“Closer,” she murmured, smiling softly against his skin.
He slid a shaking hand up her nightgown, across her bare thigh. He let out a low, broken sound and pressed his forehead to her own, moved his hand up to draw slow circles across her belly, and then slipped lower to settle between her legs. She cried out sharply when he touched her where she most craved it, her body bowing up off the ground and her hands clutching the grass for anchor. The wet earth beneath her swelled, trembled; a soft steaming mist had begun to rise around their bodies. The breeze cooling Rielle’s skin sharpened, gusting.
“I can’t bear this,” she whispered, hooking a leg around his, drawing his hips closer to her own. “Audric, please.”
He lowered his mouth to her neck, let out an unsteady laugh. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted you, Rielle?” came his harsh whisper, hot and sweet against the hollow of her throat. “Do you know how long I’ve—”
A hound let out a baying howl. Then another.
Audric froze, pulled away to stare down at Rielle in dismay. Then he looked over his shoulder, and Rielle felt his body tense.
She propped herself up on her elbows, tugged down her nightgown to hide her bare legs, and when she saw who stood in the trees on the far side of the seeing pools, her stomach knotted with dread.
A man stood in the moonlight, flanked by his hounds: Lord Dervin Sauvillier.
Ludivine’s father, staring right at them.
And his face was hard and white with fury.
28
Eliana
“Though humans and angels were at war for centuries, they always had at least one common enemy: marques. The unclean children of traitors who lay with the enemy, their magic was neither of the mind nor the physical world but something else entirely. Were we right to hunt them down? Perhaps not. But we were right to fear them.”
—Marked: An Exploration of the Slaughtered Marque Race by Varrick Keighley, Venteran scholar
Eliana closed her eyes, weary. “Remy, please don’t start this nonsense again.”
“Do humans look like they do?” Remy insisted.
“He has these pet theories, you see,” Eliana told Navi.
“Their black eyes,” he continued. “Everyone talks about them. You can hardly see the white around them, is what I’ve heard.”
Eliana waved a dismissive hand. “Who knows what sorts of drugs the Emperor’s generals have access to?”
“Then explain the visions you and Navi had when you were near them. The angels used mind-speak. All the old stories say so.”
“And the old stories,” Eliana bit out, “are just that. Stories from a world so long past that nobody can remember it, and most intelligent people believe it never existed quite as those stories say.” She drew in a breath, more unsteadily than she would have liked. “People look anywhere for comfort during times like ours, Remy. Believe all you want in a world of angels and magic and mind-speak and travelers who can zip from one end of time to another, but please promise me you’ll remember it is simply that. A belief. It isn’t fact, it isn’t proven—”
“And the way your body can heal itself?” Remy interrupted. “Is that belief? Or is it a fact?”
Eliana glared at him but said nothing. For of course he was right. She couldn’t ignore the simple truth of her own body.
“Why won’t you believe me?” came Remy’s voice at last, softer now. “It’s the only thing that makes sense after what you’ve seen, isn’t it?”
“Because if the angels are alive and real, then we’re well and truly fucked, and there’s no point to any of this,” Eliana snapped, rising to her feet. “No point to being in this room, no point to searching for Mother.”
“No point to the people you’ve killed and betrayed,” Navi finished.
Eliana whirled around to glare at her. “And no point to the years you’ve wasted as an Empire whore.”
“El, stop it!” Remy hissed.
“Spy is the word I prefer,” said Navi mildly. “It helps me fend off the nightmares.”
Eliana stalked a few paces away with her arms crossed. She yearned, suddenly, for Simon to appear, if only so she could throw her knives at something that would fight back and show her no mercy.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, refusing to look at Navi. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” said Navi. “But I accept your apology.”
“They might not be angels,” Remy admitted, after a moment. “I’ve never read any stories about angels with solid black eyes. But then, those visions you saw… That can’t be nothing.”