Before his fall, he would have fought her in silence, every movement swift and calculated.
Now he laughed, yelped playfully when one of her daggers caught his skin, clucked his tongue when she missed. A tight crowd had gathered around them, boxing them in with pumping fists and wordless, rhythmic cries hungry for violence.
Eliana grabbed a carving knife from a nearby table, whirled to throw it at him. He knocked it easily aside. She found another one, turned.
She dropped the knife. It clattered useless to the ground. Swaying on her feet, she reached out for support, found nothing, fell to her hands and knees.
Fidelia.
Fog blackened her vision. The nausea returned, sweeping through her with startling violence.
“Look at her!” Rahzavel cried, dancing gleefully around her prone form. “The famous Dread of Orline!”
The crowd responded with a chorus of jeers.
“Eliana, get up!” Navi frantically tugged on her arms. Eliana tried to stand; her limbs gave out, and she crashed to the floor.
“They’re here.” Her stomach wrung itself into a knot. The world spun, tilting right then left. Whoever or whatever was pinning her down, it was wrong. It didn’t fit; it didn’t belong here.
“Run,” she gasped out, groping for Navi’s hand. “They’ll find you.”
“Who will?” Navi’s voice was full of panicked tears.
A furious cry behind them made Eliana blearily turn.
Simon dropped down from the stairs above, crashing feet first into Rahzavel. The assassin dropped hard, then rolled away with a feral peal of laughter and sprang back to his feet. Simon advanced ruthlessly on him, his scarred face ferocious with anger.
Then, turning to block one of Rahzavel’s thrusts, Simon glanced over and found Eliana on the floor. Their gazes locked.
The world seemed to stop. Eliana’s breath caught in her aching chest.
They had been here before—not in the fighting pits of Sanctuary, but in a similar moment of danger and flight.
Of separation.
The certainty of that—like suddenly recalling a lyric long forgotten—opened an unfamiliar chasm in her heart.
A flicker of some unnameable sadness shook Simon’s face. Did he feel it too?
“Run!” he roared at her.
Reality returned. Time spun forward, blistering and unkind.
Eliana shoved her way into the crowd. She heard Navi yell her name, heard a harsh cry, hoped it wasn’t Simon. She searched for another set of stairs that would take her back to the third floor. She would get Remy and leave. They would run as fast as they could, for as far as they could. She would shave their heads; they would get new clothes. They could make it to Astavar like that, disguised and unrecognizable.
She made it to the second floor before Navi caught up with her. The girl grabbed her arm, yanked her back hard. Eliana spun around, pressed Whistler to Navi’s throat.
“I’m getting my brother and leaving,” she spat, “and if you try to stop me, Navi, I swear I will gut you.”
The world spun and wouldn’t stop. Eliana dropped Whistler, sagged against Navi’s body.
“Eliana?” Navi sank to the floor with her. “Get up, please!”
Eliana gasped for breath, her voice choking in her throat. She tried to dislodge herself from Navi’s arms, crawl away, but she couldn’t move.
Then Navi disappeared.
A gloved hand came over Eliana’s mouth, pressing a reeking cloth to her face. She struggled, her scream muffled. Another hand caught the back of her skull, forcing her harder against the cloth.
As her vision dimmed, she saw a black-clothed figure—hood drawn, mask on—gathering an unconscious Navi into his arms.
The wrongness in the air swallowed Eliana whole. She wanted to be sick again, but the pressure bearing down on her throat prevented it.
A voice at her ear whispered, “And when the Gate fell, He found me in the chaos, pointed to my thirsting heart, and said, ‘You I shall deliver into the glory of the new world,’ and I wept at his feet and was remade.”
Then Eliana slipped into a narrow pit, where the fading world around her jolted sharply before folding her away into nothingness.
35
Rielle
“The mountain falls under my fists
The sea dries at my touch
The flame dies on my tongue
The night howls with my anger
The light darkens in my shadow
The earth fades beneath my feet
I do not break or bend
I cannot be silenced
I am everywhere”
—The Wind Rite
As first uttered by Saint Ghovan the Fearless, patron saint of Ventera and windsingers