“And the woman,” she whispered. “I know her face.”
“I would imagine so.” Zahra touched Eliana’s hands, and Eliana felt nothing. “For it is your own, is it not?”
“Partly. More beautiful. More…”
“More unkind.” Zahra offered a small smile. “You have a kind face, Eliana, though you try to make it not so.”
Eliana crossed her arms and shut her eyes. “That’s why he recognized me. The Emperor. Corien.”
Zahra was silent.
“What were they doing?” Eliana asked. “That body.”
“What he failed to accomplish with your mother before her Fall ruined all their work,” Zahra said, “and what he hopes to finish with you. Resurrection. Our return—and our revenge.”
“Our. The angels?”
“Yes, Eliana.”
When Eliana opened her eyes once more, her body felt caught on a high, hot wind—floating, untethered.
“I hope you are lying to me,” she said at last. “Please tell me you’re a hallucination. I won’t be angry, I swear it.”
Zahra bowed her head. “I wish I could.”
“I am the daughter of the Blood Queen.” Her voice came out hollow, heavy. “Daughter of the Kingsbane.”
“You are.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is understandable. It does not, however, change the truth.”
Eliana stared at the floor through a furious fog of tears. “How did I get here, then? If I was born back then, to her, and now I’m here… How?”
“That, I’m afraid, is not my story to tell.”
Eliana laughed wearily. “Of course.”
“Eliana, I’m not being coy—”
Eliana waved Zahra silent. She waited until her tears had dried, until she felt she could stand, until she could almost believe the story she told herself—that this was indeed a hallucination, some horrible dream brought on by whatever Fidelia had used to knock her unconscious.
Zahra said quietly at the door, “It’s time to leave.”
Eliana rose to her feet, wiped her face on her sleeve, and said to Zahra, “Then get me out of here. I have things to do.”
39
Rielle
“I worry about Tal. I’ve always worried about him for reasons I couldn’t name, and now I understand why: because he has lived a lie for years, for the sake of this girl, and now is suffering for it. I would never say this to him, but I write it here or else it will burst from my tongue: I hate her for doing this to him. Yes, she was only a child when it all began. But after that, as she grew and learned? What then? What stayed her tongue? Fear? Or malice?”
—Journal of Miren Ballastier, Grand Magister of the Forge
June 8, Year 998 of the Second Age
When the doors to the Council Hall opened, Rielle rose from her chair and steeled herself.
She did not expect her father to enter and hurry straight toward her, his face pale.
Rielle’s guards formed a tight circle around her.
“Sorry, Lord Commander,” said Evyline, her hands hovering above the hilt of her sword. “I can’t let you past.”
“Let him past,” ordered King Bastien, the Archon and the Magisterial Council filing in behind him.
As soon as the guards stepped aside, Rielle’s father hurried over and gathered her close.
“Oh, my darling girl,” he whispered against the top of her head.
Rielle’s shock was so great that tears sprang to her eyes before she could draw a full breath. “Papa?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Rielle’s thoughts had scattered at the touch of her father’s hands. How long had it been since he had held her like this? Years.
She clutched his jacket, burying her face in the scratchy, stiff fabric. All at once, she was four years old again, and her mother was still alive, and nothing had happened except a few unexplained odd incidents: candles extinguishing themselves, an overflowing sink, a crack appearing in the kitchen floor beneath Rielle’s small, tantrum-throwing body.
All at once, she was four years old again, and her father still loved her.
“Papa,” she whispered, “I was so frightened.”
“I know.” He wiped her tears with callused fingers. The implacable Lord Commander of the Celdarian army was gone, and in his place was a mere aging father. “He won’t hurt you again.”
King Bastien, standing before the council table, cleared his throat. “Lady Rielle.”