“I have encouraged our young prince to split his time between the House of Light and the Forge, for he must not only study sunlight, but also craft a casting strong enough to contain his considerable power—though he did not seem too keen on the idea of a sword. The boy would rather his casting be some dusty tome as big as his torso.”
—Journal of Grand Magister Ardeline Guillory of the House of Light
Year 983 of the Second Age
The gardens behind Baingarde were Rielle’s favorite place in the world. She, Audric, and Ludivine had spent many hours of their childhood running down the hushed dirt paths, crafting secret hideaways in grassy hollows and creeping around the seeing pools that surrounded the royal catacombs.
Rielle smiled, remembering the skipping-stones game the three of them had loved to play. The game was to jump across the seeing pools using the moss-slicked stones as a path. Anyone who fell would be forever haunted by the ghosts of dead kings and queens.
The pools’ still black water had always reminded Rielle of unkind mirrors and made her wonder if a secret tunnel existed somewhere beneath the water, into which she might fall and disappear forever.
In that secret world, young Rielle had often thought, would it be all right to have murdered your mother? Would the people there care at all?
For an instant she could feel Audric and Ludivine on either side of her. One holding her hand warmly; the other keeping a proper distance away, always, always.
Once her bare feet hit the path that led to the seeing pools, Rielle stopped and inhaled. She imagined the cool night air of the gardens seeping into her lungs and washing her troubled heart clean.
“Are you sure you don’t require boots, my lady?” asked Evyline. “There’s quite a chill.”
Rielle looked back at her guard. “Will you leave me to wander alone for a while? I long for quiet.”
Evyline made a small sound of disapproval. “I can be exceptionally quiet, my lady.”
Rielle crossed her arms and glared at her.
After a long moment, Evyline sighed. “Very well, my lady. If I hear you yell in distress, I shall come running after you heroically.”
“I would expect nothing less from you, dear Evyline.”
Then Rielle slipped into the trees, following one of the narrow dirt paths. Soft pine needles littered the ground; dew-glittered ferns brushed the trailing hem of her dressing gown. Centuries before, Queen Katell had planted sorrow trees throughout the gardens of Baingarde in honor of Aryava, her fallen angel lover. Now the ancient trees sprawled low and far across the ground, their knotted black limbs heavy with thick clusters of pale pink flowers.
At last, Rielle emerged near the seeing pools. They stretched dark and tranquil toward the grass-covered mound that served as the entrance to the royal catacombs. Two torches flanked the great stone doors, which were marked with the seven temple sigils.
Rielle knelt at the edge of the closest pool and touched her fingers to her forehead, her temple, and her chest, to her throat, her palm, the nape of her neck, and finally to each of her closed eyes.
May the Queen’s light guide you home, she prayed in honor of the fallen saints and the queens and kings who lay resting within the catacombs.
Then she rose to her feet, her dressing gown damp from the dew, and heard a low grunt.
She squinted through the mist rising over the pools and saw Audric on the other side of them, hugged by a cluster of sorrow trees. He wore only trousers and boots, his bare brown torso gleaming with sweat. With Illumenor in hand, he ran through exercise after exercise—cutting the air with the blade, whirling on his feet, dodging imaginary attackers.
The sight of him, lit by the moon from above and the humming sheen of Illumenor from below, was enough to make Rielle lose her breath. His expression was one of utter concentration—brow furrowed, eyes dark and grave.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” Rielle called out.
He turned, lowered his sword. A broad smile spread across his face. “I don’t sleep much these days.”
She made her way toward him along the soft, grassy path between the seeing pools. “And why is that?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He sheathed Illumenor, wiped his brow with a cloth. “When dear friends are forced into deadly situations week after week, it tends to keep me up at night.”
“Sounds like your friends are more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Not at all.” He stepped toward her, and when the moonlight fell over him, it illuminated the shadows beneath his eyes, the lines of worry about his mouth. “I’d bear a thousand sleepless nights if it meant my friends were safe.”
She had to look away from him, her pulse fluttering in her throat. Being near Audric made her earlier loneliness seem more vast and inescapable than ever.
“Tell me,” she said lightly, “what does it feel like for you? When you work magic.”
His voice was thoughtful. “Like all the pieces of who I am are coming together as they were meant to. Like anything is possible, in that moment, for my focus is that complete and controlled. Like…like a really good stretch.”
Rielle immediately pictured Audric in his bed, unclothed and curls tousled, sleepily stretching that long, lean body in a pool of sunlight.
She licked her dry lips, moved past him. At his nearness, the air crackled and stirred, warming her.
“You do have exceptional control,” she murmured. “Does it ever…break?”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
Of course you don’t, she thought irritably. But that wasn’t fair. Just because she was on edge, sleepless, and terrified by the thought of where Corien could have gone and what he was doing and if there were other angels and if he would ever come back to her—that didn’t give her the excuse to direct her anger at Audric.
He had done nothing wrong. He never did.
“You never do anything wrong,” she blurted out, harsher than she’d meant to. So much for not being angry at Audric.
“Well, of course I do,” he said, laughing. “Shall I remind you of a certain forbidden horse race?”
“I don’t mean sneaking out and breaking our parents’ rules. I mean, real wrong things. You’re powerful, and yet do you ever…? Never mind. Of course you don’t.”
Rielle turned away to sit on the damp ground. “I don’t even know what I’m saying,” she muttered, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I need to sleep, but I can’t. My mind is racing in circles.”
After a moment, she looked up to see Audric settling in the grass at her side. He’d thrown his tunic back on, she noticed with deep regret.
“If you try to explain,” he said gently, “I’ll listen.”
For a long time, she stared at her toes curling in the damp grass. She needed to return to her bed, try for some proper rest. Another day of training with her father and poring over books at the House of Night library with Ludivine in preparation for the next trial. She had an appointment with the Archon in the afternoon. He insisted on regular interviews throughout the trials, during which he inquired as to her health, her state of mind, what she’d been eating and drinking, how she’d been sleeping, what her dreams had been like.
If only you knew, Your Holiness.
Audric placed a warm hand on hers. “Rielle, what is it? Tell me.”
Slowly, she raised her gaze to his. He was so close she could count the thick dark lashes around his eyes, and she had a sudden vision of herself kissing the tender skin beneath them.
“During the metal trial,” she whispered, “when I realized what the Archon had done, that he’d put children in the cage with me”—she swallowed, closed her eyes—“I wanted to hurt him.”
“Well, God, Rielle, so did I!” Audric raked a hand through his hair with a slight, hard laugh. “I’d imagine everyone did. Is that what’s bothering you? Darling, please don’t let that keep you from sleep.”
“It’s not only that!” Rielle tore a clump of grass from the ground in frustration. “It’s…it’s so many things.”
Even while my mother burned, I was glad to feel the power simmering at my fingers.
Even though I know Corien is an angel, I want him to come back to me.
Even though you belong to Ludivine…I want you for my own.
I want…I want. I crave. I hunger.
“I want so many things,” she whispered, “and none of them are very good.”
Audric cupped her face in his hand, guided her to look up at him. For a moment they sat frozen, Audric’s mouth so close that Rielle could have lifted her chin and met his lips with her own.
Then Audric lowered his hand and looked away.
“We all have darkness inside us, Rielle,” he said, his voice rough. “That is what it means to be human.”
She shook her head slowly. “I think what it means to be human is that you are able to move past that darkness and do good in the world even so. And you, Audric”—she laughed a little—“I’d wager everything I am that you never experience such thoughts as I do. Sometimes your goodness shines so brightly that I want to devour you. Maybe if I have enough of you, that light you shine will stave off the wickedness that lives inside me.”
She rubbed her brow. “I can’t believe I’m saying these things. What you must think of me.”
“I think of you what I have ever since I’ve known you.” Audric reached for her hand, steadied it between his own. “That I’m glad you are beside me, and that I wish for you to always be.”
She dared to look up at him, and when she did, she let out a soft, murmuring sound, leaned closer to him as if pulled by a cord connecting his body to her own. He cupped her face with one hand, let the other trail gentle fingers down her arm. The warmth of his body flooded through her; she shuddered and twisted to move closer to him.
“Audric,” she murmured, closing her eyes. She touched her cheek to his, relished the gentle scrape of his jaw.
“If there is wickedness inside you, Rielle,” Audric said hoarsely, his lips in her hair, “then I shall treasure it as I do every other part of you.”
A soft touch of his fingers against her ribs; another at the back of her neck, sending a tremulous chill down her spine. She melted into him, slipping into his arms as easily as if she belonged there.
But then she remembered Ludivine.
She closed her eyes. “We shouldn’t,” she whispered, her body screaming at her to stop talking and touch him. “I… Audric, what about Lu?”
Audric moved slightly away from her. Sorrow fell across his face. “I know. You’re right, I know.”
Rielle propped herself up on her elbows, watching him carefully. “Do you love her?”
“She is dear to me, but…no. Not as I should.”
“Then…” She reached for him, turned his face back to hers. Tears of shame rose in her eyes, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the blazing need in his own. “Maybe just this once? For the memory of it.”
He hesitated, glanced back through the trees toward Baingarde.
“The memory,” he said slowly, “might make things harder.”
“I don’t care.” She cupped his face in her hands, shook her head. “I want to anyway.”
For a moment he was quiet, considering her. Then, a soft smile. His lips against her palm. “My wicked girl,” he murmured and lowered his mouth sweetly onto hers.
The kiss was so careful, so gentle, that Rielle’s heart ached with tenderness for him. She cried out softly against his mouth and hooked her arms around his neck. At her touch, he shivered and deepened the kiss with a groan. The moment shifted from something cautious, something fragile and slow, to a scorching, helpless need. His hands slid down her body, and she arched up into his touch. When she felt him hard against her leg, she tightened her arms around him and gasped against his cheek.
“Audric,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Yes. Yes, please.” She was dizzy with his nearness—his tongue opening her mouth, the soft murmurs of her name, the frantic nibbling gasps against her skin.
He gathered her body against his, fumbled beneath her dressing gown for the thin cotton of her nightgown, cupped her hips in his palms. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind where to touch her, and Rielle basked in every moment of his indecision, twisting beneath him, tugging at his shirt to move him where she wanted. She snaked her fingers under his tunic, greedy for the hot, bare skin of his muscled back. He was so warm, so solid and sure. She closed her eyes, pressed her lips to his collarbone. Breathing him in felt like breathing in a summer’s day.
“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.
