A ripple shifted through the room. Lord Dervin looked around in confusion, his eyes clearing.
King Bastien shot to his feet. “What is the meaning of this? Why are we all here?” He glared at Rielle’s father. “Armand?”
“I don’t know, my king.”
At the touch of her father’s hands, Rielle turned to face him. “Papa, I’m so sorry.”
“Are you hurt?” He smoothed back her hair. “What’s happening here?”
“Rielle is leaving you, I’m afraid.”
Rielle turned—and there he was.
Corien.
He moved slowly across the room, light-blue eyes fixed on her face. Tall and slender, hands held carefully behind his back, sleek dark coat buttoned at his shoulder and trailing to the floor. Pale face, cheekbones high and elegant, a full mouth that curved with delight at the sight of her.
Rielle’s breath came high and thin. Her dreams, as vivid as they had been, had not done him justice.
“My God, Rielle,” he murmured, his hungry gaze raking down her body. “I didn’t think it possible, but you are even more exquisite now than you are in my mind.”
Her father stiffened with fury at her side. “Rielle, you know this man?”
“Who are you?” King Bastien stepped forward, a furious expression on his face. “Why have you brought us here?”
Corien took one step closer to Rielle, then another. His eyes never left her face. “I wanted to make sure Rielle didn’t run from me. And you won’t, will you? Not with all these very important men so dangerously close to me.”
“You won’t hurt them.” She shook her head, her voice cracking. “I forbid it.”
“Queen of my heart,” murmured Corien, putting a gloved hand to his chest, “my greatest wish is to please you. But you must promise to leave this place with me, tonight, or I’m sorry to say you will force my hand.”
Panic and craving waged a war in her chest. “But I can’t, I need more time.”
“More time? For what? To be poked and prodded, studied by lecherous magisters and ordered around by an idiotic king too frightened to face the truth?”
Lord Dervin stared at his hands. “I never meant for this to happen.”
Corien laughed. “As if you could have stopped it!”
“Rielle, who is this man,” her father demanded, “and why does he talk to you this way?”
“He’s an angel,” Rielle bit out.
Corien’s eyes flared with displeasure, even as his smile grew.
King Bastien drew his sword. So did Rielle’s father, shoving her behind him.
“That’s impossible.” King Bastien looked as though someone had kicked him in the gut. “The Gate is strong. It was meant to hold for—”
“For a long time,” Corien snapped. “Not forever. Rielle, it’s time to go. Unless you’d like me to demonstrate firsthand what I’m capable of?”
Rielle swallowed hard and moved toward him, her power itching to touch him even as her mind screamed to stay put—but her father threw out his arm and stopped her.
“You will stay away from my daughter, whatever you are,” he said, “or I will—”
“Do what? Kill me?” Corien chuckled. “My dear man, I’d like to see you try.”
Rielle’s father didn’t hesitate. He lunged at Corien, raised his sword to strike. Then his body jerked, his eyes clouded over, and his sword crashed to the ground.
“No!” Rielle ran to him.
He looked at her, head tilted unnaturally to the side, and struck her hard across the face.
Rielle staggered to the cave wall. When she touched her lip, her fingers came away red.
“Interesting,” said Corien calmly. “I only told him to stop you. His mind was the one that chose to strike you.” He turned to her, and she could feel through their connection a twinge of genuine sadness. “Could your father be angry at you for something? I thought you two had put that mess behind you.”
Rielle glared at him. “Release him, or I will destroy you.”
“If you try, they’ll be dead before I hit the ground.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “I thought you…”
“That I loved you?” Corien’s face softened. “Child, I love you more than I can say. I’m doing this for you. If you don’t leave them, they will stifle, shame, and punish you for daring to breach the walls they are building around you.”
He approached her slowly. “They will use every memory you share with them—every sweet feeling, every kind moment—to wring out all the power they can from that miraculous body of yours. And they won’t stop, or even consider sparing you, because they will be too afraid of what faces them. If you hesitate, they will remind you of their supposed love for you and chain you with it until you back down and do as you’re told.”
He now stood so close she could smell the clean coldness of his skin, a spice of scent on his clothes. He cupped her cheek in one gloved hand. Heat blazed through her body, her power firing so completely alive at his touch that she felt fevered.
Helplessly she turned into his palm.
“Yes,” Corien lowered his head to whisper against her ear, “even him.”
Audric.
“You’re wrong.” She desperately hoped it was true. “He loves me, and he always will.”
Corien’s pity caressed her mind. “Who told you that? The rat?”
And as he said the words, an image came to her, shoved violently across the plane of her thoughts:
Audric, crying out in pain on Atheria’s back. The chavaile landed on a grassy plateau seconds before Audric hit the ground. He dropped Illumenor, clutched his head in his hands. His eyes flickered from a brilliant, stormy gray to brown and back to gray.
The image vanished, and though Rielle couldn’t know if it was real or imagined, it was enough. Rage erupted in her heart. “You will not touch him,” she growled.
Corien stepped back from her. “Rielle, wait—”
She rounded on him, thrust out her palm, screamed, “Get away from me!” and let her power fly.
? ? ?
Not the wind, not the earth or the shadows lining the room.
This power was more than that and all of it and none of it.
Simply, it was this:
The empirium, raw and blinding.
At Rielle’s feet, the unseen fabric of the world split open and detonated. A wave of light, a savage shudder.
Not far, but far enough.
? ? ?
When the aftershock dimmed, Rielle was on the floor. Her head spun. She looked down at her palms; they were covered in blood.
Her own?
She blinked.
Yes. The pain surfaced in sharp, jagged waves.
And Corien?
She looked around, dizzy, heard a horrible, keening sound, and found him crawling away from her, his clothes burned to ashes, and his body…
The blast had burned him.
He was an unmade creature, red and ravaged and glistening. He howled in pain, dragging himself across the cave floor toward an opening that led back to the hills.
“Don’t look at me!” he screamed at her, his words slurring. “Not like this! Not like this…”
She could see not a single recognizable feature on his face. But his agony, his shame—his anger—vibrated through her mind.
When she looked up again, he was gone.
Then a low cry sounded from across the cave—her father, struggling to breathe. And beyond him, King Bastien, Lord Dervin…
Still, still, both of them still. Not burnt, as Corien had been, but rigid. The light gone from their glassy eyes, their faces frozen in shock.
Rielle tried to rise, crashed back to her knees. “Papa?” She crawled to him, turned his face to her.
He gulped down air, his eyes dim.
“I’m here.” She touched his face; his cheeks were wet with tears. “It’s all right. He’s gone, and I’m here. We just need… Oh, God.” She turned to the cave passage down which she’d come, screamed her voice raw. “I need a healer! Someone, please, help us! Garver!”
“I…remember.”
“Papa? What is it?” She held his hands against her cheek. “You remember what?”
“‘By the…moon…’” He gulped emptily at the air. “‘By…the…’”
“Mama’s lullaby?”
He gave her a shaky smile. “‘By…’”
“‘By the moon,’” she finished, singing unsteadily, “‘by the moon, that’s where you’ll find me.’”