Furyborn (The Empirium Trilogy Book 1)

“Tender lost lambs will wander into our fold, dumb and blind, driven by His call. Gather them close. Teach them His word. Remake them as He demands. Punish those who defy Him, for they are truly lost.”

—The First Book of Fidelia

When the door opened, Eliana hurried out into the brightly lit corridor.

A male guard stood just outside, staring blankly at the wall. A ring of keys dangled from his hand.

Eliana found the two keys Zahra had described—one a plain and dirty brass, the other thin and silver—and removed them from his ring. It was as Zahra had said: the soldier didn’t move or even blink.

She stepped back, watching his face.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

According to Zahra, a proper angel would be able to influence the man’s mind for as long as necessary. But, as a bodiless wraith, Zahra could only affect him for seconds at a time. And even then, she’d told Eliana bitterly, her ability remained unpredictable and easily drained.

The man’s hand moved, as if in sleep. He blinked. His body shifted.

“Go.” His mouth moved, but Zahra’s voice emerged. “Hurry.”

The man would awaken—and soon.

Keys in hand, Eliana ran down the deserted hallway in her bare feet. Metallic doors lined the gray stone walls.

She found the alcove that Zahra had told her about—the entrance to a supply closet—and pressed her body flat against the wall. Eyes watering after so long in darkness, she squinted up at the buzzing yellow lights lining the ceiling—and waited.

A minute passed. Then Zahra drifted into the alcove.

“Through here—quickly,” she whispered, gesturing at the closet door. “I’m sorry, Eliana. I wish my protection was as strong as you deserve. But the Fall damaged so many things, including the minds of wraiths.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re doing fine.” Eliana used the brass key to open the closet door and hurried inside. The space was long and narrow, lined with shelves crammed with tied bundles, packs of food, boxes labeled with unfamiliar lettering.

She crouched, searching the lower shelves. “I don’t recognize that writing.”

“One of the old angelic languages,” Zahra explained. “To be initiated into Fidelia, you must learn all five.”

“And those lights outside, in the hallway. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Galvanized energy. One of the Emperor’s many experiments. Have you found them?”

“Not yet. Wait.” Eliana opened a wooden crate with metal clasps. Inside was an array of weaponry and gear, including her own. Whistler, Nox, Tuora, Tempest. Only her beloved Arabeth was missing—lost forever, she supposed, on the filthy floors of Sanctuary. She strapped her holsters to her legs, her arms, her waist, sheathed the knives, and straightened with a sigh.

Zahra watched, a smile rippling across her face. “Better?”

“Much.”

“Before we go.” Zahra pointed at another shelf. “This is yours, I believe?”

Her necklace. Eliana’s heart lifted to see its battered brass face—though now the sight of those familiar lines reminded her of Zahra’s words: the daughter of the Lightbringer. Did she believe such a wild story? And if it was true, how much of the truth, if any, had Rozen known?

And could she even still call Rozen her mother? And Remy her brother, Ioseph her father?

A fist of sorrow seized her heart, but she shoved away her questions. None of them mattered if she couldn’t first escape this place.

She settled the chain around her neck and said to Zahra, “Lead the way.”

They returned to the corridor, keeping to the shadows.

“Here,” Zahra said at last, drifting to a stop outside one of the metal doors. Black numbers reading 36 had been stamped on its surface.

Eliana’s pulse jumped as she fumbled with the long silver key and let herself inside.

“Navi?” she whispered, once she had pulled the door shut. “Don’t be afraid.”

The air in Navi’s cell was stale and squalid—waste and sweat and something acrid and medicinal that made Eliana’s tongue tingle. She saw a small pile against the far wall, rushed over, hesitated, then took Navi gently by the shoulders and turned her over.

Hovering beside her, Zahra made a soft noise of pity.

“Oh, Navi,” Eliana breathed, unable to hide her shock.

Navi’s head had been shaved, and her skin was a mosaic of pain—ugly dark bruises, angry red wounds, thin black markings with numbered figures beside them, as if Navi had been labeled with instructions for some malevolent seamstress. At Eliana’s touch, Navi moaned, her swollen face crumpling with pain.

Eliana whispered, “What have they done to her?”

“Their work is abominable,” Zahra said, her voice low and furious. “I have tried to stop them when I can, but without giving away my presence to Semyaza, there is only so much I can do.”

Questions gathered angrily on Eliana’s tongue, but she would ask them later. She heaved Navi’s body off the ground and slung the girl’s limp arm around her shoulders. “Show me the way out of here.”

“I cannot hide you again,” Zahra whispered, wringing her smoky hands together. “I used the last strength I had on that soldier in the corridor.”

Navi mumbled something pained against Eliana’s shoulder.

“How long until your strength returns?” Eliana asked.

Zahra looked away, as if ashamed. “I cannot say. My queen, I swear to you, I wasn’t always so weak.”

“We’ll just have to escape like normal people. Let’s go.”

They left Navi’s cell and hurried down a maze of corridors, the strange galvanized lights humming overhead. Zahra drifted ahead, then hurried back in time to warn Eliana of approaching Fidelia soldiers.

Eliana crouched with Navi in the shadows of a small alcove, her hand gently over Navi’s mouth. The soldiers passed, carrying a dead-eyed woman on a canvas stretcher. Bulbous dark growths marred her body.

Eliana’s stomach turned.

“It’s clear,” Zahra whispered and led the way once more.

Gritting her teeth against the persistent nausea of Zahra’s nearness, Eliana followed. When they exited the compound into a flat dirt yard bordered by tall stone walls, they took cover behind crates piled high with stinking wrapped heaps that she suspected were bodies. Night stretched vast above the compound, with faint blue at the horizon.

“Are we on a mountain?” Eliana whispered.

“Yes,” answered Zahra, “and not far from the northern border of Ventera.”

That explained the cold and the wind. “How far from Rinthos?”

“Four days’ ride.”

Eliana whipped her head around to stare at the wraith. “Four days? How long have we been here?”

“A week.”

Eliana closed her eyes, fighting back a swell of panic. Eleven days since their capture. Eleven days away from Remy, and no idea of where he might now be.

Navi moaned quietly, her head lolling against Eliana’s shoulder. “Eliana?”

“We’re going to have to run soon,” Eliana said quietly. “Can you wake up for me, Navi?”

Zahra uttered a hissed curse.

Eliana tensed. “What is it?”

“Semyaza is here.” Zahra jerked her head at the perimeter wall. “He was supposed to be out on tonight’s hunt. He must have realized you were gone or sensed my own presence.”

Eliana squinted across the yard, seeing nothing—but then, a disturbance rippled in the air. There was a shift, a flicker of a dark shape. A man, but taller and longer-limbed than a human.

Fear dried out her mouth. “What do we do?”

“I’ll take care of Semyaza,” Zahra said, her voice hard—and, Eliana thought, rather delighted. “You’ll hear a loud crash when I hit him and see a slant in the air. Run for the gate on the eastern wall. Run until you can’t anymore, then hide in the forest. I’ll find you, if Semyaza doesn’t trap me first.”

“Trap you?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“But the guards.” Eliana gestured at the Fidelia guards patrolling the yard. “I can’t fight off all of them, especially not with Navi.”

“What we need,” Zahra mused, “is a diversion.”

The western wall exploded.

Eliana ducked low over Navi as stone and wood went flying across the yard, then peered through the clouds of dust to see that a thirty-foot section of the wall was now gone.

Zahra stretched to her full height. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “that will work.”

Then she zipped out into the chaos and disappeared.

Eliana waited, wiping sweat from her forehead.

A low boom rattled the yard, as of two winds colliding. Fifty yards away and ten feet above the ground, a patch of light shifted and warped, swirling like a whirlpool’s mouth.

Zahra had found Semyaza.

Eliana hefted Navi back to her feet and slapped her across the face. Her drug-clouded eyes snapped open, and Eliana was pleased to see a spark of anger inside them.

“We have to run, now,” Eliana told her, “or we’ll die.”

Navi nodded, set her jaw.

“Hold on to me.” Eliana turned, Navi’s arm once more slung around her shoulders, and ran into the yard. Beside her, Navi’s breathing came labored and thin. In the bedlam of dust and shouting soldiers, no one saw them—until they had almost reached the abandoned eastern gate.

A Fidelia soldier jumped down from the gate’s watchtower, a crude revolver in hand and a belt of ammunition strapped to his torso.

Eliana skidded to a halt.

The Fidelia soldier smiled kindly.

“There, now, lambs,” he said, gesturing with his gun, “you’ve gotten turned around in all this ruckus.”

Eliana watched him approach, saw him glance at the knives she had strapped to her body. His gaze hardened; his smile remained.

“Poor lambs.” His gun still pointed at Eliana’s chest, he brushed a lock of matted hair out of her eyes and clucked his tongue. “So lost, so young.”

A shift in the darkness behind him was Eliana’s cue. She lowered her eyes to the ground, nodded forlornly.

“We didn’t mean to do wrong,” she whispered—and then heard the familiar sound of Arabeth finding a home in someone’s heart.

She looked up as the Fidelia soldier grunted, gaped down at Arabeth’s jagged blade protruding from his chest, coughed up a pool of dark blood.

Behind him stood the Wolf, mask in place.

Eliana’s exhausted body nearly buckled with relief. Despite everything, she said, “Thank you.”

Simon wiped Arabeth clean on his cloak and handed it to her. “I’ll trade you.”

Eliana complied, shifting Navi into Simon’s arms. They hurried together out of the yard and into the night, down a rocky slope cluttered with flat pale stones that crumbled underfoot.

“Remy?” she asked.

“Safe and hidden.” Simon’s mask glinted, moon-colored. “We’re going to him now.”

And when we get there, Eliana thought, tightening her grip on Arabeth as she ran, we will speak alone, with my blade at your throat.