Furyborn (The Empirium Trilogy Book 1)

“The seven saints combined their powers and opened a doorway into the Deep with wind and water, with metal and fire, with shadow and earth. And when Saint Katell, last of all, let fly her blazing, sunlit sword, the angels fell screaming into eternal darkness.”

—The Book of the Saints

The Hall of Saints was the largest, most sacred room in Baingarde.

White stone pillars supported soaring vaulted ceilings ribboned with elaborate carvings of suns and moons, trees and flames. The ceilings themselves boasted a map of the world of Avitas: Celdaria and the other four nations of the sprawling eastern continent. North of Celdaria lay the Sunderlands and the Gate. And across the Great Ocean were the western kingdoms of Ventera, Astavar, and Meridian.

On a tall, white marble dais at the front of the room sat the High Court’s bench; grand, high-backed chairs for the king and queen; an ornate, wide-seated chair for the Archon, the head of the Church; and a multilevel gallery large enough to seat the members of every temple and royal council.

Above the dais towered Saint Katell, the patron saint of Celdaria and all sunspinners in the world. Her right arm held up her sword—her casting—which was now hidden somewhere in Celdaria.

Katell’s other hand clutched a fistful of ragged stone feathers. Angels, miniature and pathetic, their faces contorted in agony, crawled up the legs of her white mare, pleading to no avail.

Around her head shone a halo of light, plated in gold, kept burnished and flawless.

Saint Katell the Magnificent—a sunspinner and, after the Angelic Wars, a queen. The unifier of Celdaria. Loved by an angel but strong enough to resist the temptation of the enemy.

And, in the thousand years since, the children of her line had sat on the throne.

The other six saints lined the vast hall, three on each side. Gigantic and solemn, stone and bronze, they each carried their own casting and were framed by an element: Saint Nerida, waterworker and the patron saint of Meridian, brandishing her trident as waves crested at her back, her kraken coiled at her bare feet. Saint Grimvald, metalmaster and the patron saint of Borsvall, striking his way on dragonback through a storm of iron shards, his hammer in hand.

And Saint Katell, riding her shining white mare.

Twenty armored guards stood at the foot of the dais, facing Rielle. They were her father’s men and women, people she knew by name. She felt their eyes on her—concerned, curious. Afraid.

They are right to be afraid, came the voice, without warning. But not you.

Rielle stiffened. In this environment, it was impossible to hear the voice without remembering the truth: mind-speaking was something the angels once did.

Her skin crawled at the thought. So many people were staring at her that she could hardly remain still. Her father stood surrounded by a contingent of armed guards. Queen Genoveve, King Bastien, Ludivine. The Archon, serene in his robes. The councils—with the obvious, alarming exception of Tal.

And Audric.

He sat beside his parents, on the edge of his seat as if prepared to launch himself off the dais in case of disaster. When Rielle’s eyes met his, he sent her a small smile, thin with worry.

Rielle relaxed slightly.

Audric is here, she told herself. He won’t let them hurt me.

She found the king, above. The expression on his face made him look more troubled than she had ever seen him. King Bastien was a man of good humor. Rielle had grown up to the sound of his laughter booming through the halls of Baingarde, had screamed gleefully while he chased her, Audric, and Ludivine through their childhood playroom in countless games of go-find-the-mouse.

There was no trace of that man today.

Rielle resisted the urge to wipe away the sweat gathering at her hairline. She curtsied low, her skirts pooling on the spotless floor. “Your Majesty.”

“Lady Rielle Dardenne,” King Bastien began, “you have been brought here today to answer inquiries about the incident that occurred during the Boon Chase two days past. I will ask you a series of questions, and you will answer them truthfully in the eyes of the saints.”

“I understand, my king.” The massive room swallowed Rielle’s voice.

King Bastien nodded, paused. The gray threading through his black beard and the laugh lines across his brown face made him look older than Rielle had ever thought him before.

Then his gaze hardened. Rielle resisted the urge to take a step back from the new, dangerous charge in the air.

“How long,” he asked, his voice cool and matter-of-fact, “have you known yourself to possess elemental magic?”

Somehow, Rielle had thought this would begin with something less direct. A question or two, or five, that would give her time to find her voice.

But at least, perhaps, they thought she was only an elemental and not…whatever she truly was. Maybe her punishment, then—and Tal’s and her father’s—would not be as severe as she had feared.

The prophecy’s words ran through her mind: They will carry the power of the Seven.

“Since I was five years old,” she answered.

“And how did you come to this conclusion?”

He asked it so casually, as though they did not already know the answer.

A chair creaked as someone shifted their weight. Rielle glanced over and found Tal’s sister, Sloane Belounnon, with the rest of the Magisterial Council surrounding the Archon. She sat rigid in her seat, her dark, chin-length hair looking unusually severe against her wan skin. She looked as though she had not slept.

How must Sloane feel, to know that her brother had kept such a secret from her?

“When…when I was five,” Rielle continued, “I set fire to our home.”

“How?”

“I was angry. My mother and I had had an argument.”

“About what?”

It sounded ridiculous, horribly small. “I didn’t want to go to sleep. I wanted to sit up with Father and read.”

“So,” the king said calmly, “you set your house on fire.”

“It was an accident. I was angry, and the anger built up until I could no longer contain it. I ran outside because the feeling frightened me. It felt like something inside me was burning. And then…when I turned around,” she said, the memory clawing at her, “I saw fire consuming our house. One moment it had not been there, and the next, it was.”

“And you had caused this.”

“Yes.”

“How did you know?”

How did you see your own hand moving and know it was attached to your arm and your shoulder and your blood and your bones? Like that.

“I knew because it looked and sounded and felt like me,” she explained. “It felt the same as my anger had felt. The same scent, the same flavor. I felt connected to it.” She hesitated. “Grand Magister Belounnon has since helped me understand that what I sensed in that moment was the empirium. The connection between myself and the fire was the power that connects all things, and I had accessed it.”

Rielle dared to look at the Archon, sitting beside the Magisterial Council. He stared back at her, his small bright eyes unblinking. The torchlight made his pale skin and smooth head gleam.

“And was your mother able to escape?” the king continued.

Rielle’s throat tightened, and for a moment she could not speak. “No. She was trapped inside. Father ran in to get her and brought her out. She was alive, but then…”

Say it, child. The voice returned, compassionate. Tell them. They cannot hurt you.

With the stone saints staring down at her, their unfeeling eyes cold and grave, the strange voice should not have been a comfort. But hearing it nevertheless settled her churning stomach.

“I was afraid,” she continued, “when I saw my mother. I had never seen burns before. She was screaming, and I yelled at her to stop, but she wouldn’t, and then…all I could think was how I needed her to stop screaming.” She hurried through the story, as if trying to outrace the memory of those climbing flames. “Then she stopped. Father laid her on the ground, begged her to wake up. But she was dead.”

The room shifted, murmuring.

“And you have hidden this murder from us for thirteen years,” King Bastien declared.

“It was not a murder,” Rielle said, wishing desperately to sit. Her body still felt bruised from the fight in the mountains. “I did not mean to kill my mother. I was a child, and it was an accident.”

“We are concerned with facts here, not intentions. The facts of the matter are that you killed Marise Dardenne, and you have—with the help of your father and Grand Magister Belounnon—lied about it for thirteen years.”

“If someone had asked me if I had killed my mother, and I had denied it,” Rielle replied, looking straight up at the king, “then that would be a lie, Your Majesty. Keeping a secret is not lying.”

“Lady Rielle, I am not interested in semantics. You concealed the damage you were capable of doing while you ate at my table, while you were schooled with my son and niece, and thereby placed them and all those around you in danger. Some might consider such a deception treasonous.”

Treason. Rielle kept her eyes on King Bastien and her hands flat against her thighs. If he had meant to frighten her, he had succeeded.

“And on the day of the race,” said the king, “not only did you start a fire when you attacked those men—”

Anger bloomed inside her. If she was to be found guilty of treason, then she might as well earn her punishment. “When I saved Prince Audric’s life, you mean.”

A louder murmuring rose from the gallery, but King Bastien simply inclined his head. Rielle knew it was the only thanks she might receive, but it was enough to give her a bit of courage.

“When you attacked those men,” the king continued, “you not only started a fire. You ripped open the earth. You carved sheets of rock from the mountains. One of the surviving racers has described you gathering sunlight from the air using only your hands. Another claims you threw the assassins from their horses by no visible means she could detect. Even though the assassins themselves were elementals, you easily overpowered them.” The king looked up from his notes. “Does that align with your own recollection?”

Then they did know what she had done, that she was no mere elemental. Her jaw ached from clenching it. “It does, Your Majesty.”

“So then, you are not only a firebrand but an earthshaker, a sunspinner, and also, perhaps, other things. I think you will understand our alarm as we contemplate what this means. No human who has ever lived has been able to control more than one element. Not even the saints.”

A tiny spark of pride lit inside Rielle.

“Lady Rielle,” he went on, “if you had been near a body of water during this race, would you have caused it to flood?”

“It is impossible to say if I would have or not, Your Majesty.”

“Could you have, then?”

A flood. Years of lessons with Tal had shown her only hints of such power, and though she’d never been as strong with water as she’d been with fire—

You know you could do it, the voice murmured. You could flood the world. That kind of power hums beneath your skin. Doesn’t it?

A cautious delight unfurled within her. Who are you? she asked the voice.

It did not answer.

She lifted her chin. “Yes, I believe I could have.”

A new voice spoke up: “Did you like it?”

It was such a perfectly astute, perfectly terrible question that Rielle did not immediately answer. She found the speaker—severely handsome, fair-haired, an elegant jawline. Lord Dervin Sauvillier. The queen’s brother and Ludivine’s father.

Beside him, Ludivine sat poised and clear-eyed in her gown of luminous rose, lace spilling out her sleeves.

“Lord Sauvillier,” said the king sternly, “while I appreciate your interest in these events, I have not given you leave to speak.”

Queen Genoveve—auburn-haired, pale as her niece Ludivine—touched her husband’s arm. “However, it is a reasonable question if we are to determine how best to proceed.”

Rielle looked to the queen and was rewarded with a small smile that reminded Rielle of Ludivine—a Ludivine who had grown up not alongside Audric in the airy, sunlit rooms of Baingarde, but rather in the cold mountain halls of Belbrion, the seat of House Sauvillier.

Queen Genoveve’s gaze slid over Rielle and moved away.

“I am not certain,” Rielle replied, “that I entirely understand Lord Sauvillier’s question.”

Ludivine’s father raised a deferent eyebrow to the king, who nodded once.

“Well, Lady Rielle, if you’ll forgive me my bluntness,” said Dervin Sauvillier, “I wonder if you enjoyed what you did on the racecourse. If you enjoyed hurting the assassins.” He paused. “If you enjoyed hurting your mother.”

“If I enjoyed it?” Rielle repeated, stalling.

For of course she had enjoyed it. Not the pain she had caused and not her poor mother’s death.

But the relief of it… That, she craved. The rush of release through every muscle in her body. Those forbidden, blazing moments—practicing with Tal, running the Chase—when she had known nothing but her power and what it could do. The shining clarity of understanding that this was her true, entire self.

Sometimes she couldn’t sleep for wanting to feel that way again.

“Your hesitation is alarming, Lady Rielle,” said Lord Sauvillier.

“I…did not enjoy the pain I caused others,” Rielle answered slowly. “For that, I feel nothing but shame and remorse. In fact, I am appalled that anyone might think I could enjoy doing such things to any living person, let alone my own mother. But…do the teachings of our saints not tell us that we should take pleasure in the use of the power that has been granted to us by God?”

Out of the corner of her eyes, Rielle saw the Archon shift at last, leaning forward slightly.

It was as if Audric had been waiting for a signal from her, and he did not disappoint. “My lord, may I answer her question?” he asked his father.

King Bastien did not look happy, but he nodded.

“The saints’ teachings do indeed tell us that, my lady,” said Audric, looking straight at her as if they were the only two in the room, “and they also tell us that power is not something elementals should deny or ignore. Even when that power is dangerous, and perhaps even especially then. I of all people know the truth of that.”

Rielle said nothing, though she felt weightless with relief. With those words, Audric had shown her that he understood. He forgave her. The steady belief shining in his eyes warmed her down to her toes.

“With all respect, Your Majesty,” Lord Sauvillier said, and now he simply sounded exasperated, “we cannot possibly compare this woman and her careless destruction of her surroundings with your son, who has consistently demonstrated unimpeachable discipline and has not once let his power get the better of him.”

A swift rage crested in Rielle. “Perhaps the challenge facing me is greater, as it seems I am more powerful than our prince.”

The silence that followed was so complete it felt alive. Lord Sauvillier recoiled in disgust, his mouth thin and angry. The king might have been carved from stone, like one of the watching saints.

Rielle waited, heart thundering. She wanted to look to Audric but resisted.

Finally, King Bastien spoke. “Lady Rielle, you are familiar with the prophecy, as spoken by the angel Aryava and translated by Queen Katell.”

Of course she was. Everyone was.

“I am, Your Majesty,” Rielle answered.

“The Gate will fall,” the king recited. “The angels will return and bring ruin to the world. You will know this time by the rise of two human Queens—one of blood, and one of light. One with the power to save the world. One with the power to destroy it. Two Queens will rise. They will carry the power of the Seven. They will carry your fate in their hands. Two Queens will rise.”

The king paused. In the wake of the prophecy’s words, the hall felt chilled.

“The most popular interpretation being, of course,” King Bastien continued, “that the coming of the two Queens will portend the fall of the Gate and the angels’ vengeance. And that those two Queens will be able to control not only one element, but all of them.”

Yes, of course, and everyone knew that too. Not that most people gave much thought to the different interpretations in modern times—if they gave the prophecy any thought at all.

Rielle was one of the exceptions. Often, she had found herself reading the prophecy’s words over and over, running her fingers across the scripted letters in Tal’s books.

A Queen made of blood and a Queen made of light. The Blood Queen and the Sun Queen they had come to be called over the centuries.

And now, after so many years, they hardly felt real. The Gate stood strong in the Sunderlands, far in the northern sea, guarded and quiet, with the angels locked safely away on the other side. Queens from a prophecy might as well have been characters in a tale. Children chose sides, assembled play armies, staged wars in the streets.

The bad queen against the good queen. Blood warring with light.

Am I one of them? Rielle had wondered, though she had never found the courage to ask Tal or her father outright. And…which one?

“You see, Lady Rielle,” said the king, “my charge is not to decide whether what you have done is a crime and whether—or how—you should be punished. It is that you seem to be neither firebrand nor sunspinner nor earthshaker, but all of those things, and more, which is unprecedented. You performed magic more powerful than there has been in half an age, even after spending thirteen years being taught to suppress your abilities in the hope that they would disappear. And you did so without the aid of a casting, which is something not even the saints could manage at the height of their glory.

“My sacred duty,” said the king, his face grave, “is to determine what, exactly, you are. I must decide if you are one of these Queens—and if so, which one.”

Rielle heard the unsaid words plainly: And what that will mean for you.

She clenched her fists in her skirts and curtsied before the king, the shadow of Saint Katell falling like a sword across her neck.