Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 37

37

DIEM

eally, Diem, that was far too easy.”“R Symond’s smile was triumphant, his eyes lucid and sharp. His sloppy, drunken lean had transformed into menacing alertness, a vulture circling its kill.

My cheeks grew hot. It really had been too easy. I should have noticed his too-precise questions, how his gait on the stairs had turned curiously sure-footed and swift. I certainly should have predicted the flameroot—it wasn’t even the first time they’d tried it.

Lately, I’d lost my instincts. My mind was fractured, my emotions volatile. The line between enemies and allies had turned so murky, I’d grown numb to being surrounded by threats. Only in battle could I set it all aside and give myself over to the fight. Maybe that was the real reason I’d been hunting all over Emarion for a brawl.

And now that I’d found one, it might be my last.

“This isn’t a very polite way to welcome your Queen,” I said, my tone deceptively light. I tried to pull free of whoever held me, but the grip wouldn’t give. “I believe we discussed consent the last time I was here.”

“As I said, that is your way. You’re in Umbros now. We take what we

want.”

“And what is it you want?”

Symond’s smile grew wider.

My hand drifted toward the dagger I’d strapped to my thigh. Two Centenaries closed in, their blades hovering at my neck.

I stilled. “Too afraid to face me with my magic or a knife? I never took the Centenaries for cowards.”

Voices hissed behind me, but Symond’s smugness didn’t waver. “You know, Yrselle is the only Crown I’ve had in two hundred years of life. I served as her Chief Centenary for eighty of them.” His features softened, as if bathing in a fond memory. “She still read my mind every time I handed

her a drink.”

“Well, I’m not Yrselle.”

He huffed a laugh. “Clearly.”

My eyes darted around in search of an exit. The walls of the room all shared the telltale sparkle of godstone. The only door was the one I’d closed, now guarded by a pair of scowling women. What really chilled my blood was what I spied in the back—a body-shaped table, covered in straps, with spikes on every surface. There was a drain on the floor crusted in a suspicious brown-red, and chains hanging from the ceiling held an assortment of scalpels, pliers, and hooks.

“Welcome to our playroom,” Symond purred. “Yrselle ensured her Centenaries had all the toys our hearts could desire.” I forced myself not to flinch as he moved closer and ran a knuckle along the column of my throat.

“And I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you.”

I was so utterly, completely doomed. Even if I could get to my weapon, I was absurdly outnumbered. If I had any hope of getting out alive, it would

be by wits alone.

Not my strongest asset.

As the circle of Centenaries closed tighter and stepped into the torchlight, I got a better look. They were true to their legendary reputation, sensual and ruthless, a viper slithering through silk.

Yet there was something different in the way they moved now. The last time I’d come, they’d all shared the same swaggering confidence that the empire they’d built in the darkness could never be breached. Now, they looked shaken, unsure—and there was nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal backed up against a wall.

The soft cries of an infant suddenly floated out of the shadows.

I squinted into the dark. “Is that a baby?”

The Centenaries hurried to block my view. “Take a step toward her, and you’re dead,” one of them growled, their glare almost urgently harsh.

“I didn’t come here to hurt anyone,” I said. “I’m trying to help.”

“We don’t need your help,” another said. “We’re safe here. They can’t get through the godstone.”

I balked. “That’s your plan—hide until the war ends? What about the people in your city?”

The Centenary shrugged. “They can protect themselves. They’re not our responsibility.”

“Not according to Yrselle.” I tried to step toward them, and more blades raised to stop me. “Her grace did not stop with the one hundred of you. She opened her city to everyone, even the people other realms had turned away.

She gave them protection from the other Crowns and a place to build whatever life they pleased, no matter who they were. She took outcasts and exiles and she gave them a home.” I looked at Symond, who had remained curiously silent. “Yrselle took pride in her realm. Tell me, did that die with her?”

His mouth tightened. He slowly looked me over. “You think you can

defeat him.”

An observation, not a question.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, “but Yrselle did. I am trying to be worthy of her faith.”

Symond shot a glance behind me, and the man holding my shoulders let me go. I kept my hands high, far from my weapons, as a gesture of peace.

“I should have come sooner,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I could have prevented what happened, but I should have been here to try. You needed your Queen, and I let you down, and I’m sorry.” I let out a resigned sigh.

“I’ll never be the Queen that Yrselle was. The world she created here for you, where you are safe and favored and given everything you please . . . that world no longer exists. I want to rebuild Emarion into something better, something inspired by this diverse, welcoming city that Yrselle built in Umbros, but I need your help to do it.” I took a deep breath. “I want you to join my army.”

Tragedy, it appeared, had not stolen their sense of humor. The small room turned deafening with the echoes of their laughter. Most scoffed, some glared. Symond showed no reaction, holding my gaze in his pitiless stare.

From the shadows, a woman emerged, cradling something in her arms.

A man stood close by her side with one hand resting on her shoulder and the other extended in front of her, ready to cast his magic at any second. I noted his distrustful eyes—a captivating shade of sea glass that marked him as a Meros Descended—before looking closer at the black-eyed woman’s hands.

A silvery symbol I recognized all too well glowed faintly on her wrist. In the swath of fabric she held against her chest, an infant’s face stared back.

“Umbros hasn’t fought for another realm since the Blood War,” a different Centenary said, pulling my attention away.

“This is a fight for Umbros,” I said. “If Emarion falls, this realm goes with it.”

“Let’s kill her and get it over with,” another grumbled. “Put the Crown

on one of our heads instead.”

I shook my head. “That’s not—”

“We should offer her as a trade,” another chimed in. “If we give her to the man who attacked us, maybe he’ll leave us alone.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” another asked. “It’s been too long since we had someone to play with.” She snatched a pair of pliers and strutted toward me. “And we did get out all our favorite toys.”

Ah, shit.

I recognized that insufferable pout.

“Hagface,” I said. “You’re looking well.”

She scowled. “I can’t wait to be the last thing you ever see.” She lifted the pliers to my eyes. “Get ready to reunite with your dead Prince.”

“My Prince is not dead. And if you kill me, he’ll bring my entire army down on your head.” I stared at Symond. “Do you really want to fight a war

on two fronts?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Maybe the new Queen is right,” said the woman holding the baby. “We can’t hide in this room forever. Perhaps it’s time we looked beyond our own borders.”

Hagface snorted. “Motherhood has addled Drusila’s brain. Let’s hope the brat doesn’t end up like h—”

Drusila cocked her head, and Hagface went unnaturally still, arm trembling as she turned the pliers away from me and angled their sharp points so close to her own face, they brushed against her lashes.

“Stop,” Hagface begged. “Please . . . p-please, Drusila.”

“Our numbers are few,” Drusila said coolly. “Speak ill of my child, and they will be fewer.”

The pliers clattered to the ground, and Hagface sank to her knees and whimpered, clutching at her head while the others watched in amusement— all but Symond, whose shrewd gaze had never broken from me.

His fingers twitched at his sides. “You want us to fight for you.”

“For you,” I corrected. “For your people.” I nodded to the baby. “For her.”

We held each other’s stare, and he made no effort to hide the fact that he had painfully little confidence—in my plans, in my claims.

In me, specifically.

The others didn’t look much surer. In a realm infamous for its skilled liars, the Centenaries maintained their control by ignoring a person’s words and looking into the mind beneath. Fancy speeches would never sway them.

Only one thing would.

“If you want answers,” I said, pointing to my temple and repeating his words, “you’ll have to take them yourself.”

The secrets I harbored could destroy so many people I loved, perhaps all of Emarion with them. But as Symond sank his mental talons in and began to feast on my thoughts, it didn’t feel like such a risk.

First, because I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t quite sure why they hadn’t done it the moment I walked in. Perhaps they were more loyal to my Crown than they seemed.

Second, because Luther had given up his secrets to the Centenaries, too, the night of my Ascension Ball. He had not just sworn to sacrifice everything to protect me, he’d done it. Again, and again, and again.

I clung to thoughts of him as my body went stiff and my mind ceased to be my own.

I tried to urge Symond toward the things I wanted him to see: the fairer world I envisioned, the council I’d established, the unjust laws I had repealed. That alone was a gamble. The Centenaries had benefited from that very inequality, and they might be willing to kill me to keep it.

So I tried to show what I had learned—that oppression could be toxic to the oppressor as well as the oppressed. That, in a world built around haves and have-nots, there would always be someone with more. That they didn’t need a Crown to have a voice. That those less powerful, even those with no power at all, deserved a voice, too.

But as more and more Centenaries crept into my head, my control went from feeble to none. Their curiosity crowded me out, and I became a silent spectator to the show.

They dove with gleeful abandon into my darkest moments. I sensed their delight as they forced me to relive the night I’d almost given up in the

armory, the way I broke so completely as I clutched my father’s dead body, the tears I shed as I buried Perthe in the cold winter soil. It was only when they watched the death of their gryvern that they moved on to my happier

moments.

I immediately wished they hadn’t.

They laughed with scorn at my family, belittled every proud accomplishment, ridiculed the upbringing I held dear. The intimate moments I’d shared with Luther became cheap fodder for their jabs. I listened in sheer terror as they threatened to wipe every memory of him from my mind, to take him from me in as permanent a way as their fellow Centenaries had been taken from them. Thank the gods for Drusila, who insisted that disturbing a person’s memories of their mate would be an affront to the Kindred.

Then my horror grew as they debated whether to erase my father from my memories instead.

Though I couldn’t say why, it was Symond who spared me. He commanded them past their wicked fun to the prize they’d come for: my conversations with the Kindred. Glimpses of their own thoughts slipped through as that memory on the island played out:

That’s Blessed Father Umbros!

What is a heartstone?

There’s a tenth Kindred . . .

She’s his daughter.

On the ground, by the Blessed Father’s feet, is that . . . ?

At the sight of Yrselle’s battered corpse, their thoughts went silent. I felt them hover on the Kindred’s warnings and the ominous vision of what Emarion could become. Their distrust waned with each Crown they witnessed the Kindred place upon my head. When they realized the Crowns would end with me, the normalcy they’d been yearning to return to was finally laid to rest.

They began to withdraw. They had seen the truth, unpleasant as it was.

They could not doubt my calling. Now there was only the choice of whether they would join me in seeing it through.

Symond was the last to remain. He dug through my memories with an odd sense of purpose, searching for something, though I couldn’t tell what.

He followed my escape from Umbros across the Sacred Sea and scrutinized every move I made on my return, each painful moment leading toward

Luther’s seemingly unavoidable death, right through to my tearful surprise when I awoke to find him healed. Then he went back to replay them again.

And again.

And again.

My blood, I said into my thoughts, hoping he could hear me. The cure was my blood.

I felt, rather than saw, his body lock up. A glimpse of a memory flashed into my head—a man I didn’t recognize, lying in a bed and drenched with sweat, his skin covered head to toe in blackened veins. The man’s dark eyes gazed at me, so clearly in pain and pleading to make it end. My trembling hand closed around a dagger and held it over his heart. I felt warm tears spill down my face as I tightened my grip and— I stumbled backward at the violent force of Symond’s retreat from my thoughts. Our eyes met for a moment—both confused, both wild—then he grabbed his head and looked away.

Drusila turned to the turquoise-eyed man at her side. Their heads bowed in conversation, and after a moment, his shoulders sank, and he nodded. He laid a sweet kiss on her lips, then took the child from her arms. Her palm pressed tight to the mating mark on her wrist as she walked to my side and turned to face her peers.

“Do you remember what Yrselle told us before she left for the island?” she asked them. “‘If there is to be a future for our kind, my Centenaries must live or die as one.’ None of us understood what she meant. Now, I think I do.” She lifted her chin. “We must fight, but we must do it together.

As one, the way our Queen commands. Our loyalty belongs to her.”

It was not lost on anyone that the Queen she spoke of was Yrselle, not me.

“We could run,” another suggested. “Your mate could sail us all somewhere they’ll never find us.”

“What if we lose our magic when we leave?” another asked.

“Better our magic than our lives,” Hagface said.

“Ophiucae is a Kindred,” Drusila reminded them. “He’ll find us, wherever we go.”

“How do we know she’ll really kill him?” Hagface argued. “Even she isn’t sure what she’ll do.”

Drusila sighed. “If she fails or spares him, we’re doomed either way.”

Those words clanged like a gong in my head.

“Drusila’s right,” one Centenary said as they moved to stand beside her.

“We have to help her stop him.”

“I knew this girl would be our ruin,” another muttered, shuffling to join them.

“Wait,” Hagface said. “Symond is our Chief. We go where he commands.”

I looked at Symond. His head was bent, his shadowed eyes narrowed on his feet. I’d known Symond to be a cobra and a rogue, often at the same time, but this quiet, pensive man was unlike any side of him I’d seen before.

“I understand that what I ask is no small thing,” I told him, “but if

you —”

“You knew in Sophos.”

His voice was so quiet, I barely heard him.

“Knew what?” I asked.

“That you could heal them.”

I frowned. “My Fortos magic?”

“The godstone,” he hissed between clenched teeth. His poison-black eyes lifted and seared into mine. “Do you know how many people in this realm were poisoned?”

I’d badly misread his silence. Symond wasn’t pensive . . . he was furious.

I fell a step back. “I wasn’t sure it worked until I—”

My words cut off as his fist smashed into my temple. My head snapped back, stars swimming. Before I could make sense of what just happened, he slammed into my body and pinned me to the floor. His hands closed around my neck and started to squeeze.

Drusila lunged to grab him. A dark energy pulsed around us, and she

froze, hand hovering in mid-air.

All the Centenaries had stilled.

Symond’s grip tightened on my neck. I flailed beneath him, clawing a hand at his face. It jerked to a stop, my limbs no longer in my own control.

“You could have saved him!” he roared, quaking with rage.

I tried to cry out, but with no voice, no air, I only managed a desperate croak.

He leaned down, snarling in my face. “You should have come back the second you heard. And she should have warned us.”

My eyelids fluttered as consciousness began to recede. I could feel my heartbeat slowing, my vision spotting, my thoughts fading . . .

He’s going to kill me.

I’m going to die.

And then everyone else will die, too.

“Good,” Symond growled as he squeezed the last gasps of life from my throat. “Let this whole fucking world suffer and rot just like him.”

A baby’s cries floated from the darkness—the one vulnerable mind he hadn’t seized. I clung to the sound as my heart gave its last, defiant thumps.

My final thought was of Luther, and how much I would miss him.

I was almost too far gone to feel the fingers unwrap from my throat.

There was a light hovering over me, flickering red and gold. It was warm like fire, and blissfully welcoming, a bright beacon in the glacial shadows.

The Everflame had come to call me home.

Breathe.

The thought was not my own, but my body obeyed. Compelled by Umbros magic, my chest rose with a shallow rasp.

Breathe again.

Again.

The commands kept coming, and my lungs kept filling. The world came back into focus, though the firelight beckoning me forward did not go away.

A tiny glowing ember floated loose from its flames and fluttered toward me.

When it landed on my cheek, a sharp burst of pain sliced through my half- conscious daze.

I shot upright and gulped in air, nearly colliding with the torch Drusila held as she knelt at my side. “Are you alright?” she asked.

I couldn’t even think an answer. My head was throbbing, my throat was aching. To my right, a door slammed open and cracked against the stone.

“Get out of this realm,” Symond snarled.

“Symond,” Drusila said, “after what we saw, we have to go with her.”

“We’re not going anywhere with her.” He turned his glare on the others.

“If anyone tries to join her, I’ll execute you on the spot. She can fight on her own, like she left us to do.”

Drusila pressed her lips together. She offered a hand and helped me to my feet.

“Symond,” I managed to croak out, “the world is at risk.”

“Get. Out.”

“Just go,” Drusila whispered, nudging me toward the door.

I held my ground. This was too important. I had to make him see. “The Centenaries can’t hide in this cage forever,” I said. “That’s not a life worth living—”

“How dare you speak to me of a life worth living?” he roared. He flew across the room and snatched me by the hair, bending his wrath-red face to mine. “You sacrificed us all for your mate. What good did it do? The gods gave you more time, and you’re throwing it away.”

He dragged me to the doorway and pushed me through with a violent shove.

“Show your face in this realm again, and I’ll kill you.”

The door slammed shut.

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