Furyborn (18 page)

Harkan
, she thought, fear buzzing
in her ears as she placed her palms against Lord Morbrae’s chest.
Harkan, Harkan. What am I doing
here?

He had asked her that same question many times, and her answer had always been the same:
surviving.

Lord Morbrae’s legs were long and bony; the buttons of his uniform jacket strained against his protruding belly. How could he possibly still be hungry? He looked to have gained a good
ten pounds since they’d sat down.

He shifted in the firelight. Bread crumbs clung to his stained lips.

“I’ve bedded many people,” he said at last, smiling up at her. Bloody scraps of meat were wedged between his teeth; his breath was stale and rancid though they’d only just eaten. “But it never felt good. Not once, Dread. But maybe you…”

He traced his long fingers up and down her arm,
found her open collar and toyed with her dirty skin.

“Maybe I what?” Eliana leaned closer, even as her throat clenched with revulsion. She let an inviting smile drift across her face.

“Maybe you can finally do it.”

And I will.
Slowly, Eliana slipped off the ridiculous frill-sleeved jacket and let it fall to the ground. Beneath her tunic, the pendant bearing the ruined image of King
Audric on his flying steed felt itchy and hot against her breastbone.
If this is what it takes—for Remy, for Mother—then this is what it takes.

Lord Morbrae watched her every movement, his gaze distant and his mouth thin with frustration, as if he’d already decided that whatever kind of experience he craved, he wouldn’t find it here.

His hands, though, were tight on her hips. Insistent.

She leaned over him, heart pounding, and let her eyes fall shut. She instructed her mind to detach from her body and tuck itself safely away. It was an excellent skill, one of the first her mother had taught her, and she wasn’t half bad at it. Lord Morbrae was a mark, just like any other. She’d get through this as she had many times before.

Except this wasn’t like the many times before.
And when Lord Morbrae exhaled against her cheek, his breath putrid and strangely cold, Eliana couldn’t help it. She flinched away from him. Her eyes flew open.

Two black eyes met her own.

In that moment, it was as though something leaped out of Lord Morbrae’s mind and into her own. She felt a charge, as of lightning, reach out for her and grab hold.

She jerked in his arms, and he jerked
beneath her.

And suddenly Eliana was no longer in the Venteran outpost.

She stood on the veranda of a palace, overlooking a vast land scattered with snow-dusted hills. Her vision was cloudy; shapes shifted before her eyes as if drawn on the surface of swirling water. She concentrated, fighting for balance. The world cleared somewhat: A city, choked and glittering. Distant neighborhoods
spilled over one another, crammed between winding roads paved with white stone. Ivory spires soared to the skies. Sunrise poured rose-gold over a gaping, mountain-sized pit in the earth. Strange lights, like trapped miniature storms, flashed throughout the city streets.

All of it was unfamiliar, and yet Eliana felt a tiny urgent tug at her heart.

Was
it unfamiliar?

A movement to her
left caught her attention. She turned, somehow, though her body felt detached from everything around her. She couldn’t feel the stone of this veranda beneath her feet, yet she could see the world around her plainly, smell a faint scent that reminded her of Orline—river water, city sweat. But the air here was cold, biting.

This place… It wasn’t a dream or some delirious vision. At least she
didn’t think it was.

A figure stood at the stone railing, not far from her, beside a statue of a man reaching for the skies with open arms. There were several such statues on the veranda. Protruding from each of their backs were magnificent wings shaped out of paper-thin colored glass and inlaid with fire-colored stones. Not feathered, these wings, but sculpted from flame and shadow.

Eliana recognized the figures from Remy’s tales about the Old World.

Angels?

She must have made a noise. Something changed in the air. The man went horribly still, then whipped his head around to face her.

Shining black hair curled just below his ears. A sleek, dark coat with square shoulders, fastened with brass buttons over his heart, fell cleanly to his feet. His skin was pale, his
cheekbones fine, his mouth full. His eyes were blacker even than Lord Morbrae’s.

She would recognize him anywhere. His statues stood on every street corner in Orline. Enormous portraits of him, haughty and impossibly beautiful, hung throughout Lord Arkelion’s palace.

The Emperor of the Undying.

And, somehow, though she knew him to live half a world away in Celdaria, he was staring
right back at her.

Rielle

“When Audric was a boy, I could dismiss his fondness for Armand Dardenne’s daughter as harmless. But now…I see the way he watches her when he thinks no one is looking. We must be careful, sister, to discourage them. Ludivine must be queen. Ludivine will be queen.”

—Letter written by Lord Dervin Sauvillier to his sister, Queen Genoveve Courverie
Year 994 of the Second
Age

Rielle’s favorite room in Baingarde—other than Ludivine’s and Audric’s rooms—was Queen Genoveve’s private parlor.

The queen had many sitting rooms set aside for the receiving of guests, but this was her private space, meant only for her and her family.

“Must we do this?” Evyline muttered, standing board-straight at the parlor door as Rielle peeked around the hallway corners to
make sure no one was coming. All was quiet, the air in the castle gone soft for the night. Light from the thin crescent moon filtered through the colored glass in the windows lining this particular corridor. The glass was a northern tradition, intended to bring cheer into a home during the long winter months. Belbrion, the seat of House Sauvillier, featured so much colored glass that it was said to
glitter like a jewel-encrusted crown when the sunlight hit.

Satisfied, Rielle returned to the parlor door. “I’m to undergo yet another life-threatening trial tomorrow, Evyline.” She looked guilelessly up at the tall, gray-haired woman. “Would you really deprive me of a few moments of peace, knowing what awaits me in the morning?”

Evyline sighed. “Only a few moments, my lady.”

“You
worry too much, Evyline.”

“I expect that’s true, my lady.”

Rielle held out her hand, gave Evyline a brilliant smile. “The key?”

Evyline withdrew a small brass key from her jacket pocket and dropped it in Rielle’s hand. “I could get banished for this, my lady. Or worse.”

“When I’m Sun Queen,” Rielle said, “you will be head of the Sun Guard, my close adviser, and the most revered
soldier in Celdaria. That’s worth a little sneaking around, isn’t it?”

Evyline’s cheeks flushed, her eyes trained on the wall across from her. “If you insist, my lady.”

Rielle inserted the key in the lock. “I won’t be ten minutes.”

Once inside, Rielle walked to the center of the parlor, sat on a footstool, and breathed in slowly. Here, in this quiet, her true nervousness about the
next day tickled her insides like birds desperate to be set loose from their cages.

She had read all the books she was supposed to read, said her prayers, studied with Grand Magister Rosier under the watchful eyes of the Archon. Ludivine had worked with the finest tailors in the city to create yet another marvelous costume for the occasion. Visitors had been trailing into the capital all week
in preparation for the event.

And perhaps that was it, Rielle thought. It was the people who would be watching her that had stirred up her nerves—many hundreds more than had attended the water trial if Audric was to be believed. It was the Sun Queen banners that winked golden at her from doors and windows as she looked down from Baingarde at the city. She’d seen the banners even at the temples,
decorating the libraries, the gardens, the doors outside the acolytes’ dormitories. On the fluttering fabric, a crown encircled a blazing sun.

Since the last trial, Rielle had started to understand—to really, truly
feel
—that something was beginning.

She tried to breathe, separate her nervous feelings from her excited ones, and lock the nervous ones away where they could no longer annoy
her. She turned her head to the ceiling and gazed at her true reason for coming here.

Queen Genoveve had a soft heart for animals, particularly the godsbeasts of the angelic ages, long died out. Upon marrying King Bastien, she had ordered the ceiling of her parlor painted with an extravagant menagerie of them. There were the fur-crested ice dragons of Borsvall, the firebirds of Kirvaya, the
giant white stags of Mazabat, the ferocious krakens of the northern seas, the unicorns of the old angelic lands to the east, the shape-shifting fey-beasts of Astavar.

But Rielle’s favorite of the godsbeasts had always been the chavaile—the giant winged horse that the bedtime stories from her childhood had told her lived in the mountains of Celdaria and could fly even faster than the dragons.
They hunted game as mountain cats did and were sated for weeks afterward.

Rielle smiled to think of those stories. Hearing them read aloud was one of the only memories she still had of her mother. If she closed her eyes, she could hear Marise Dardenne’s voice—low and rich, a voice crafted by God for telling stories.

So her father had said, watching them from beside the fire as Rielle snuggled
in her mother’s arms, a book of godsbeast tales open on their laps.

Rielle drew in a sharp breath as the memory surfaced. It was one she hadn’t remembered before, and yet there it shone in her mind, clear as daylight.

You’re welcome
, came Corien’s voice, kinder than Rielle had ever heard it.
I thought that might comfort you.

“How did you do that?” she whispered, eyes still closed.

“And now you’re talking to yourself.”

Rielle’s eyes flew open, and she shot to her feet. Beside the windows on the far side of the room, Queen Genoveve rose from a high-backed chaise and considered Rielle with one arched eyebrow.

“My queen!” Rielle hastily curtsied. “I didn’t… I didn’t see you…” She swallowed, took a deep breath. “I apologize. I would never have intruded, had I known
you were resting.”

“I wasn’t resting. I was thinking. I come here often to think.” The queen crossed the room, wrapped in a gray dressing gown hemmed in blue silk. “And you come here often as well, it seems?”

There was no point in pretending. “Only sometimes.”

“I should punish you. Or at least your guard. But you are enduring enough punishment as it is, I suppose.”

When in the
presence of the queen, Rielle often felt herself reduced to the child she had once been, leading Audric and Ludivine on some wild game through Baingarde. The three of them had once burst into the queen’s sitting room, shrieking merrily, right as Genoveve was taking tea with visiting dignitaries from Mazabat—and then, not five minutes later, Rielle’s father had chased her down, brought her back to
her rooms, and shut her away once more.

She had never gotten to know Genoveve as well as Audric or King Bastien. The queen was a Sauvillier from skull to toe, with none of Ludivine’s warmth.

“Please, my queen,” Rielle managed, “do not punish Evyline. I’m afraid I rather manipulated her into thinking that if she didn’t obey me, I would bring the wrath of God down upon her, once I’ve been
named Sun Queen.”

Queen Genoveve let out a small, dark laugh. “Rielle, you astound me. These trials are meant to cow you, and yet you make light of them as though they’re a child’s game.”

Rielle hesitated. “If I don’t make light of them, my queen, then my fear is liable to overtake me.”

The queen inclined her head, then settled on a settee across from Rielle. “Why did you come here
tonight?”

Rielle glanced up at the painted bestiary. “I like coming here. The chavaile has always been my favorite. It reminds me of my mother—and the stories she used to tell me.”

Queen Genoveve considered her for a long moment. “Are you manipulating me right now, Lady Rielle, as you’ve done to your poor guard?”

Rielle blinked in surprise. “No, my queen. I’m speaking the truth to
you. Perhaps I’ve been too candid.”

“Not at all. In fact, I think this is the most I’ve ever liked you.”

“Oh.” Rielle began to laugh.

“Was that so very funny?”

“I apologize, my queen. I’m caught quite off my guard is all. I suppose I need to sleep. My nerves are a tangle.”

“It’s not that you haven’t been a good friend to my son and niece,” the queen said after a moment. “It’s
that you are…” She paused, thinking. “Cunning. Willful and lovely. It’s a volatile combination. It unnerves me.”

“And now you know I’ve been keeping secrets from you during all my cunning and willful years.”

Queen Genoveve nodded. “And I wonder what others you might have yet to reveal.”

Rielle forced herself to meet the queen’s thoughtful gaze, one that so matched Audric’s that a lump
formed in Rielle’s throat.

“Come sit beside me.” The queen patted the settee’s cushion. “We will pray to Saint Grimvald together, that he may bring you success tomorrow.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Rielle obeyed. For a long while, neither of them spoke. Then Queen Genoveve sighed impatiently and took Rielle’s hand in her own.

“A sword forged true with hammer and blade,” murmured
the queen, in prayer, “flies sure and swift.”

“A heart forged in battle and strife,” answered Rielle, “cuts deeper than any blade.”

“Saint Grimvald the Mighty,” continued the queen, “please watch over this child tomorrow as she fights to prove her honor and loyalty in front of my husband, the king, and His Holiness, the Archon.” The queen paused. “She is much beloved by my little ones,
and I pray for her safety so that they may feel joy upon finishing their day and not despair.”

Rielle stared at the queen. “My queen, I…I thank you for that.”

The queen kept her eyes closed, but squeezed Rielle’s hand gently. “I sometimes forget that, despite everything, you are still only a girl, Rielle. And no girl should have to be without her mother on such a night.”

Rielle could
no longer speak, her throat tight and hot, but it was enough to sit beside the queen and shut her eyes and imagine that Genoveve’s hand was her mother’s—alive and unburnt.

• • •

They had built her a cage.

Rielle stared out the flap of her tent, her blood roaring in her ears.

In the narrow pass between Mount Crimelle and Mount Peridore, earthshakers had carved out a clean, square
pit in the stone-riddled ground, five hundred feet deep. And the metalmasters of the Forge…They had built her a cage inside it.

It was a cube, black and unfriendly, with spiked, groaning insides that churned like clockwork and shifted every few seconds. At any given moment, half the cube’s innards were in swift motion. Metal slammed against metal. The hot oiled smell of grinding gears and
the sharp tang of the metalmasters’ magic—scents that reminded Rielle of her father—drifted up from the pit like invisible curls of smoke.

Somehow, Rielle would have to get from one end of this caged maze to the other without getting crushed or impaled. And all while thousands of spectators watched from the stadium the magisters had erected around the pit’s rim.

She swallowed hard, closed
her eyes.

“I thought Tal would lose his mind,” came a flat voice from behind Rielle, “once he saw what we’d designed for you.”

Rielle turned to see Miren Ballastier, Grand Magister of the Forge, and Tal’s lover—when they weren’t in the middle of one of their legendary fights. In the torchlit glow of the tent, beneath her wild cap of red hair, Miren’s pale, freckled skin looked ghostly.

“It’s a maze,” said Rielle faintly, still not quite believing it.

“It is. And Lady Rielle…” Miren paused, a troubled expression on her face. “I want you to know that I protested against it. It’s unfair and cruel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the king takes him to task for it, once he finds out—”

“Who? What’s cruel?” Rielle barely resisted pleading. She and Miren had never been the best
of friends, and now that Tal’s long deception had been revealed, Rielle couldn’t imagine that would change. “Miren, tell me.”

A horn sounded, its lonely wail echoing off the mountain walls. The gathered crowd began to cheer.

“You’ll see soon enough,” said Miren, before pressing a dry kiss to her forehead. “From Tal,” she said simply and then left her alone.

You don’t have to do this
, Corien reminded her.
You can leave. Right
now.

And do what, then, and go where?
Rielle asked irritably.
You’re always telling me I don’t have to do these things, yet you offer no alternative.

There was a pause. Then:
You could come to me. And we could begin.

The shiver that swept up Rielle’s body nibbled like tiny, hungry teeth.

We’re going to have a discussion, you and I, when
this is finished
, she thought to him.
I’ve put it off for too long.

I quite agree
, came his smooth voice.

Unsettled, on edge, Rielle stepped through the flap as the horn sounded for a second time, raised her chin against the glare of sunlight peeking through the mountain pass, and let her cloak fall to the ground.

The crowd’s roar rattled Rielle’s bones—and she smiled to hear it.

Her outfit, constructed from a dozen charcoal and shining silver fabrics, evoked the armor of Saint Grimvald. Long black gloves stretched past her elbows. A snug jerkin and matching trousers boasted embroidered designs that flattered her curves, and the long tails of her square-shouldered jacket touched the ground. On the jacket’s back shone the sigil of the Forge—two black swords crossed on
a fiery orange plane. Silver paint streaked her cheeks and eyes; Ludivine had painted her lips a flaming coral to evoke the fires of the Forge.

Eight solemn-faced metalmasters lined the narrow platform stretching toward the pit. She raised her arms to acknowledge the crowd and made her way to the pit’s edge—where the Archon stood with a tiny, satisfied smile.

As the door to the cage creaked
open, the Archon extended his arm toward it. “You can choose to save them. Or not. What really matters is saving your own skin.” He turned to her, blinked twice. “Isn’t it?”

Save them.
Rielle peered into the cage, and when she saw to whom the Archon was referring, the sudden rise of dread made her stagger.

Three tiny cages rose slowly from the maze’s teeming cogs. Inside each stood a child,
wailing in fear.

As the crowd began to notice them, shouts of anger and horror arose from the stands.