vision vanished. It was only Ludivine looking down at him. She sat beside him on the bed, her eyes shining with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had to wake you. I couldn’t wait any longer to see your eyes again.”
Audric turned away from her. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Ludivine came around the bed to sit beside him. Gently cradling one of his bandaged hands, she raised his wrist to her lips and kissed it.
“You did it,” she whispered. “The storm broke. Your power shattered it. You unmade it, Lightbringer. The sea is calm. You saved the city.”
Audric breathed until his grief loosened its black hold. A question came to him, even as his heart still ached.
Ludivine smiled softly, reading his question. “Yes. Yes, Audric. They all saw you do it. They watched Atheria fly. It was like nothing they had ever seen. They stood on the beach, and the elementals felt it the moment your power erupted. The shock of it sang through their bodies and sent their own power blazing. They told the soldiers, and the soldiers told the people, and now the city speaks of you and the saints in the same breath.” She touched his face, and he was so tired that he forgot to be angry with her and pressed his cheek into her palm.
Ludivine trembled as she kissed his brow. “Now, come. They’re waiting for you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
A small hope sparked inside him, drawing him to his feet. He allowed Ludivine to help him dress. All the while, he gazed at his hands, then sent her a silent inquiry.
“They will heal,” she replied gently. “The queen’s personal physicians treated you. They are enormously skilled, and say the empirium seems to be aiding their own treatment. They say that within a week you will be able to take off the bandages. Within two, you will hold Illumenor once more.”
He nodded, wobbly and cotton-mouthed. He leaned hard against Ludivine as they proceeded downstairs, Evyline and the Sun Guard just behind them. When they reached the Senate hall, Audric pulled gently away from Ludivine, ready to walk on his own.
But then the doors opened, and Audric stared, his pulse rising fast, for not only had the entire Senate gathered—all two hundred members, robed in the colors of their districts—but so had their aides, their advisers, the Magisterial Council. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians. As he passed General Rakallo, she placed her hand on her chest and bowed low. They were all bowing. They sank to their knees, touched their lips, chests, and foreheads in prayer.
On the room’s central dais, the queens rose from their seats. Princess Kamayin, beaming, came forward and pinned to Audric’s lapel a blue iris—one of the most prized flowers in Mazabat and the symbol of the crown.
The high speaker of the Senate stepped forward with a scroll in her hands, and Audric listened in weary shock as her voice rang through the hall.
“On the matter of the petition of King Audric Courverie of the nation of Celdaria,” said the speaker, “who has requested military aid to invade that country’s capital and oust the usurper, Merovec Sauvillier, with the far-reaching objective of establishing a base of defense against potential angelic invaders, the Senate has decided to reconsider our previous decision. We have taken into consideration the counsel of our queens, the holy magisters, and the Mazabatian people, whose voices have bestowed upon us our seats of power.”
The high speaker glanced up at Audric, her face unreadable. “We have also considered recent events, including the hurricane that nearly destroyed our capital and the actions of the Celdarian king in that moment of crisis—actions that could have cost him his life.”
She paused. “Our final vote is unanimous. We hereby move that the Celdarian petition be revisited and accepted and that the crown approve the king’s request for military aid—first for the purpose of reclaiming the Celdarian throne, but more importantly, to provide assistance in the war against the angel Corien and any conflicts that may follow thereafter.”
Then the high speaker presented her scroll to the queens, rolling it out flat on a stand of polished wood, and at last gave Audric a small smile.
“If you concur with this motion to approve the Celdarian petition, my queens,” said the speaker, “your signatures will confirm our vote.”
Queen Bazati stepped forward, her head held high, and signed the paper with a flourish. Then Queen Fozeyah added her own name with a broad smile.
Kamayin rushed to Audric and threw her arms around him, and he watched over her shoulder, his head roaring with disbelief, as everyone in the hall rose to their feet and erupted into thunderous applause.