Rielle whirled around to face the roaring white snow-sea, planted her frozen legs on the cliff’s edge. She thrust her hands into the air and squeezed her eyes shut. Didn’t think anything, didn’t even think stop.
She threw up her hands, the solid heat inside her screaming No! more loudly than any voice or word ever could.
A narrow wall of rock, wide enough to shelter her, burst out of the ground before her and shot up into the air mere seconds before the avalanche slammed into it.
Rielle stood, head bowed and eyes closed, her hands pressed flat against the fast-rising rock, palms sparking against the stone like flint. The avalanche broke with a roaring howl on either side of her. The churning snow and rock scraped against her arms and feet, threatened to lift her up off the ground and fling her into the canyon.
Hold fast to the rock, said Rielle’s blood.
Hold fast.
And the narrow slab of rock seemed to listen. It stood tall, shaking against the force of the crashing avalanche. The air tasted sour, damp tendrils of mud-scented earthshaker magic straining to their limit as they whipped through the air.
A tiny flame of triumph unfurled between Rielle’s burning lungs.
They had tried to kill her, and they had failed.
They had crashed a mountain down atop her, and she had lived.
She stood trembling on the cliff’s edge, the same mountain that had tried to kill her now shielding her from itself.
“Please stop,” she whispered to the mountain. She didn’t blame it for being angry at such abuse. She pressed her cheek against the hot wall of stone, which now stood rigid like an ancient thing that had always existed on that spot—a queer pillar of rock, lonely and stubborn.
The tips of her fingers were aflame. If she kept this going much longer, her chest would crack open, her heart would burst, her lungs would give out.
“Please,” she whispered, each word an effort, “stop.” Exhausted tears leaked down her cheeks.
Then, whether it was a response to her plea or simply the moment Grand Magister Florimond decided enough was enough, the mountain eased itself back whole. The avalanche subsided; boulders dropped abruptly from the sky.
It was chaos to stillness in the span of five seconds.
A bird called out forlornly.
Rielle let herself fall, slumping at the foot of her rock. The snow was a cool pillow under her flaming cheek.
“Only six more,” she whispered, a watery smile playing at her lips, and then pain hit her all at once.
I’ll be here when you wake, said the voice, and some dim, spinning part of her tired mind whispered back, Thank you.
14
Eliana
“Since our war with the humans began, I have had only one dream. Every night, the fog surrounding it lifts, and I understand more of what I see: a woman, made of gold brighter than the sun. She stands in a river of blood, and light falls from the ends of her hair. Is she friend or foe? This my dreams have not made clear to me. But I know this: she will come. In this war, or the next, she will come.”
—Lost writings of the angel Aryava
“I hear you’re a storyteller,” said Navi.
Eliana waited for Remy’s response.
Nothing.
For two days they’d been driving the horses north by night, hiding in tense silence when they heard signs of pursuing adatrox patrols, and then, from sunup to sundown, waiting in the trees for nightfall.
The moment they’d had a chance to rest, hiding in a ditch lined with reeking mud as the sun shone dangerously bright above, Remy had whispered, “What happened to Harkan?”
“He stayed behind to give us time to escape,” Eliana had told him, her voice carefully careless and her heart in shreds. “I left him instructions. He’ll catch up with us later—”
“Don’t lie to me. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
She couldn’t look at him. “Harkan? Come on, you know it takes more than a few adatrox to—”
“Shut up.”
“Truly, Remy. We can’t know for certain.” Even as she said the words, she couldn’t bring herself to believe them. “He could still be alive—”
“Please.” Remy had drawn his knees to his chest and turned away from her. “Just shut up.”
He had said nothing since.
Now, however, Navi seemed determined to make him speak.
“What kind of stories do you like to tell?” she asked.
Eliana, on first watch, leaned against a nearby silver oak, Arabeth in one hand and Whistler in the other. She glared into the forest. Slender silver oaks with faintly gleaming bark surrounded them, as did waxy-leaved, white-flowered gemma trees. Stout watchtowers, branchless save for frazzled-looking clusters at the top, stood lopsided throughout. They were popular along Orline’s outer wall, traditionally planted to ward off invaders, which Eliana found hysterical. She’d always thought they resembled old men with soft bellies and wild hair.
When she’d first told Remy that, he’d considered the tree nearest them, then put his nose in the air, bowed, and said to the tree, “Well met, good sir. Might I offer you a comb?”
Eliana had laughed so hard she’d actually squeaked.
Her hand tightened around Whistler. God, it’d be nice to fight something.
Instead of standing here, feeling sorry for myself.
And angry.
Mostly angry.
No. She drew a long, slow breath. Mostly missing Harkan.
And Mother.
And Father.
For a moment she allowed herself to imagine Harkan there beside her, on watch with her, distrusting Simon with her, worrying about her mother with her—and her throat tightened so painfully that she lost her breath.
Pay attention, Eliana. You’re on watch.
She glared at the trees until her eyes dried, then glanced sidelong at Simon, who had settled down to rest. He sat in the shadow of another oak, scanning the dawn-lit forest.
She considered him. Grief and worry nettled her insides. This stillness was maddening.
What would he do if she lunged at him with blades drawn? He’d bested her back home, but only because of his gun. If she could gut him before he could reach the holster—
And then what? The whole point of this mad venture was to use him, not kill him.
Eliana thumped her head against the tree at her back and glared at the sky.
“Talking to me might make you feel better,” Navi insisted, her voice kind.
Eliana rolled her eyes.
But then Remy surprised her. “I like to write stories about magic,” he replied hoarsely.
Eliana’s breath caught. She hadn’t realized until that moment how deeply she’d missed the sound of his voice.
“Magic?” Navi sounded intrigued. “You mean the Old World?”
“I like writing about the elementals. Especially earthshakers.”
“Why earthshakers?”
“Sometimes I wish an army of earthshakers would come to Orline. Crack open the ground, let it swallow the city whole.”
“I see,” said Navi evenly.
“Sorry,” Remy muttered. “Eliana says I shouldn’t talk about things like that. It isn’t kind.”
That seemed to amuse Navi. “And your sister is?”
Bitch. Eliana flashed her the smile she usually reserved for marks she wanted to coax into bed. “When I want to be,” she replied.
Remy threw her an irritated look.
Navi put her arm around his shoulders. “I do understand wanting to tear down your city,” she said. “Sometimes I think life would be easier if the oceans would rise up and drown Astavar. Then I wouldn’t have to spend every moment of my life in an agony of worry for it.”
Remy nodded. “Waterworkers could do that.”
“Indeed they could, if there were any left. And they’d have to be quite powerful, even then, to sink an entire country.”
A beat of silence. Then Remy said, hushed, “Queen Rielle could have done it.”
“Ah.” Navi let out a little sigh. “The Blood Queen herself. Yes, I’m sure she could have plunged every mountain standing to the depths if she had lived long enough to do it. Do you ever write stories about her?”