Her skin humming with furious energy, Rielle turned away to scan the gaping crowd. When she found who she was looking for, watching her in amazement from the center of the yard, she approached him at once.
“Your Holiness.” She bowed, then spoke loudly enough that everyone gathered could hear. “I wonder if you might accompany me to the Firmament? I would like to pray to Saint Ghovan, and to the wind for sparing my life, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have for company.”
The chavaile joined her, tossing its head.
The Archon could not stop staring up at the creature, his face gone deathly pale. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “All the godsbeasts are dead. Lady Rielle, how did you do this?”
It was a question she had herself been wondering. “I was going to die,” she answered honestly, “and I asked the empirium to save me. I had been drugged and could not use my power, so…”
“So the empirium…sent you this?” The Archon gestured helplessly at the chavaile. It snorted and bumped Rielle’s shoulder with its nose.
For the first time since Rielle had known him, the Archon seemed rather at a loss.
“Shall we?” She offered him her arm. “To the Firmament?”
Without a word, the Archon took it, and as they proceeded across the crowded yard, he said quietly, “Be careful, Lady Rielle. This is no longer a matter of trials and costumes.” He glanced back at the chavaile, which followed them at a distance. The awestruck crowd crept as close as they dared. Some ran away in a panic, shouting warnings. “The empirium has helped you today, but it may not always do so. It is my duty to test you. I do not wish to see you consumed.”
“Don’t you?”
The Archon did not respond to the tease in her voice, and when Rielle glanced over at him, she saw a new expression on his face, drawn and thoughtful, that sent a thrill through her body. She couldn’t decipher the sensation.
Fear?
Corien’s voice came crooning: Or appetite?
38
Eliana
“Not all angels are alike, and not all worship at the Emperor’s feet. There are those who have taken pity on us and believe the Emperor’s actions to be cruel and unjust. They remain bodiless and are considered traitors to their kind, all in order to ally with humans—descendants of those long-ago saints who once drove the angels into the Deep.”
—The Word of the Prophet
Eliana sank to the floor with a tiny dark laugh and rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes.
“I don’t have time to sit around listening to…whatever this is. And whatever you are.” Eliana struggled to her feet and moved to the door. She was hallucinating. She was talking to a hallucination.
“My name is Zahra,” said the wraith.
“Right.”
“Rozen is not here.”
Eliana turned. A slow, panicked feeling unfurled in her chest. She kept her face blank. “Who’s Rozen?”
“The woman you think is your mother but truly is not.”
“Do you know a way out of here?” Hallucination or not, if she could use it to escape, she would.
“Yes.”
“Then either show it to me or fuck right off, would you please?”
Zahra raised one floating eyebrow. “This is not how I had imagined you would be.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Eliana resumed pounding on the door with angry clenched fists.
The wraith appeared between her body and the door. Eliana’s fists flew through the wraith’s torso. Her balance tilted, her vision phased in and out of focus. She backed quickly away.
“What is that? Every time you come near me—”
“You feel ill.” Zahra nodded sadly. “It is a common human affliction when in the company of wraiths. You’ll get used to it, over time. Others have. Though you seem to be affected far more than most. Unsurprising, given your ancestry. Your sensitivity to changes in the empirium is undoubtedly tremendous.”
Eliana glared at the floor. “Get me out of here.”
“Wait a moment.”
“Get me out—”
The wraith rose to her full height once more, her black eyes flashing. “We can’t leave yet. We must wait first until the shift change is complete, and second for you to calm down, so I can be assured you won’t do something rash and endanger yourself.” Zahra exhaled sharply, considering her. “Simon’s message was accurate. When you’re angry, you very much resemble your mother. How unsettling.”