He closed his eyes, tried to forget the strange woman’s voice and concentrate. He searched his mind for the words in his forbidden books, now abandoned beneath the floorboards of his father’s shop:
The empirium lies within every living thing, and every living thing is of the empirium.
Its power connects not only flesh to bone, root to earth, stars to sky, but also road to road, city to city.
Moment to moment.
Only marques, Simon knew, had this mighty gift. The gift of traveling. The ability to cross vast distances in an instant and walk through time as easily as others walk down the road.
Simon had often fantasized about what it would be like to travel back to the time before the Gate was made—before the old wars, when angels still walked the earth and dragons darkened the skies.
But he couldn’t think about time, not just then. Time was a dangerous, slippery thing. He must think only about distance: Celdaria to Borsvall.
“No, Rielle!” Corien was screaming. “No! Don’t do this!”
Simon looked back inside to see Queen Rielle on her knees with her face turned to the sky, struggling to stay upright as a brilliant shell of light swelled around her. Corien pounded on the light, burning his fists, but he couldn’t touch her. He clawed and shouted, cursed at her, pleaded with her.
But all his screams were no use. Rielle’s body was unfurling in long streams of light, her skin flaking away like ash on the wind.
Simon turned away and whispered to the princess, “Don’t worry, I won’t let go. I’ve got you.”
He closed his eyes, bit his lip, ignored the desperate shouts of Corien and the queen’s blinding light. He directed his mind northeast, toward Borsvall. As his books had instructed, he guided his breath along every line of his body, every sinew, every bone.
Now.
His eyes snapped open.
Twisting strands of light, thin and smoky, floated through the air before him.
Heart racing, Simon held the princess close with one arm and reached out with the other. He listened to his blood, for it knew the way just as it knew to step, to swallow, to breathe. He felt through the night for the correct threads of here and there. Somewhere before him lay a road, hidden to his eyes but known, unquestionably, by the power that thrummed in his veins, and if he could just find the right thread, tug it free, lay it out before his feet like a winding carpet—
There.
A single thread, brighter than the others, danced at his fingertips.
Simon hardly dared to reach for it. If he moved too slowly or too quickly, if his mind wandered, the thread could slip away from him.
Behind him, the queen screamed at Corien, her voice thick with fury: “I am no longer yours!”
There was no time for doubt. Simon reached for the brightest thread, cautiously guided it around his fingers like a lock of shining hair.
Take a moment, his books had said, to get to know your thread. The more familiar you are with it, the more likely it is to take you where you want to go.
As Simon stared at the thread hovering in his hand, others brightened and drifted closer, pulled by the force of his concentration.
Though they scorched the tender skin of his palms, he gathered up the threads in his hands, guiding them through the chill night air. Soon he had maneuvered the threads into a quivering ring, and past the ring stretched a passage into darkness.
The first thread, the brightest, crept to Simon’s chest and clung there like a briar, tugging him gently forward.
Simon felt silly about it but thought to the thread nevertheless, Hello.
The pressure of its touch lightened.
Simon saw faint shapes through the shifting, sharpening passage: A winding path of black stone, a tall, narrow gate. Ice-capped mountains. Soldiers pointing in awe, shouting in the harsh Borsvallic tongue.
Every muscle in Simon’s young body snapped rigid. With each breath, the world dimmed. And yet laughter bubbled up inside him even so. He could not imagine ever being happier. It was not easy, this power, but it was right, and it was his.
Then, behind him, Queen Rielle cried out something Simon couldn’t understand. Her voice shattered.
Corien’s frantic screams were hoarse with anguish.
Simon swallowed hard, fear crowding him like a swarm of insects.
A great, sudden stillness swallowed away all sound—the infant’s cries, the humming threads. The world fell silent.
Simon looked back just as a column of light shot up from the queen’s bedroom and into the night, turning the sky white as the dawn. Simon hid his face, bowing his head over the infant in his arms. His traveling hand shook as he worked. An instant later, the silence erupted into a shattering boom that shook the mountains and nearly knocked Simon off his feet.
The castle pitched beneath him. The air popped with the smell of fire. One of the mountains surrounding the capital collapsed, followed by another—and another.
Hold on to her, said the woman’s voice once more, high and clear in his mind. Don’t ever let her go.
The threads were slipping in the grip of Simon’s thoughts. He felt stretched between where his feet stood and where the thread at his chest tugged.
Go, Simon! the woman’s voice cried. Now!
Simon stepped toward the ring of light that led east just as a blazing heat bloomed at his heels.
The last things Simon knew came at him slowly:
A bright wall of fire rushing at him from all sides, crackling like a thousand storms. The air shifting around him as he stepped through the threads’ passage, like cold water sliding over his skin. The princess screaming in his arms.
The sight of the Borsvall mountains fading.
The thread attached to his heart changing. Twisting.
Darkening.
Breaking, with a snap like thunder.
A force slamming into him, snatching him forward by his bones.
The baby being ripped from his arms, no matter how hard he tried to hold on to her.
A piece of fabric, ripping in his hands.
And then, nothing.
1
Rielle
“Lord Commander Dardenne came to me in the middle of the night, his daughter in his arms. They smelled of fire; their clothes were singed. He could hardly speak. I had never seen the man afraid before. He thrust Rielle into my arms and said, ‘Help us. Help her. Don’t let them take her from me.’”
—Testimony of Grand Magister Taliesin Belounnon, on Lady Rielle Dardenne’s involvement in the Boon Chase massacre
April 29, Year 998 of the Second Age
TWO YEARS EARLIER
Rielle Dardenne hurried into Tal’s office and dropped the sparrow’s message onto his desk.
“Princess Runa is dead,” she announced.
She wouldn’t describe her mood as excited exactly, but her own kingdom, Celdaria, and their northeastern neighbor, Borsvall, had lived in a state of tension for so many decades that it was hardly noteworthy when, say, a Celdarian merchant ship sank off Borsvall’s coast or patrols came to blows near the border.
But a murdered Borsvall princess? That was news. And Rielle wanted to dissect every piece of it.
Tal let out a sigh, set down his pen, and dragged his ink-smudged hands through his messy blond hair. The polished golden flame pinned to his lapel winked in the sunlight.
“Perhaps,” Tal suggested, turning a look on Rielle that was not quite disapproval and not quite amusement, “you should consider looking less thrilled about a princess’s murder?”
She slid into the chair across from him. “I’m not happy about it or anything. I’m simply intrigued.” Rielle pulled the slip of paper back across the desk and read over the inked words once more. “So you do think it was assassination? Audric thinks so.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid today, Rielle.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “When have I ever done anything stupid?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “The city guard is on high alert. I want you here, safe in the temple, in case anything happens.” He took the message from her, scanning its contents. “How did you get this, anyway? No, wait. I know. Audric gave it to you.”
Rielle stiffened. “Audric keeps me informed. He’s a good friend. Where’s the harm in that?”