“There are others I’d prefer to strike more.”
Camille nodded and glanced down the shadowed corridor. All was quiet. “I’ve this girl who works for me,” she began slowly. “Laenys is her name. She came up from the Vespers. The islands have fallen into despair. There’s no work, little food. She got out, came here. A hard worker, Laenys. She never complained.”
“And you’re telling me this why?”
Camille watched her for a moment longer. “I’ve heard many things about you, Dread. That you’re a pet of the Empire, for one.”
Eliana laughed and looked away, eyes burning. “Typically pets are cherished, aren’t they?” She needed to get some food in her body, flush out the treacherous stormy feeling in her chest.
“And,” Camille went on, “that you’re invincible.”
Eliana looked at her sharply. “And now you’d like to test the truth of that rumor, is that it? Slice me open and see what happens?”
“No. I’ve got a job for you if you’ll take it.”
“I’m rather in the middle of the last job I accepted,” Eliana reminded her. “Simon wouldn’t appreciate you poaching me.”
“And what if my job could get you to your mother sooner than Simon can?”
Eliana’s hand flew to Arabeth at her hip. “Careful, Camille,” she said softly. “This is dangerous ground you’re treading on.”
“Laenys was taken a few days ago. I want you to find out who took her and get her back.”
Taken. Just like Mother? Eliana stiffened, her heart pounding. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.” Camille’s mouth thinned. “They come in the night. They come every seven days. They’re called Fidelia. That’s the word I’ve heard used. People whisper it like they used to speak of the Empire before the invasion.”
“What is it, then? A splinter faction of Red Crown?”
“I’ve only heard rumors.” A flicker of uncertainty moved across Camille’s face. “You’ll think it’s nonsense.”
“I won’t. Speak.”
“People say that Fidelia…” Camille dragged a hand through her short black hair. “They’re angel lovers, I’ve heard. They believe the Emperor and his generals are not men, but angels. They hunt to serve them, that they may be raised to glory once the world is conquered and the angels rule all.” She scoffed. “It’s daft, I know, but isn’t everything these days?”
Horror dropped cold down Eliana’s spine. Could Remy actually be right?
Camille continued. “We didn’t realize for some time that people were disappearing. Rinthos is so crowded that someone can go missing for days before you even realize they’re gone. At first they only took one. Then a few. Then many. People started noticing. And yet it won’t stop.” Camille drew in a slight shaky breath. “Every seven days, girls are disappearing. And women too. Grown, young, rich, poor. Mostly poor.” Her voice acquired a bitter edge. “No one misses them, you see.”
Eliana could keep quiet no longer. “My mother was taken, just like that. Back in Orline.”
Camille nodded grimly. “So I’ve heard. It’s been a week since the last taking. People have been whispering about it all morning, up above.”
Eliana thought quickly. “Is there a pattern to the disappearances? A place from which more girls are taken than others?”
“Laenys vanished from below, on the fighting floor. A week ago now. We were coming back from the market, and we turned a corner. I felt something—a movement, a coldness—and turned around, and…”
“And she was gone?”
Camille looked away, fists curled at her sides and eyes bright. “I don’t understand it. Why only girls? Where are they taking them?”
The same questions I asked myself weeks ago, Eliana thought, back in Orline.
“I don’t know,” Eliana said, fingers curling at her side around an invisible dagger. Fidelia. She would carve the word across their foreheads, right into the bone. “But I’m going to find out. And I’m going to make them pay.”
Camille watched her from the shadows. “If I help sneak you out past Simon, you’ll do it? Tonight is the seventh day. Night will fall, and by morning, more girls will be gone.”
“Then once night falls,” Eliana said with a loving caress of Arabeth’s hilt, “I’ll go hunting.”
31
Rielle
“I fear no darkness
I fear no night
I ask the shadows
To aid my fight”
—The Shadow Rite
As first uttered by Saint Tameryn the Cunning, patron saint of Astavar and shadowcasters
Rielle stood in the middle of the Flats, the first horn blast of the shadow trial ringing in her ears.
Wooden stands, draped with the black and blue colors of the House of Night, created a vast circle around where she stood alone in the whispering tall grass, cloaked and hooded.
Waiting.
Twelve platforms around the circle’s perimeter towered high above the ground. A shadowcaster stood solemn and dark on each one, faces masked and castings in hand.
The horn’s second call wailed across the Flats.
Rielle stepped free of her cloak, let it fall to the ground.
The gathered crowd lost its collective mind. Their cheers exploded, and they rose as one to stamp their feet and shout her name. Rielle threw up her arms to acknowledge them, and their cries became a roar.
She had been worried that, given the current gossip, the reception might be different for this trial.
But on the contrary—the people of me de la Terre now seemed to adore her even more.
She knelt in the direction of the House of Night, to say a quick prayer to Saint Tameryn, and could not hide her grin.
Ludivine had truly outdone herself with this costume. The gown’s snug black-velvet bodice was backless, scandalously low in front. The neckline dipped between her breasts and nearly reached her navel. Fine netting made of swirling ebony lace, so subtle it looked even from up close like a veil of shadows rather than fabric, shimmered across her exposed skin and held the dress in place. Floating around her legs when she moved was a gorgeous skirt of countless black, midnight-blue, and silver layers—silk, chiffon, Astavari lace. Ludivine had painted tiny silver stars across Rielle’s cheeks and brow, rimmed her eyes with kohl.
She was night itself reborn on the earth, a queen swathed in shadows.
And the best part was yet to come.
As one, the shadowcasters lifted their gloved hands to the sky, their castings in hand.
Rielle stood with her head bowed, arms flung out behind her like rigid wings. Her blood ran wild inside her.
This is what I was made for. The thought arose as naturally as breathing. She flexed her fingers, felt power gathering hot in her palms. No, not hot—vital. Her power was not an intangible thing, a trick of the mind. It was the power of the world itself—and all that lived inside it.
And only I, she thought, can tell it what to do.
A stirring at the back of her mind. Familiar and delighted.
She stiffened. Corien?
The horn blasted a third and final time.
The shadowcasters began.
Spirals of darkness shot hissing from their castings like snakes, then fanned out across the sky to form a dome of shadows. Darkness fell over the grass. Only a few scattered holes in the dome allowed in columns of sunlight, illuminating the Flats so the crowd could see.
Their jubilant cries turned to jeers.
Rielle felt courage rise swift and undaunted in her breast. In this place, she was their hero and the shadowcasters the enemy.
With the dome in place above, the shadowcasters made their next move. They lowered their castings to point right at Rielle—and unleashed their monsters.
Rielle’s courage vanished as quickly as it had arrived.