Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 67

67

LUTHER

know the Umbros accent is hard for you westerners to understand, but“I ‘no’ is pretty clear in any dialect.”

Diem and Symond scowled at each other with mirrored contempt. My hand twitched at my side as I watched, ready to put a shadow through his gut if he tried to attack her the way he had in Umbros. I had half a mind to do it anyway.

“I respect your choice not to fight,” Diem gritted out, looking like she was battling the same desire. “I’m asking you to protect the people who were brave enough to say yes. This could be what we need to win.”

“We both know that victory won’t hinge on what I do.” He smiled frostily. “Tell me, have you made up your mind whether you’re going to kill Ophiucae or keep pathetically begging for his love while he slaughters us all?”

The shame that spiraled through Diem turned my vision red. I drew the Sword of Corbois and jabbed its point toward his throat.

“Could you three keep it down?” Drusila hissed, stepping out of a nearby tent. “If you wake the baby, no one in this camp is getting any sl—”

She paused at the sight of Symond an inch from my blade. “What’s going on?”

“We think we have a way to keep Ophiucae from controlling our minds,” Diem told her. “We need Umbros magic to test it. A minute of your time, that’s all I ask.”

Diem rubbed her wrist. I could tell it was killing her not to have her magic, and it killed me to see her reduced to begging because she couldn’t do it alone.

Drusila gave her an apologetic look. “I would, but Symond is our strongest. He’d stop me before I could try.”

Symond’s smarmy smirk had shadows writhing at my palms, but Diem beat me to it. She shoved the blade of my sword away and stepped up to him herself, chin high, coming so close he was forced to lean back. “I will not let you get everyone here killed just to spite me. Symond. You are going to help me.”

He scoffed. “And how are you going to force me?”

“I won’t have to. This is an order from your Queen.” She leaned in, teeth bared. “And you will obey.”

My body responded to her courage in dark, carnal ways. I should have been raising my shield to protect her, but she needed this moment. She needed to show him, herself, and everyone else that her true strength had never been in her magic—and that when it came to saving her people, no one would stand in her way.

“And there will be no consequences if I do?” Symond asked, voice threaded with threat. “Not even from your snarling guard dog over there?”

“Yes,” she said without flinching. “We need to see if the godstone mixture my brother made can stop Umbros magic from getting in.”

His mouth curled into a smile. “As you wish.” His hand twitched, and beside me, Teller went stiff. “Why don’t you tell Her Majesty what you really think of her?”

Teller’s eyes glazed over as his head swiveled to Diem. “Sometimes, I hate being your brother,” he said, his voice unnaturally monotone. “I’m sick

of living in your shadow.”

“Stop,” I barked.

Symond shrugged. “Queen’s orders.”

“It feels like the only way I’ll ever live my own life is if one of us is d—”

I raised a shield to sever Symond’s magic, and Teller staggered back, looking horrified. “No—D, I didn’t mean it.”

“Alixe is wearing the mixture, not my brother,” Diem said calmly.

Though she appeared unaffected by Symond’s trick, pain flooded our bond.

I knew Teller’s words had confirmed the worst, cruelest voices in her head.

Symond’s smile stretched wider. “My mistake.” He flicked a hand at Alixe. “Why don’t you tell her, instead?”

Alixe fell back a step, looking like she’d just taken a shove—but her mouth remained closed.

Symond’s amusement faded. His eyes narrowed as he turned toward her fully, raising both palms. The air around us shuddered with a surge of his aura.

“You’re . . . too afraid . . . to lead,” Alixe said in a stilted tone.

Grim disappointment rolled off Diem, and I knew it wasn’t from Alixe’s comments alone.

“I’ll keep working on it,” Teller insisted. “I can run some more tests.”

“We don’t have time for tests,” Diem said, sighing. “Just focus on the flameroot.”

“You don’t . . . trust yourself,” Alixe droned on. “Until . . . you do . . . we can’t, either.”

I raised a shield around Alixe, and her face went pale as she realized what she’d done.

“Your Majesty,” she began, looking distraught.

“It’s fine,” Diem murmured. “Nothing I didn’t already know.” She shut her emotions down in a way that was painfully familiar, then turned for the palace, with the others sulking behind her.

I stared at Symond, imagining all the violent ways I wanted to kill him.

He matched my hateful look, looking as if he was challenging me to do it.

Almost as if he hoped I’d unleash.

“Do you even want to live?” I asked him.

He let out a hollow chuckle. “What a stupid question.”

“Is it?” Drusila asked. “I had to drag you into the godstone room during the attack. Now you don’t want to fight or even help. It’s like you’ve given up.”

“How I feel is none of your concern,” he snapped.

She frowned. “We’re Centenaries. We don’t keep things from each other.” Her face softened. “Is this about Yrselle? You took her death so hard.”

Symond waved his hand, and Drusila’s mouth closed with a snap. Her eyes went wide, then her pitying expression hardened into anger as she staggered backward toward her tent as if being pushed against her will.

Symond looked at me like I was next. I raised my shield, refusing to leave. He scowled and skulked toward the campfire, standing beside it and staring into the flames.

I watched him, wondering if Drusila had been closer to the truth than she realized. “I know grief,” I called out to him. “The specific kind that

comes from an unjust death. The way it eats away at you, thinking of all that could have been done to prevent it. It took my sister’s birth to make me care about living again. She needed me to be more than my loss. Your people need you, too.”

“I should make you walk into this fire and burn alive,” he mumbled.

“You’re the real reason he’s dead.”

He? I wondered.

Symond stared down at his hands, working his jaw, then let out a grumpy huff. “Call your bitch Queen back. There might be a way to make it work.”

I pushed down the urge to saw off his tongue with something rusty and sent a flare of light magic to catch Diem’s eye. I waved her back, and she returned with the others.

Symond leaned in close to Alixe, studying the black smears on her forehead. “The placement is wrong. Our bones are infused with our magic.

It makes them harder to penetrate.” He brushed a fingertip just below her brow. “You need it here. Over the eyes.”

Teller dipped his hand into the mixture and held it up. Alixe nodded her consent, and Teller dabbed the sparkling black paste over her eyelids.

“Here too,” Symond said, pointing to her temples. “That’s the thinnest part of the skull, where it’s easiest to get through.” Teller added more paste, creating a thick stripe across her face. Symond’s head tilted. “Walk away,” he said, voice thrumming with compulsion.

Alixe held still for a moment, then shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.

Symond held his palms out at her temples. “Walk away,” he ordered again.

Alixe clenched her jaw. “I feel the magic telling my body to obey. It’s weaker than before—I can resist it.”

Symond nodded. “There are still ways to get through, but they require more focus. Ophiucae won’t be able to capture a large group of Descended at once. It won’t do much for the mortals, though. Without magic, their skulls are as easy to get through as air. Same with Diem. The only way to make that muck work for her is to drown her in it.” He flashed an icy smirk.

“I’ll help.”

Alixe looked at Teller. “It’s hard to use my magic with the godstone touching my skin. Is there a way to fix that?”

Teller thought for a moment. “We could put a barrier between the godstone and your skin. Something like wax.” He looked warily at Symond.

“I’ll need to run more tests.”

Symond sighed. “You have one hour. Then I’m using my magic on myself to forget all of you exist.”

The others took off at a sprint for the palace, leaving Diem and I alone with Symond. “Thank you for your help,” she told him. “This will save many lives.”

“Not the ones that matter,” he mumbled as he turned toward the fire, giving us his back.

Diem watched him with a frown. “In Umbros, the man I saw in your thoughts . . . was he a friend? Something more?”

“You’re pushing your luck,” Symond warned.

She chewed on her lip, frown deepening. There was a wound in Symond that I could tell she wanted badly to heal. “Whoever he was, I’m sorry for what happened. I wish I’d known sooner what my blood could do. I wish so many things had been different.”

Symond’s eyes lifted toward the evening sky, where the black of night was beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. “You are the moon, Diem Bellator. You shine so bright, yet darkness follows wherever you go.”

Diem’s gaze dropped, features pinched with a tumultuous mix of emotions I couldn’t make sense of through our bond. “There’s someone I’d like you to see while we wait for Teller.”

“Oh good,” Symond said dryly. “More helping.”

She led us back into the palace, and my heart dropped when she turned for the dungeon. There was only one prisoner in these cells, and I knew immediately why we were here. She slipped her hand out of mine as we

descended the stairs.

“Wait here,” she told us.

She walked down the long corridor and stopped in front of a cell at the end, murmuring quiet words. I warred with the urge to drag her away and protect her from what I knew this would bring. Symond eyed me, his interest apparently piqued. Diem unlocked the cell door, then disappeared

inside.

“You can come,” she called out.

Symond began to stride forward, and I stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Slowly,” I warned.

“Should I be raising my shield?” he asked.

“No. He can’t hurt you. But he’ll try.”

Symond’s eyes glinted, curiosity outshining his determination to sulk.

He walked forward, and I reluctantly trudged behind. I hated every last part of this.

There was a dark side to Diem’s desire to heal, and this was it.

Unlike the gloomy austerity of the other dungeon cells, this one had been filled with love and light. Hanging lanterns cast a warm glow across plush cushions, thick furs, and rugs that covered the floor. A large bed with piles of pillows had been placed in one corner, and a buffet of pastries and brightly colored sweets had been placed in another.

All of it looked untouched.

Diem was crouched on the floor, the cell’s inhabitant hidden behind her.

“Have some water,” she begged. “You have to stay alive if you want to kill us.”

A sound rose that was more dying animal than living human. Symond craned his neck for a better look, and a boy lunged past Diem, swiping a hand at him with a snarl.

“Stuart, no!” Diem cried, catching the boy by the waist and wrestling him back.

I moved to help her, then froze in shock. The boy I’d first met in Sophos, the lanky library clerk whose cheeks once turned pink every time Diem spoke to him, was unrecognizable. His skin was loose and sallow, his hair missing in clumps. His face was covered in bruises and scratches that I suspected came from the guards’ efforts to force food and water down his throat—Diem’s orders. His dead eyes and jerky movements looked like something out of a nightmare, a creature that young children feared might emerge from under their bed.

He looked like a corpse waiting to be buried.

I took Stuart by the collar, pulling him off Diem. He swung his arms at me, clawing at my face, though his mortal nails slid harmlessly across my Descended skin.

“Stuart, calm down,” Diem pleaded. She reached for him, and I gently pushed her away. Stuart would not attack her, but his mindless frenzy could still get her hurt.

“He can’t hear you anymore, my heart.” It killed me to say it, and to feel the pain that rose in her when I did. I looked at Symond. “Ophiucae took his

mind. Diem has been trying to find a way to restore it.”

“When I go in his head, everything looks blank,” she said to Symond. “I don’t know how to help him. You’re so experienced—and so powerful.

You’re an expert with Umbros magic. Surely you know how to do what I couldn’t.”

Symond’s eyes narrowed. She was trying to flatter him into acquiescing, and he knew it. I just didn’t know if his ego was big enough for it to work.

Diem’s hopeful look made my stomach churn. If he failed, she’d be devastated. If he succeeded, it would mean the thousands of Sophosians she’d killed could have been saved—and that would destroy her in a way I didn’t think she’d ever come back from.

I lifted Stuart up and clamped his arms behind his back, alarmed at how fragile he felt beneath my grip. I’d fantasized once about giving the boy a painful death. I realized, with shame, that I’d gotten my wish.

“He won’t eat or drink unless we force him,” Diem said. “He doesn’t sleep or talk. The only thought left in his head is to kill.”

Symond took Stuart’s face in his hands, palms gripped to his temples, his expression inscrutable. “I see the issue.”

“Can you help him?” Diem asked.

“Yes. He’s trapped in a prison. I can set him free.”

Symond’s gaze rose to me. I felt the scratch of claws inside my mind, and then a vision—a foreign one, placed there by Symond’s magic. A

warning . . . and a question.

“Permission, Your Majesty?” he asked.

“Yes,” Diem breathed, a smile beginning to form.

But Symond didn’t act. It wasn’t Diem he was asking.

I should have demurred. It was her call to make, and if she truly

understood, she would never agree.

Instead . . . I nodded.

Symond’s hands jerked to the right with a lethal crack, and Stuart went slack.

Diem screamed. She grabbed Stuart from me, sinking to her knees and clutching him against her chest. Tears sprang to her eyes as she stared at his bent neck and unblinking eyes. “What have you done?”

“What you wouldn’t,” Symond snapped. “And if I find the Centenaries that Ophiucae did this to in Umbros, I’ll snap their necks, too, the first chance I get.”

Diem’s arms fell to her sides, though her body shuddered with a mix of sobs and fury.

“You tortured that boy with your hubris,” he hissed. “You will never win this war if you’re not capable of taking lives.”

My mind filled with the memory of Diem in a fiery sea of orange and silver, a thousand Sophosian corpses burning at her feet. My fists curled.

“Do not speak to my Queen of what she is capable of doing,” I snarled.

Diem rose and walked to Symond, and I raised my shield around her.

They stared at each other, separated by veils of shimmering black and glittering blue.

“Yrselle warned you,” he said. “About this. About Ophiucae. You didn’t listen.” Diem didn’t react, and Symond’s features rippled with disgust.

“You’re still not listening, are you? You still think you can save everyone.

The graves keep piling higher while the rest of us wait for you to be ready to hear.” He stormed past her. “Tell your brother to find another Centenary.

I’ve had enough of your kind of help.”

Diem slowly sank back to her knees. She brushed the hair from Stuart’s forehead and placed a kiss on his cheek, then took his hand in hers. Her murmured words were lost in the echo of Symond’s footsteps, but I recognized enough to place the mortal Rite of Endings.

I walked to the base of the dungeon stairs, staring at Symond’s back as he climbed them to leave. “Yrselle warned you, too,” I shouted. “She said no one would escape this war, not even the Centenaries. Who’s the one that’s really refusing to listen?”

His footsteps paused—only for a second—then continued until a door creaked open and slammed.

I LEFT Diem with her brother, grateful for the way he took one look at her reddened, swollen eyes and put her to work on his experiments to keep her busy. I returned to the dungeon and gathered Stuart’s body in my arms, carrying him out of the palace, out the front gates, and into the dark, moonlit woods, where I dug a shallow pit, then covered him with soil.

I stood at his gravesite in solemn silence, wrestling with a complicated guilt. I tried to recall the words of the mortal Rite of Endings, and when I failed, I turned instead to search the forest floor until I found a fallen branch, one end still green with leaves. I jabbed the other end into the grave and used a spark of Lumnos magic to set the branch ablaze. An effigy to the Everflame—the only other way I could think of to honor a mortal’s death.

I stayed until the fire died out, then smothered the dying embers with my shadows. I turned for the palace, but as I reached the forest’s edge, I heard fresh flames crackling behind me.

I wheeled around to douse them and caught a sudden flash of red, then total darkness. Even when I illuminated the trees with my light magic, everything around was bark brown or verdant green, and the burnt branch that marked Stuart’s grave showed no sign of rekindling.

The mysterious flicker of color stayed in my thoughts as I returned to Teller. Diem had gone somewhere with Lily, so I helped him gather his things and escorted him to the Centenaries. With dawn nearing, the various camps had begun to rise, and the sight of the new King Consort with a Centenary quickly attracted a crowd. When Drusila confirmed that Teller’s revised concoction was a success, they erupted in a celebration so loud, the rest of Diem’s army emerged from their tents.

I clapped Teller on the back. “I always suspected a Bellator would save us,” I told him. “I didn’t realize all of you would.”

He grinned. “You’re one of us now. Better do your part.”

I allowed myself a smile, though the heaviness of the morning still sat upon my heart. “I’ll find a way.”

“Oh my gods,” someone shouted behind me. “Look—in the sky.”

The sounds of cheering faded to murmurs and gasps. Teller’s gaze shifted over my shoulder and grew round. I instinctively reached for my blade, magic conjuring in the other hand as I turned, bracing for the sight of Ophiucae’s gryvern.

Instead, I saw the first sliver of sun peeking over the horizon and casting its glow across the camps. A scarlet glow.

A blood sun had arrived.

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