37

Eliana

“You don’t think I long for her coming as desperately as you do? Friends, not a day, not a moment, goes by that I do not imagine the Sun Queen appearing to us at last, battered and bloody and blazing with light, ready to give herself to our enemy so that we may live again. She is with me in dreams and in waking. She roars in my blood like a passion unmatched. And so must she live in yours, so you will be ready to fight alongside her on the day of reckoning we know awaits us all.”

—The Word of the Prophet

The seven acolytes who served Ludivine moved quietly as cats. They brought a hot stew of beef and vegetables, cups of fresh water, a second chair, a small table.

Eliana had been given a soft tunic and trousers to replace her ruined gown. She sat very still as the acolytes came and went from the circular stone chamber. She watched Ludivine replace the three candles, which had nearly burnt out. In the dim light, shadows flickered across Ludivine’s pale face. Her golden hair, bound in a tidy knot, glinted softly. Her gown whispered at her ankles; she made hardly a sound as she moved. She was mighty in her stillness, a quiet river with floods waiting inside it.

Clammy with nerves, Eliana recalled the Prophet’s voice and tried to match it to the woman gliding across the room. Never step out of that little river. Keep your feet cool and grounded, even as your hands begin to blaze.

Ludivine settled in her chair, quietly ate a few spoonfuls of stew, then placed the bowl on the table between them.

“There was no other way to get you safely across the Great Ocean to me,” said Ludivine, as if they had been talking for hours, “and no other way for you to become what you are now. I needed you to break, and then I needed you to rebuild yourself into something stronger than you were before. Into a version of yourself capable of facing your mother at the height of her power. What you were before was not enough. What you are now will be, I hope.”

Ludivine’s face shifted slightly, as if gathering itself. “I cannot express how sorry I am for what you have endured. But I’m not sorry for what I have done. Regret is poison. It would kill me.”

Her black eyes flicked to Eliana’s untouched bowl of stew. “I don’t want to force you to eat, but I will if I must. You need strength for what lies ahead.”

A jolt of anger flashed hot through Eliana. “Is my brother being fed?”

“Of course. My acolytes will also tend to his injuries. All of them are skilled physicians. And no, I will not allow him to hurt any of them, nor will I allow him to hurt Simon, nor will I allow him to escape. He is comfortable. His mind is resting.”

“Your mind is forcing his to rest, you mean. Keeping him docile.”

Ludivine inclined her head. “Eat.”

Eliana imagined picking up her bowl and throwing it at Ludivine’s face. Maybe the stew was hot enough to scorch her. She thought through every beat of the image so that Ludivine would see it. But Ludivine said nothing, only watched her mildly. Eliana’s fingers trembled around her spoon.

“You have questions.” Ludivine folded her hands in her lap. “Ask them.”

Her first few bites had awoken in Eliana a ferocious hunger. At first, she said nothing, shoveling food into her mouth. After a few minutes, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve, let her spoon drop into the empty bowl. Then she fixed her eyes on Ludivine’s.

“You say it was the only way to bring me here safely,” Eliana said. Unspoken words hovered between them, vibrating and tense. Images battered Eliana’s mind: Simon standing on the pier’s edge and shooting down their friends; Remy on the deck of the admiral’s ship, being dragged away from her; their father falling to his death.

She placed her feet flat on the floor, seeking calm. “Why couldn’t you have come to me? You’re clearly powerful enough to evade Corien’s detection. Why hide here and wait for me? Something could have happened. A storm could have sunk the admiral’s ship. I could have managed to kill myself.”

“A storm was unlikely. The passage you took is well traveled for a reason. And I have demonstrated that I wouldn’t have allowed you to kill yourself,” said Ludivine. “As I told you, I needed you to break and then be reborn as your truest self. If I had come to you, none of this would have happened. You would still be small and human, frightened of the power in your blood.” Ludivine tilted her head. “You are familiar with the legend of the Kirvayan firebird? To rise, first one must burn.”

Eliana glared at her. “I am still human.”

“Not entirely. Humans cannot do what you can do. Humans cannot do what your mother could do. You are something more than that, and so was she. You know this.”

“You could have come to me,” Eliana insisted. “You could have done to me everything that Corien did, remade me as you saw fit. There was no need to bring me here. Remy would have been spared what he’s gone through. Maybe my father would still be alive.”

“Centuries ago, the city of Âme de la Terre occupied this land. Now, it is Elysium. Corien constructed his palace not far from where the castle of Baingarde once stood.” Ludivine paused. “It is difficult enough for even the most skilled marque to travel through time. To ensure success, I eliminated the need to travel through space as well.”

“Traveling through time.” Eliana swallowed, her throat dry. “You want to send me back, to find my mother. Or to kill her?”

A slight flicker of feeling on Ludivine’s placid face. “Hopefully, it will not come to that. You will come upon your mother in a moment of peace, when her mind is clear and open and her loyalties are still firmly with Celdaria. You will attempt to reason with her, convince her to turn on Corien and kill him. If she attacks, you will fight her until she surrenders or you reach an impasse. Or you will come back, and we will try again. Another day, another moment. We will try until we cannot anymore. We will try until we run out of time.”

“You mean until Corien finds us.”

Ludivine inclined her head.

“And then? Once we’ve run out of time?”

Ludivine paused. “Then you will return to the past a final time, and you will kill her and Corien. You will close the Gate as soon as you can, before any more angels can escape the Deep.” The silence was thunderous. “As I said, hopefully, it will not come to that.”

Eliana’s bile rose. “But if I kill her before I am born, how would any of this work? How could I go back to kill her if I never existed?”

“I have been assured by someone much more intimately familiar with the art of time travel than I am that if the threads are pulled in the correct sequence, if the magic is calibrated precisely, this paradox can be avoided. If you are forced to kill her, if she leaves you no other choice, you will kill her—and thereby yourself, past and present. I sincerely hope it does not come to that. You must not let it come to that.”

Eliana felt nothing at the thought of her own death; she had long ago surpassed such small, narrow fears. But at the mention of time travel, a bubble burst inside her. She could no longer contain the question. Her fingernails dug into the table’s polished wood, leaving tiny gold crescents behind.

“Simon,” she bit out. “Tell me.”

Ludivine lifted her glass of water to her lips. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“No, I won’t. You can sense my questions, and you are no fool. You know what I’m asking.” Tears rose fast, but she was too angry to dash them from her eyes.

Ludivine watched her thoughtfully. “Do you remember when Simon sent you back to Old Celdaria? You attempted to reach Rielle. She fought you, and you were too weak to match her.”

“Of course I remember. How could I not?”

“Corien was there that day, in Rielle’s mind. When you arrived, he skimmed your thoughts.”

Eliana tensed. She would never forget the words. Ah, Eliana. This is not our first time to meet, it seems. How curious.

Ludivine nodded. “The Emperor had touched your mind before, but only distantly and without much success. He knew you existed but could only find your thoughts intermittently, much to his frustration.”

“Because of you?”

“Because of me. But that day, you were far from me, in another time, and that Corien was able to find you, if only for a moment. And he said something else, didn’t he?”

A chill moved slowly down Eliana’s arms as she remembered Corien’s words. What a life you have led. What interesting company you keep.

“I remember,” she said, a mere whisper.

“In that moment, he did not see everything we had worked for, but he saw enough of it,” Ludivine continued. “He saw Simon and knew he was a marque. He knew you loved him but was not sure if he loved you. He knew that you meant to end his Empire before it truly began. He knew enough, and when you returned to your present, it was altered.”

Ludivine leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly weary. “I, of course, saw all of this too. I saw it in Rielle’s mind when she came home that night. But I kept everything I knew from her, and from Audric too. I was a coward then. I was too afraid of what this all might mean, and I didn’t act until it was too late. I could not face the scope of my own failure. So I went into hiding. I watched Rielle kill Audric. I watched the angels invade Âme de la Terre. I watched the world end, frozen in the grip of my own fear. After the invasion, I protected the boy Simon so Corien would not find him. Then I watched Simon summon threads and attempt to travel with you to the kingdom of Borsvall. I told him to hurry. I told him he was strong enough, and he was. But it didn’t matter.”

Ludivine closed her eyes. Her voice became a whisper. “The force of Rielle’s death knocked the threads of space askew and summoned forth threads of time. Volatile and unpredictable. I watched them snatch both you and Simon into darkness, and then I watched as Baingarde collapsed, the mountains around Âme de la Terre crumbled, and everyone living in the city was extinguished. I watched the angels crawl from the ashes. Those who had managed to cling to their stolen human bodies could no longer taste and see and feel as they had only moments before. Their eyes were black, and so were mine. I listened to them howl, Corien loudest of all, for he had lost her.”

A long moment passed. Eliana’s heartbeat pulsed in her temples. “But Simon said that we would be the only ones to notice any changes. Anything that us being in the past would have altered. I thought…” Words tangled in her throat. “I thought that meant…”

“That he would be protected from any changes to the altered future? He was, Eliana. But don’t you see? It was the only way. I made sure that the child Simon was there on the night of your birth. Rielle urged him to take you to safety, and I encouraged him, thinking I would join the two of you later. That I would protect you as I had failed to protect your mother. While the world healed from Rielle’s death, I would raise you and Simon as my own. Then, when you were old enough and strong enough, I would send you both back to the past to save Rielle before she began losing herself to Corien and to the empirium. Of course, Rielle died before Simon could travel, and the shock wave jarred his work. Both of you were thrown forward in time, and I was left alone in a shattered world.”

Eliana’s mind worked quickly. “Corien didn’t die, either. He survived.”

“He was beside your mother at the moment of her death, so his injuries were…severe. It took him centuries to recover fully, and his mind, while still powerful, was never the same. And I knew then that what Rielle had seen on the mountain—you, and threads pulled by a grown Simon—that future was coming true. And I knew that I must act.”

A sick heat rose swiftly in Eliana as she began to understand. “In the past, Corien had glimpsed Simon. And though Rielle’s death had damaged his mind…”

“I knew that might not be enough to protect Simon, when the time came,” Ludivine agreed. “I knew that I must be on the lookout for him myself, and shield my efforts and my very existence from Corien. When Simon at last appeared—hundreds of years later for me, but only seconds for him—I knew the only way to keep him safe from Corien, and therefore protect our one hope of traveling back in time, was to send him right into Corien’s hands. Corien would have to believe him to be utterly his own. He would need to serve the enemy to be saved from the enemy.”

Ludivine’s gaze was steady and bright. “I taught him discipline. I taught him how to withstand pain. As best I could, I ensured that the scars I gave him matched the ones I had seen. Months passed. Then I left him in the wilderness of Vindica and made certain that Corien would find him.”

“In the wilderness,” Eliana said, numb.

“Simon did exactly as I had instructed,” Ludivine said, smiling faintly. “We had practiced until he believed the story he was meant to tell. When Corien found him, Simon was desperate with loneliness. He had lived alone for months, and he was scarred from his accidental journey through time, and here at last was someone from the home he had lost. Rielle had destroyed his city. She had killed his king. It was her betrayal that had brought the angels to his city, her death that had sent him hurtling into a future he did not understand, where he was alone and afraid. He suspected Rielle’s daughter had been brought there as well. He would help Corien find her. He would serve without question if it meant he would no longer be alone, and if Corien would help him find his magic again. That was the story Simon told.”

Ludivine’s smile flickered. “And though he tried for years, Corien could find no evidence of deceit. He was suspicious. He recalled fragments of that old memory, of seeing you on the mountain and seeing Simon through you, but he knew that whatever time travel you had attempted had likely changed your circumstances, perhaps in his favor, and he could not turn away such a gift as Simon. Rielle’s death broke the empirium. If her daughter were here, her gifts would not be obvious; they might even be deeply dormant. He would need help to find her, especially since the immense task of growing his Empire had worn thin his already-damaged mind. And what better helper could he find than this boy who had seen everything happen that night he had lost his great love? A boy he could mold. A boy who had held you in his arms. A marque with angelic blood.”

Eliana closed her eyes, clenching the arms of her chair.

“From his place at Corien’s side,” Ludivine continued, “Simon would serve two masters. He would find you, push you to awaken yourself, and then help break you, all while pretending loyalty to your greatest enemy. But he was always mine. He has been from the moment I found him alone in the snow, clutching your little scrap of blanket.”

Then, pity softened Ludivine’s voice. “I’m sorry, little one. It was the only way. If it helps you, his love was no strategy of mine. I had hoped, of course, that he might grow to love you. Love would make it easier for him to hurt you, and it would therefore hasten your path toward destruction and then rebirth.” Eliana opened her eyes, momentarily stunned out of her anger. Ludivine smiled, magnanimous. “And now look at you. A glorious creature.”

The moment ended.

Eliana moved like fire. She knocked the table and bowls aside, then struck Ludivine hard across the face.

Ludivine made no sound, showed no sign of pain. The pink mark on her cheek quickly faded.

“You hurt him,” Eliana said, her voice tight and soft. “You hurt his mind so severely that he could serve both you and Corien without his true loyalty ever being discovered. You scrambled him, tore him apart, sewed him back together.”

Ludivine wiped the blood from her lip. “That’s true.”

“And I suppose Corien hurt him as well, over and over, to ensure he was not being deceived.”

“For every night of peace Simon enjoyed in Corien’s palace, he endured ten of torment,” Ludivine said simply. “But Corien could never find anything amiss. I ensured it would be so. Until today, he believed Simon to be his entirely.”

Eliana’s eyes stung with tears. She hardly noticed them. Her chest was hot with fury. “You’re a monster. You tortured this boy who had lost his father and his home, and then you sent him off to another monster to be tortured further.”

Ludivine was implacable. “I don’t need to tell you that sometimes we must make difficult choices and commit acts of violence to benefit the greater good. Look at what you did for your family when you lived in Orline. Look at what you’ve done for Red Crown, for Remy, for the people of this world. You are no stranger to sacrifice, Eliana, nor to cruelty.”

An acolyte appeared suddenly at the door, startling Eliana from her rising grief. They were too quiet for her liking, these acolytes, their gazes too direct. Eliana wondered what torment they had endured at Ludivine’s hand. Was it love that kept them loyal, or was it fear?

“They’re here, my lady,” the acolyte said with a bow.

“See that they are fed and their wounds treated,” Ludivine commanded. “We will join you shortly.”

The acolyte nodded once and then was gone.

“We will speak more later,” said Ludivine, rising from her chair. “Until then, I leave you with this thought. The only way to end this—this war that has for millennia gripped everyone in this world and others—is for you to return to Old Celdaria. Convince Rielle to kill Corien and close the Gate. Fight her if you must. Destroy her if it comes to it.”

Eliana stared at her, full of too many warring sadnesses. “You loved her.”

“I did.”

“And yet you speak of her so coldly?”

“I have had centuries to grieve for her,” said Ludivine. She plucked a piece of carrot from her sleeve. Her unfinished stew streaked the floor. “I no longer fear her death as I once did.”

The cool mask of her face unnerved Eliana. “I don’t understand how we would even do this thing. Simon tried traveling many times in the palace. He could not find his power.”

“Because you wouldn’t let him.”

A deafening silence fell between them.

Ludivine smiled gently. “You understand, then, what you must do. You reawakened his power when your love for him was nearing its peak. Once when you healed Remy. Then again during your time at Willow. The world’s magic is dead, Eliana, the empirium wrenched and distant. Only through you does it live again. And with your trust in Simon lost, beneath the iron press of your angry will, his power has become dormant once more, and unreliable, as you have seen. You must truly accept him into your heart once more, allow him to find his power again, if there is to be any hope of doing what we must.”

Eliana shook her head. She found her chair and sank slowly onto it, her knees suddenly unsteady. “How can I? After what he’s done, after what he’s seen and heard…” She closed her eyes, struggling to find her voice. “I could say, ‘I forgive you’ until my throat bled, but it wouldn’t be true, even knowing what you’ve done to him.”

“I didn’t say forgive. I said accept.”

Hearing Ludivine kneel before her, Eliana opened her eyes and stared at her through a simmering field of hate.

“You could choose not to,” said Ludivine kindly, considering her. “You could continue to refuse him his power. We could sit in these rooms waiting for Corien to recover from the blightblade and find us. He’ll kill all of us, including Simon, and me, and you, perhaps, because he has very little sanity left now, and then this will all have been for nothing. Everything you’ve endured. Every moment Simon spent sobbing at my feet as I dissected his mind. I know that’s not what you want to happen.”

Eliana looked away, her shoulders aching under a terrible new weight. Arguing with Ludivine would be futile. She knew what Eliana thought as surely as she herself did.

“And if we do this,” she said quietly, “what will happen to everyone living now? Remy and Navi, everyone I’ve ever known and loved?”

“They will no longer exist. They will never have existed. At least not as they are now. Remy may still be born someday to Rozen and Ioseph Ferracora, but he will not be the Remy you know, not entirely. Nor will Rozen or Ioseph, nor even the city of Orline. If you succeed in convincing Rielle to kill Corien, then the world will begin again at his death. There will be peace. She will repair the Gate, and the angels will remain sealed in the Deep.”

They will never have existed. Eliana, numb with horror, remembered her discussions about this very thing with Simon. While he practiced threading in Willow’s gardens, they had spoken of altered futures, lives snuffed out. She had not truly been able to fathom the concept then, and now was no different. It was too colossal, too terrible. Navi, Patrik, Hob. Remy. Her Remy. All of them changed, or maybe not even born. Maybe alive, maybe not. Maybe themselves, maybe not. A whole world of people, blinked out of existence.

Her mouth went dry, her insides a plunging hot swoop of revulsion. She felt somehow dislodged, as if Ludivine’s words had shaken loose her deepest foundations. She stared at this golden-haired angel before her but found no comfort in that steely black gaze.

Then Ludivine rose and stepped back from Eliana’s chair, her expression shifting. From down the hallway came sounds of a brief struggle. Running footsteps approached, and a woman with warm brown skin and tangled black hair that fell to her shoulders stopped abruptly at the door. Her clothes were filthy, streaked with blood and grime.

Eliana’s shock bloomed swiftly, sweeping her mind clean. Her voice was a soft puff of air. “Navi?”

Navi let out a strangled cry, then rushed for Eliana and pulled her into a crushing embrace. Eliana clutched her shoulders, held her fast. Navi pressed her face into Eliana’s neck, saying things Eliana could barely hear, for there was a ringing in her ears, as if her joy were a struck bell.

She looked past Navi’s shoulder to where Ludivine stood pale and still in the shadows.

“Is this a trick?” Eliana whispered.

No, little one, Ludivine replied. Her black eyes glittered in the candlelight.

Navi pulled away, her cheeks wet with tears. She brushed Eliana’s hair behind her ears, looking ready to say a thousand things. How lovely Navi was, even with the blood drying on her arms, the smell of death clinging to her. Bright blue drops spattered her collar. Eliana held Navi’s face in her hands, and still she couldn’t speak. She shook her head, laughed a little, tried to pull her friend close once more.

But Navi stepped back, her hands warm around Eliana’s own. “Zahra is here. I think she’s been waiting to see you before she…”

Navi’s voice trailed off. She looked back into the hallway. Beyond her was a woman with chin-length white hair and ruddy freckled skin. Eliana blinked, her mind racing to catch up with everything she saw. Patrik was there, and Hob too, and Navi’s brother, Malik, and dozens of others Eliana didn’t recognize.

And drifting slowly toward the door was a figure faint and gray. Hair streaming like ripples of wind across water, eyes dark and flickering. An echo of the angel she had once been, drawn in thin shadows.

“Zahra,” Eliana whispered, reaching for her. At that single word, Zahra cried out softly, faded, and then reappeared only to float slowly to the ground.

Eliana knelt to meet her. Her hands hovered over what she could see of Zahra’s shrinking form. She had diminished to the size of a child. The shifting lines of her body were like curls of fading smoke.

“What happened, Zahra?”

“My queen,” Zahra mumbled. A thin hand of shadow moved toward Eliana’s cheek. “My queen, my queen. There you are.”

Navi knelt beside them, her hazel eyes shining. “She was wonderful, Eliana. She hid our ship for the entire journey across the ocean. She guided us through the Sea of Silarra, helped us elude dozens of imperial warships. She shielded us on the road to Elysium, through the city, and down here to you. The Prophet…” Navi glanced at Ludivine, her brow furrowed. “The Prophet guided her to you. All of us survived the journey. One hundred and seven of us, alive and well thanks to her.”

“Zahra, you marvel, how did you manage such a thing?” Eliana drew a picture in her mind: the two of them embracing, Zahra in her angelic form, as Eliana had seen in that vision so long ago. Rich brown skin, white hair falling like spider-silk to her hips. Platinum armor bright with sunlight, gossamer wings streaming like rivers of starlit shadow from her back.

But before she could send Zahra the image, Ludivine stopped her with a gentle press in her mind. She cannot bear it, Eliana. Her mind is losing cohesion from so much strain. Be gentle.

Eliana stared at the floor, where only the faintest black wisps marked Zahra’s unraveling. The vague dark print of her eyes were but a suggestion of shadow on the stone. Eliana shook her head, her throat aching. Her tears washed away all color from the world.

“Zahra, why did you do this?” she whispered.

A fractured voice replied, a mere breath of sound. “For you, my queen.”

Then, a slight tremor against Eliana’s skin. A soundless give, as if the air had previously held a great weight, a mammoth intelligence, and now held nothing but itself.