Furyborn (The Empirium Trilogy Book 1)

“Hello from home, my love. We celebrated Eliana’s twelfth birthday this evening. As I write this, she and Remy are lying on the floor by the fire, bellies full of cake. Eliana is reading aloud from Remy’s notebook while he draws a picture of her. His stories really are quite good for a five-year-old. I’ve enclosed three for you to read. Though we miss you terribly, we are all doing quite well. Eliana stays with me most days, helping me with my mending. She is good with her hands, maybe even better than me.”

—Letter from Rozen Ferracora to her husband, Ioseph

May 17, Year 1012 of the Third Age

Eliana awoke with a gasp, her hair clinging to her neck and shoulders.

So much for that bath.

“El?” Lying beside her on their shared cot, Remy came awake at once. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she mumbled, covering her face with one shaking hand. “Nightmare.”

Which was true. Since Red Crown’s attack on the Empire’s outpost, the same dream had plagued her. It began with the cries of the trapped prisoners. She searched through the smoking ruins for them, shoving past heaps of rubble and digging through piles of ash that grew every time she touched them, until she was swimming through the ash, choking on it, while the prisoners’ screams grew ever louder.

Then their screams would change.

They would call out her name.

It was then that she would finally find someone—a hand, cold and stiff from death, reaching out of the ash.

She would pull and pull on the hand, even though she knew what she would find on the other end. But she couldn’t stop. She did not deserve to be spared. So she dislodged the person from the sea of ash—and the dream would end as she stared into her mother’s death-stricken face.

“What can I do?” Remy scooted closer. “Do you want me to tell you a story?”

“I think I need a walk.” The room Camille had given them for the duration of their stay was luxurious, but the air inside it was too still, too close. Eliana felt like a heavy blanket had been wrapped around her and was winding tighter and closer with every passing moment, binding her limbs to her sides.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She dropped a hasty kiss on Remy’s brow, stumbled out of bed and toward the door.

“I love you,” came Remy’s small, uncertain voice.

“And I love you,” Eliana said and left him for the hallway.

Camille’s apartments were vast, a labyrinth of bedrooms, parlors, and bathing chambers lined with Astavari artwork she had obtained through the underground markets. If Eliana had had to go far, she might have given up eventually, collapsed in a heap of dream-panic until someone found her in the morning.

She was glad, then, that Navi’s room was so close.

Knocking softly on the door, she tried to collect her thoughts. What would she say? And what right did she have to complain to Navi of nightmares after everything she’d done?

I should leave, Eliana thought, still shivering from the lingering awfulness of the dream.

The door opened to reveal Navi, sleep-rumpled and wide-eyed with worry.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Eliana began. “I’ve no right to ask you for anything.”

Navi clucked her tongue. “We’re friends now, aren’t we? And you look terrible.”

Navi guided Eliana inside her candlelit room, then sat on her bed and watched as Eliana furiously paced.

“You’ve had a nightmare,” Navi said.

Eliana nodded, her throat tight with tears. “The prisoners at the outpost… I heard them screaming for me. I searched and searched, but I couldn’t find them, and then I found…my mother. She was dead.” She paused. “They were all dead.”

“Haven’t you had such nightmares of your victims before?”

The simplicity of the question cut Eliana like one of her own knives. “No. I never allowed it to bother me. I couldn’t, or I would never have been able to finish a job. And then where would we all be?”

“None of your family seems very safe right now as it is,” Navi pointed out. “Despite everything you’ve done for them.”

Eliana laughed. “You’re right. All my work, and Mother’s still gone, and Father’s still dead, and Remy and I are at the mercy of people I used to hunt. And Harkan…” We can’t know for certain. He could still be alive.

She dragged a hand through her hair. “What’s the point, then, of any of it?”

Harkan had asked a similar question, the day of Quill’s execution: God help us. El, what are we doing? It felt to Eliana as though years and years had passed between that day and this one. She felt every one of them digging hotly into her shoulders like grasping fingers.

Navi was quiet for a long time. “Perhaps if nothing else, what’s happened has taught you that there is more to life—and even to war—than simply staying alive. Perhaps this is the point.” She rose and pressed a gentle palm to Eliana’s chest. “That you are beginning to awaken and remember your humanity.”

Eliana shoved Navi away with a harsh laugh. “That assumes too much of me.”

“You are very unkind to yourself.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Navi inclined her head. “Perhaps.”

“I am unkind to the bone. It’s all I’m capable of.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t think you do either.”

“I have to believe it! Otherwise—”

Eliana fell silent. A terrible hissing panic simmered just underneath her skin. Her breaths came fast and shallow.

“Eliana.” Navi took her hands. “Please, sit. Breathe.”

But Eliana moved away from her. “It sounds silly, but…I have always imagined a monster dwelling inside me instead of a heart. And that’s why it was so easy for me to kill, to hunt.” She backed against the far wall. She angrily wiped her eyes, glared up at the ceiling. “That monster is the reason why I liked being the Dread. I told myself that. I started to believe it too.”

“Monsters do not weep for the dead,” Navi said, “and they do not regret.”

But this was no comfort. Eliana shook her head, the room a blur of shadows and shuddering candlelight. “If I am not a monster,” she whispered, “then what excuse do I have for the things I’ve done?”

“Eliana, look at me.”

She obeyed, realizing that she had slid to the carpeted floor and that Navi was now crouched before her, holding her hands.

“We are all of us dark creatures,” Navi said, “but if we linger in those shadows, we’ll be lost. Instead we must seek the light when we can, and that’s just what you’re doing. I see it happening.”

“You believe too easily,” Eliana muttered.

“And you don’t believe enough.”

“Belief doesn’t keep you alive.”

“But, given time, it can win wars.”

Eliana’s breath was running away from her. A hard heat felt ready to burst from her chest. “I don’t agree with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to. I used to be like you. Like Harkan.” Harkan, God. She scoffed, wiped her eyes. “My fucking hands won’t stop shaking. I can’t stay like this, or I’ll get killed, and then we’ll never find Mother—”

Words failed her. She could hardly breathe past the fear spiraling wildly through her body. She wrapped her arms around her legs, leaned her forehead on her knees.

Then, warmth, and a hand drawing slow circles between her shoulder blades. Like Harkan used to do when she had trouble sleeping. Like her mother had done when Eliana couldn’t eat for missing her father. Together they had sat in the dying candlelight of their quiet house, waiting night after night for the sound of his steps in the hallway.

“Navi,” Eliana whispered, fists clenched. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?”

Seek the light.

Fight a hopeless war.

Believe.

She didn’t answer. After a few moments, Navi shifted, opening her arms, and Eliana moved into her embrace without thinking. She burrowed into Navi’s front and closed her eyes, listened to the steady beat of Navi’s heart and the in and out of Navi’s lungs.

Slowly the tension knitting her muscles into knots began to loosen.

“Tell me about your mother,” Navi said.

Her mother. Eliana closed her eyes.

A memory surfaced, swift and painful: her mother’s arms around her, Eliana nestled in her lap as Rozen guided her tiny fingers across the face of her necklace.

“You’ve always loved this ugly old thing,” Rozen had told her, “ever since the day we found it. You loved it so much you finally stopped screaming at me and let me sleep through the night. As long as you were holding it, you would sleep for hours.”

Eliana had giggled, blushing at the thought. She had traced her fingers across the necklace’s rough surface. “What does it mean?”

“It’s an etching of the Lightbringer. Do you remember that story?”

“He was a great king,” Eliana had whispered, eyes wide as she traced over the sweeping arcs of the horse’s wings and the blacked-out figure on its back. “And this… What was it called?”

Eliana had looked up at her mother, wrinkling her nose.

Rozen had laughed. “A godsbeast. Back when the world was very, very young, such creatures roamed the skies and the waters and the great, green earth. This one was called a—”

“Chavaile,” Eliana had answered, beaming. “I remember now.” She brought the necklace to her lips and kissed the horse on its nose. “That’s my favorite one.”

In Navi’s arms, Eliana shook her head. Grief lanced her through the heart. “I can’t. Not her. I…”

She remembered Linnet’s forlorn cry: Mama?

If she’d only known what would happen, she would have never gone hunting for the Wolf. She would have climbed into her mother’s bed and held her close, every night. She would have moved only to gut the people who dared try to steal Rozen away.

“All right.” Navi stroked her hair. “Tell me about Harkan, then.”

“Well. He wasn’t my only lover, but he was the best. Except for this woman Alys, who worked in the Brightwater red rooms. God, she made me black out a few times—”

“No, Eliana,” Navi chided gently. “Tell me something real.”

For a long time, Eliana didn’t speak. Instead, she let the rhythm of Navi’s fingers caressing her scalp coax her breathing slow and quiet.

“Why are you helping me?” Eliana asked at last.

“Because I have nightmares too,” Navi answered. “And I’m glad for the company.”

Eliana hesitated, then found Navi’s hand and gripped it tight.

“Something real,” she said. “Harkan dreamed of us all someday escaping to Astavar. He was going to teach me how to grow tomatoes and make me wear a straw hat.”

Navi’s laughter shocked Eliana into a smile. She squeezed Navi’s fingers, closed her eyes, and spoke of Harkan until sleep claimed them.

• • •

Morning came. They’d moved to Navi’s bed during the night, and though at first Eliana lay in the soft tangle of Navi’s sleepy limbs with a feeling of rare and utter contentment, that did not last long.

All too soon she remembered: There is still a war. Astavar still may fall. Mother is still missing. And I…

She slipped out of bed, glanced once more at Navi’s still form, then the room.

I am still…whatever I am. Angel? Human? Marque?

Monster?

A dark pocket opened inside her, all doubt and meanness, slowly pushing away the quiet peace the night had brought. She made for the kitchen. She would eat, she decided, and stretch, then find Simon and demand they spend the morning sparring.

Storming down the dimly lit corridor, she grinned to imagine her fists slamming into Simon’s chest. He’d give her a good knock or two, but she’d bounce back. He would dodge her blades; she’d catch him on the arm, make him curse her—

Eliana rounded a corner and ran into Camille.

The woman scowled in greeting. “Dread.”

Eliana pushed past her. “Camille. I was just—”

But Camille stopped her, hand on her wrist.

Eliana’s head snapped around to glare at her. “Unhand me at once.”

“Or what?” Camille looked her up and down with a sneer. “You’ll kill me, as you’ve killed so many others?”

Eliana reached for a cutting reply and found none. Sudden exhaustion stretched from her shoulders to her toes; the previous night’s peace bled out with her breathing.

“I’ve no desire to kill you,” she said at last, dully.

Camille watched her through narrowed eyes. “Where’s your brother?”

“Sleeping.”

“Why aren’t you?”

Eliana shrugged. “Bad dreams.”

After a long moment, Camille released her. “I thought you’d strike me, for touching you.”

“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.”