“We are the ones he calls at night
We are the vessels of his might
We speak the word that he has prayed
Upon his wings, our souls remade”
—The initiation pledge of the cult Fidelia
The world was a flat gray box, and Eliana lived inside it.
A floor, a wall, a ceiling. No windows. A metal door with a thin slot cut out near the bottom—and a narrow strip of light underneath it the only light source.
The air filled with faint, distant screams.
Slowly, she sat up and realized she was wearing plain white trousers with a matching tunic. Her feet were bare; the floor was cold and hard. Her knives…her knives were gone. As was her necklace.
A cell. She was in a cell.
She drew her knees to her chest, held her aching head in her hands.
Memories returned to her: Rahzavel grinning down at her, the shadowed rafters of Sanctuary arching high overhead. Simon crashing down from the stairs. Running with Navi, the world lurching around her with every step. Remy. She needed to get to Remy.
Her breath came thin and quick. She remembered, she remembered…
A hand over her mouth, poisonous fumes shooting up her nose.
Three women gone in three seconds.
Fidelia.
With a wild cry, she surged to her feet and slammed against the door—over and over, throwing her left side into each blow until her head spun and her teeth hurt. She would be bruised, but only for a little while. Might as well keep going, then, right?
“Who are you?” She pounded her fists raw, kicked her toes bloody. “Release me! Show me your fucking face!”
And then, she remembered one last thing: her mother. Her mother could be in this place.
She threw herself against the door with renewed fervor. “Mother? Mother, I’m here! Someone answer me! Answer me!”
But even her body had its limits. She screamed until her voice gave out. She crumpled to the floor, clapped exhausted palms against the door until she could no longer hold up her arms, then dragged herself to the corner of the cell and folded her body into a tight ball.
Eyes fixed on the bright line of white below the door, she waited.
• • •
She woke up when she heard Navi screaming.
Scrambling upright, she called out hoarsely, “I’m here! Navi, I’m here!” She crouched at the door, ear pressed to the metal, fingers flexed and ready.
Silence.
She held her breath. Had it been a dream?
The screams began again—heart-punching, shattered sounds like something being forcibly unmade. At first wordless, and then, minutes or hours later, Navi began to beg for an end.
“Kill me!” The screams became desperate shrieks. “Kill me!”
Inhuman roars joined the chorus, carved into pieces as if issued from many mouths.
Women?
Girls?
Beasts?
Eliana retreated to her corner, light-headed, hands clamped over her ears. She was not the Dread in this place. She forgot everything but the awful truth of Navi’s screams and her own vulnerable, trembling body. She was a rat in this cell, and the catcher would come for her soon. The stupid animal part of her brain told her so. Faster than she had ever believed possible, it rose up to stomp out all of her training and left her shaking with fear in the dark.
• • •
Would they torture her for information and then feed her to a pit of animals?
What information did they want?
Red Crown?
Navi?
God, what they might have already learned from her…
Eliana paced. Movement made the fear feel smaller. She practiced slicing through the air with the tray that had brought food she dared not touch.
“I shall name you Arabeth the Second,” she told the tray and then laughed and told herself to stop talking to trays right this instant. If she lost her mind so soon into imprisonment, it would be an insult to her mother’s training.
“Arabeth,” said a voice behind her, sonorous but warped and faintly amused. “A fine name for a weapon.”
Eliana whirled and threw the tray at the shadowed shape that stood against the far wall. A woman, Eliana thought, tall and thin and…transparent.
The tray shot through the woman’s body, hit the wall, clattered to the floor.
Cursing, Eliana staggered back as far as the cell allowed. “What are you? Show yourself!”
The woman obeyed, drifting forward until she knelt at Eliana’s feet. She was a colorless distortion in the air. Shimmering, thread-thin lights outlined robes, a full mouth, and a mass of hair that fell to her hips.
“It’s true, then,” the woman murmured, reaching out to touch Eliana’s hand.
Eliana’s vision jolted, then blackened. She swayed on her feet, braced her hands against her knees, fought against unconsciousness.
“You don’t belong here,” she managed. “You feel wrong.”
“I know,” said the woman, a great sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry for that. You will get used to it, if it’s any comfort.”
“You’re Fidelia. Get the fuck away from me.”
“I am certainly not Fidelia.”
Eliana pressed her fingers to her temples. “I felt this sickness in Sanctuary, right before you took me. And the night you took my mother and when you took those girls from the slums—”
“I did none of this, my queen. The Prophet does not snatch girls from their beds, and neither do I.”
Eliana squinted at the woman, breathing thinly through the ill feeling churning in her gut. “What did you call me?”
“There have been rumors for months that Simon found you at last,” the woman continued, her voice thrumming with excitement, “but I did not let myself believe it until now. Now, I see your face, I hear you speak, I feel you breathe, and I know.”
The woman floated nearer, cupped Eliana’s face in her hand. Eliana felt nothing at her touch except for a fresh wave of nausea. She squeezed her eyes shut and sank to the floor.
“I’m going to be sick,” she moaned.
“Forgive me, my queen.” The woman moved quickly away. “I should not have touched you. It is difficult for humans to adjust.”
“Who are you, what are you, and why are you calling me that?”
The woman bowed her head. “I am forgetting myself. If you only knew how long we’ve been waiting for this day…but then, you will know soon enough.”
Eliana looked up as the woman stretched to her full, translucent height—eight feet, at least. Her elongated limbs reminded Eliana uncomfortably of a spider.
“I am Zahra,” the woman said, “and I am a wraith. And you are Eliana Ferracora, the Dread of Orline, the last of House Courverie, daughter of the Lightbringer, heir to the throne of Saint Katell, the true queen of Celdaria, and…” Zahra spread her long arms wide. Her dark smile was full of joy. “You are the One Who Rises. The Furyborn Child. You are the Sun Queen, Eliana, and I have come to bring you home.”
