Zahra zipped around to hover behind Eliana.
“Beware of him,” she whispered. “He is almost here. I can hide you if you wish. I’ve regained enough strength for a few seconds.”
“Beware of him why?”
“A man with such scars cannot be fully trusted, for those wounds hide his full truth, even from a creature such as I am.”
Eliana narrowed her eyes. “You mean, you can’t read his thoughts?”
Zahra shook her head. “I know he’s near, that he lives in pain he shares with no one. But I can see no more than that. Eliana, I’d no idea Simon was such a man. I would never have trusted his word… Oh, please, let me hide you from him.”
“No.” Eliana caught a flicker of movement in the trees. Her heart kicked wildly. “I will speak to him.”
“He won’t be able to see me,” Zahra whispered. “You are the only human who can.”
That surprised her. “Why?”
“No one else has enough power for it. Since the Fall, all your eyes have been shut to the empirium—”
“What are you doing out here?” Simon emerged from the trees, lowered his hood, and removed his mask. “You should be resting.”
Shaking her nerves free of Zahra’s hovering fear, Eliana stalked toward him. “I was waiting for you.”
He stopped, watching her approach. “Oh? To what do I owe the pleasure of a private meeting with the Dread of Orline?”
She marched past him into the trees. When her shoulder brushed his arm, the touch shot through her, shoulder to belly, like a hot arrow. “Come with me.”
“An illicit encounter in the dark, dark woods,” he murmured, following her. “My most secret dreams have come to life.”
She kept silent until they had gone a few hundred yards from the safe house. Then she stopped, facing away from him, arms rigid at her sides.
“The building where I was held captive by Fidelia,” she began, her voice tight. “What was it?”
“Laboratories,” he answered at once.
She turned, steeling herself. “For experimentation on the captured women.”
“Yes.”
“Where they are turned into crawlers, thanks to the Emperor’s study of genetics.”
A flicker of surprise moved across Simon’s face. “You have spoken to someone. Who?”
Beside Eliana, Zahra muttered low, “Someone who will protect her at all costs.”
Simon unsheathed the sword at his belt. “Who’s there? Step away from her, or I’ll gut you.”
So Zahra was right. He couldn’t see the wraith, but he could hear her.
“I did speak with someone,” Eliana replied. “Someone who told me you knew about Fidelia all along. You knew who they were, what they were doing. You knew they took my mother, and you knew where to look for her. She wasn’t in the laboratories where I was kept, but she is somewhere else—and I’m sure you know, being the mighty Wolf, exactly where across the country Fidelia can be found. And yet instead of telling me any of this, you dragged me through the wild and kept me in the dark, knowing all the while what was happening to her.”
Simon stood frozen, his sword still in the air.
“Your silence,” Eliana said, fury rising fast in her chest, “is all the confirmation I need.”
“I did what I was ordered to do,” he said, his voice made of stone.
She let out a scornful sound. “The mighty Prophet’s orders, I suppose.”
“The Prophet sees much and guides my every step.”
She turned away, too angry to speak.
“If you slice at him,” Zahra said quietly, “I won’t try to stop you. I’ll make sure to hide the noise from the others.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Eliana said. “Not yet.”
Simon’s voice was tight with frustration. “Who are you talking to?”
Zahra rounded on him, an eight-foot tall echo of the woman she had once been. “If you continue to upset my queen,” she boomed, vibrating with anger, “I will strike you down where you stand.”
“Who is this?” Simon spat. “Show yourself.”
“Your eyes are not worthy of me, Wolf.”
Simon stilled, his expression clearing. “Zahra. The wraith who’s been spying for us.”
Zahra let out a sharp laugh. “I spy not for you but for my queen.”
“She keeps calling me that,” Eliana whispered. “She says…” She let out a shaky burst of laughter.
Behind her, Simon sheathed his sword. She heard him approach her, slowly.
“She says you are the Sun Queen,” he said, his voice very low.
She looked back at him. The shadows drew new scars across his face, but his eyes were clear and sharp, even in the dim light, and in them, she saw a spark of something—pity, she thought, and a burning conviction.
“She says you are the One Who Rises,” he continued, “the Furyborn Child. She says you are the daughter of the Lightbringer and that she will do anything to protect you.” He hesitated, the muscles in his jaw working. “She isn’t the only one.”
“Tell me the truth, then, if you care so much about me.” Eliana’s voice came out a hard whisper. “Tell me no more lies.”
“A few months ago,” he said, moving through the trees, “I heard of a bounty hunter called the Dread of Orline. A girl, the rumors said, who had racked up an impressive number of kills. One of the highest in the Empire, in fact.” He stopped, turned back to Eliana. “A girl who was invincible.”
Eliana watched him, waiting. Her body felt so tense she feared it might snap.
“A silly enough rumor to dismiss, at first,” he continued, “but I kept hearing it, again and again, and when I told the Prophet, I was ordered to investigate. I would go to Orline, find this Dread, and observe her. And if it was nothing, I would bring Princess Navana north, as was my original mission. But the rumors were indeed true. I knew you, Eliana, as soon as I saw your face.”
His voice took on a rough quality that filled Eliana with a slow-creeping fear. What he was saying…whether it was madness or not, he believed it.
“How could you have possibly known me for anyone?” she asked. “We’d never met before that night in Orline, and—”
“I knew your parents,” Simon interrupted quietly. “I see them on your face as clearly as I see the sun rise at dawn.”
She stepped away from him, the truth settling slowly in her mind. “It was never about me helping you bring Navi to Astavar. You didn’t need me for that.”
“No. When I found you, my mission to bring Navi home became secondary to keeping you safe. Everything,” he said, moving urgently toward her, “is secondary to keeping you safe. Navi’s life. My life. Red Crown.”
She stared at him in horror. Zahra murmured close to her ear, “He isn’t wrong in this, Eliana. We may not trust him altogether, but this, at least, is the real truth.”
Simon shot an irritated glance Zahra’s way.
“It’s not my fault your human eyes aren’t strong enough to see me,” Zahra said archly. “There’s no need to scowl.”
“I don’t understand,” Eliana whispered. “This is ludicrous.”
Simon stopped just short of touching her. “Why do you think your body can do what it does? You’ve been lying to yourself about it for years, and I understand why, but it’s time to face the truth.”
She lifted her chin, fumbling for speech. “I’ve just been lucky is all.”
“You don’t believe that.” He did reach for her then, his touch on her cheek so gentle it was a mere whisper of warmth. “It’s your power, Eliana. The power you inherited from your mother. It’s fighting to awaken at last. And when it does—”
A scream pierced the night, followed by Remy’s voice: “El, he’s here!”
Glass crashed against stone.
A brilliant orange light flared to life through the trees, illuminating the awful truth:
The safe house was on fire.
A familiar figure stood before it, staring out into the trees with a flaming torch in one hand.
Simon swore.
“Tick, tock, tick, tock!” crowed Rahzavel. “We’re all waiting for you, Dread! Come out and play!”
43