Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 68

68

DIEM

he blood sun threw our morning into chaos. For the mortals, it was aT warning from the Old Gods, a sign of something terrible to come. Fear spread like a contagion, and when the time came to leave for Fortos, many —far too many—refused.

I gave an impassioned speech to remind them of the importance of this battle, but it persuaded few. The same omen had appeared on the eve of the Blood War, and the mortals were still scarred from the massacres of that loss.

Then I revealed something deeper—that the two blood suns we’d had since held special meaning for me. The first had marked my birth, and the second came the day my mother disappeared and my life changed forever.

Both days had set me on the path that brought me here.

If the blood sun is a harbinger of destruction, I told them, then the destruction it warns of is mine.

They took it as a violent promise of what I would do to my enemies. I’d meant it as something much darker, but the misunderstanding worked in my favor. With a bit more urging from my mother, most eventually relented to come.

Among the Descended, the blood sun had the opposite effect. For them, it was a promise from the Kindred of victory and prosperous days ahead.

When the Houses of Lumnos City arrived with their gleaming armor and pristine weapons, it more than made up for the numbers we lost among the mortals.

It left me wondering if that had been the Old Gods’ intention all along.

Teller’s godstone concoction, though valuable, also cost us precious time applying it to the army before we left. It was a gamble—if the godstone wore off before battle, we didn’t have enough to reapply, but with Ophiucae’s aura continuing to grow nearer and stronger, the risk of an ambush was too great to ignore.

The arrival of the Emarion Army ships we’d called in were more than the small Lumnos port could handle, which also added unexpected delays.

In the end, it was late morning when my legion finally gathered in the full shine of the sanguine sun.

Luther led two horses through the crowded lawn, his own massive black beast and the dappled grey mare he’d gifted me at my Challenging. At some point this morning, he’d changed into a set of dark blue armored leathers embroidered with thorny black vines and edged in gleaming silver thread.

His hair was pulled back tightly, his beard shaven away, and the Sword of Corbois’s jeweled handle glittered over his shoulder. Though I’d been very fond of the rugged, unbound version of him these past few months, seeing him like this—so clean-cut and regal, the indomitable Prince I’d first loved —had my stomach fluttering.

“Your horse, my Queen,” he said, offering the reins.

I took the mare and stroked a hand down her cream-white mane. “Feels like the morning of the Challenging all over again.”

She’d been wild and untrusting that day, and she hadn’t calmed much since. Today, though, she was eerily docile, except for an anxious twitch of her head each time her dark, glossy eyes turned up toward the sky.

“You were the victor that day,” Luther said. “You’ll be so again when this is over.”

Our eyes locked, and his confidence blazed within them. I was a messy knot of doubt, tied with fraying rope; Luther was a column of steel. I wondered if he truly believed our success was assured, or if this was another of his carefully crafted masks for my benefit. I searched our bond for an answer, and I found the one constant that never wavered—his reverent faith in me.

“Luther,” I said softly, “if things go badly today, I want you to know how much I—”

He curled an arm around my waist and drew me against him, silencing me with a kiss. He paused just long enough to murmur against my lips, “Tell me later,” then devoured me again with fierce resolve.

I put my hands on his chest and eased him back. “I want to tell you now.

Just in case.”

“When I was dying of godstone, I wrote notes to everyone I loved in case I never got to say goodbye. Taran told me you wouldn’t read yours.

You told him to burn it. You refused my goodbye, so now I’m refusing yours.” He placed his hand on top of mine where it lay on his heart. “We don’t have a goodbye anymore. Whatever you have to say, tell me later.

Whenever later comes.”

He kissed me again, and I lost my will to fight it, the touch of his lips a refuge I needed too much. His hands looped around my waist and tightened in a bold, possessive grip, and I knew it was a message to the gods: I belonged to him, not to fate.

“Don’t mind us,” a voice said dryly. “It’s not like we’re in the middle of war or anything.”

I was already smirking when I turned to see my brother, nose wrinkled, the godstone mixture in his hands. “If you two are finished being gross,” he said, holding up the bowl, “it’s your turn.”

“You better kiss Lily like that before the battle starts,” I teased.

“I’d rather he not,” Luther grumbled.

Teller wisely didn’t answer. Instead, he led us toward a firepit with a large cauldron of melted wax. Luther stepped forward first, and the guard in charge turned a ghastly shade of white.

“This, uh, this might sting a bit, Your Highn—I mean, um, Your Majesty, King Luther, sir,” he stammered.

“King Consort,” Luther corrected, sitting in a chair beside him.

The man’s hand trembled as he dipped a long wooden paddle into the cauldron and wobbled it toward Luther’s face. When the wax touched his skin, Luther grunted, and the guard’s shield blinked into place.

I pressed my lips together to hide my smile and glanced at the soldiers milling about with stripes of glittering black across their eyes. “There’s a nice side effect of your invention,” I said to Teller. “My army looks terrifying.”

“Maybe we’ll scare the other side into running away,” he joked.

My smile faltered. Ophiucae had the power to make them fight against their will, and he’d already proved he’d use it. This war would only end

with his surrender or his death.

Or with mine.

“What did you and Lily do this morning?” Teller asked.

“She helped me prepare some, uh, medicines.” I rubbed at a bandage hidden beneath my sleeve. “Just in case my army needs them.”

He frowned. “I don’t like that she’s coming with us to Fortos. Any chance I can convince you to make her stay?”

“Can I convince you to stay?”

“I’m a guard. Lily’s not. She doesn’t belong on a battlefield.”

“No, you’re an academic. Lily’s a princess. Brecke’s a craftsman.

Mother’s a healer. None of us belong on a battlefield.” I shrugged. “Every time I try to protect someone, all it does is get them hurt. This time, I’m letting everyone decide for themselves, even if I hate their choice.”

“Is this about what Symond made me say earlier?” Teller asked. “D, I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

Except that he did. I wasn’t blind to my brother’s suffering, nor to the role I’d played in causing it. That had been Symond’s goal—not just to wound me, but to remind me that the blow had come from my own hand.

“You’ve brought a lot of good things to my life, too, you know,” he said. “You’re the reason I met Lily. You encouraged me to tell her how I felt even though everyone told me to stay away. Because of you, I got to see Umbros and Sophos. How many mortals can say that? And you’ve always looked out for me.” He nudged my side. “You’re a pretty good sister, I

guess.”

I raised my brows. “Just pretty good?”

“You’re an okay sister.”

“I’m a great sister.”

“A tolerable sister.”

“Your favorite sister.”

“Also my least favorite sister.”

“Well, you’re my favorite brother.”

“I’m telling Taran you said that.”

“Did I say favorite? I meant second favorite.”

“Too late. The title’s mine.” Teller gestured to Luther. “He’s done.

You’re next.” He glanced at the guard with the wax and pointed to his upper lip. “Maybe put a little extra on her right here.”

I swung for him, and he grinned and jumped away. His eyebrows danced in the goading way they’d always done when we’d sparred, and though I wanted to throttle him, my love for my baby brother soared.

“Should I string him upside down by the gate until we leave?” Luther rumbled in my ear.

I wheeled to face him and temporarily forgot how to breathe. With his dark hair and chiseled features, the effect of the godstone made him devastatingly handsome. His pale blue-grey eyes glowed against the dark, haphazard streak of black, two moons on a horizon of star-flecked midnight. He was light and shadow incarnate, beautiful and frightening.

When I finally recovered from the shock, my body was aching to do something more wicked than breathe.

Luther’s lips rose into a knowing smirk.

With effort, I cleared my throat. “Save the mixture for someone else.

Symond said it wouldn’t work on me.”

“You’re getting it anyway. So are the mortals. It will make it harder for him to spot the Descended and easier for us to tell our armies apart. We don’t want a repeat of Mort-Feu Pass.”

The reminder brought my mood back to somber. My army held almost the entire spectrum of Emarion—every gender, every skin color, every body type, every bloodline. All we lacked was a Centenary.

Through more nefarious methods, Ophiucae’s army might be just as diverse. This was a true Emarion war. The way we’d struggled to tell friend from foe in the thick of battle was symbolic in the worst kind of way.

I braided my hair back, then sat and lifted my chin to the guard. My muscles tensed in anticipation of pain, but when the molten wax touched my skin, I found the sting exhilarating. Something in me responded to its heat, like calling to like. The strange sensation I’d been feeling all week sparked anew and trembled within me. It felt like rage, excitement, terror, grief, and hope swirling in a tempestuous, fiery ball—but oddly enough, it didn’t feel like mine. It didn’t feel like Luther’s, either.

The guard hurried to spread the godstone slurry over the wax before it cooled. Luther came up beside him, brow creased, searching my face.

“You feel it again?” I asked him, and he gave a slight nod. “I don’t think it’s . . .” I trailed off. We couldn’t speak of Ophiucae so directly without risking panic. Those who could sense his aura were already visibly on edge.

“Try to use your magic,” he said.

The phantom shackles on my wrists seemed to tighten. “It’s not my

godhood.”

“Try it,” he insisted.

I sighed and held out a palm, trying in earnest to conjure a wisp of shadow. I slumped lower in my chair when no magic came.

Luther turned, grabbing Teller’s arm and leading him aside. When they were out of earshot, their heads bent together in hushed conversation.

My gaze returned to my open palm. I called on my magic again, this time reaching beyond the empty chasm where my godhood once lived to a place even deeper within me, where the curious new sensation burned low in my ribs.

The wax cooled, its heat faded, and the feeling slipped away. My palm remained empty, cupping the scarlet sunlight and nothing more.

“Your Majesty,” Alixe said, striding up. “If we want to reach Fortos City by nightfall, we should depart now. The Meros ships that Obaneryn called in have not yet arrived, but we can leave some guards behind to escort them

to Fortos when they land.”

I nodded. “Call in Sorae.”

Alixe sent pulses of light into the sky, and Sorae emerged from the clouds. I mounted my horse and rode to meet her as she landed in a field outside the palace gates.

“Did you fly to the Fortos border?” I asked her. “Did you see anything?”

She snorted at my horse, sending the mare skittering backward. I yanked on the reins. “Sorae, focus—what did you see?”

Her golden eyes burned into mine, tail thrashing angrily. I could tell she was as frustrated as I was by our inability to communicate. With neither the bond nor my Faunos magic, we’d been reduced to awkward guesswork.

She growled, the sound rumbling between a wide row of bared fangs.

Her wings snapped out, then shuddered.

“Is he there?” I pushed.

She clicked her jaws and twitched her head. In the past, I could have read an entire speech from those two gestures. Now, I wasn’t sure she even understood my question.

“I need a Descended from Faunos,” I called out. Alixe waved one over, and I tried to conceal my humiliation as I asked him to interpret. He repeated my questions, and Sorae swung her head toward him with a series of chuffs and trills.

“She saw a large group marching for the border, but no sign of Ophiucae or his gryvern,” he explained.

“The group she saw—were they ours or his?”

He exchanged another long stare with Sorae. “Ours, she thinks. Half the group wore uniforms.”

I looked toward the southern border. Was it the army soldiers we’d called in? If so, were their minds still theirs—and who was with them?

Sorae stamped her talons. “She, uh . . . she wants me to tell you something else,” the man said. “She said she’s going to eat your horse. She wants you to ride her instead.”

I eased my mare back a few steps. “Can she understand me without your help?”

He nodded. “The gryverns understand our language, they just can’t speak it.”

I dismounted and walked to Sorae. She gave a barely audible whimper as I cupped her snout in my palms and lowered my voice so only she could hear. “Don’t join the fight today,” I murmured. “You’ve endured enough battles. Go find Tybold and make up.”

I knew it was wasted breath even before her answering growl, but I had to try. If she didn’t make it out of this battle alive, I needed to know I’d done all I could to save her.

And if I didn’t make it out alive, I needed her to know she was free.

I sighed. “Alright. You know the plan. Same as every battle. Hold off Ophiucae’s army until I find him. Then you and I will get him as far away as we can. You’ll take on his gryvern while I—”

Her whines drowned me out, silencing me just as Luther had done. But unlike my mate, she and I weren’t guaranteed a later.

I leaned my forehead against hers and fought the burning in my throat.

“I love you,” I whispered. “Be careful today, alright? Stay the hell away from ballistas.”

She nuzzled my neck. My heart broke a little as I gave her scales a final stroke, then pulled away. Alixe was waiting for me at my horse, along with Brecke, who was carrying a jumble of oddly shaped godstone shields in his arms. “There’s one last thing,” Alixe said. “You’re not going to like it, but as your High General, I have to insist.”

She gestured to Brecke, and I pulled an item from his arms and frowned. It wasn’t a shield, as I’d thought. It was long and narrow and fitted with three leather straps.

“A vambrace,” Brecke explained. He set the pile at his feet and rifled through it until he found an identical piece, then held it to my forearm.

“You wear them here.”

I was too surprised to protest as he began to buckle the straps around my wrist. My stare moved to the ground, where an item that looked suspiciously like a breastplate lay on top of the heap. Unlike the rough, rudimentary shields I’d seen his assistants crafting last night, this armor was impeccably made. Though it lacked embellishments, it was elegant in its streamlined design—the work of a master.

“You owe me another favor for this,” he joked.

“Brecke, I can’t wear this,” I protested.

He finished securing the buckles and grabbed the other vambrace from my hand. “Too bad. High General’s orders.”

“We don’t even have enough shields for everyone,” I argued. “It’s not fair for me to go into battle in armor while my people risk their lives in tunics.”

He caught my other wrist, wrapping the buckles around it. “This war was never gonna be fair. The Descended have their magic and their armor and their healing and their special skin and the best weapons gold can buy, and all we mortals have are knives and prayers.” He knelt to search through the pile. “Best chance we have to change that is if you survive with that Crown still on your head.”

I swallowed hard. “You don’t need me for that. You have the governing council now.”

He snorted. “That council’s only gonna last as long as there’s someone in charge that the Descended are scared of. That’s why I’m making sure you have a nice, long life.” He grabbed another piece—a series of overlapping plates attached to a leather belt. “Arms up, Sister Bellator.”

I shook my head. Brecke ignored my refusal, reaching for my waist. A shadowy whip snapped against his hand and sent him jerking back.

“The armor is much appreciated, Mister Holdern,” Luther said, walking toward us. “Diem will be wearing it”—he shot me a look—“but if you touch my mate without her consent again, you’ll be learning to make armor without hands.” He held out a palm to Brecke. “Allow me.”

Brecke glared in response, though he threw me an apologetic look as he handed over the armor.

Luther turned to me. “Arms up,” he repeated.

I shook my head. “I don’t want special treatment.”

“Diem, look at the armor.”

“I know it’s good armor. Someone should wear it. Give it to my mother,

or to—”

“Look at the armor.”

I held up my forearm and frowned at the vambrace, not understanding.

“What am I supposed to s—” My eyes moved to the breastplate and stopped as an image flashed in my head: a circle of fallen bodies and silver flames, and Luther standing before me, palm pressed to his heart.

“The vision,” I breathed.

Luther nodded. “It’s the same armor I saw you wear. Exactly the same.”

Our stares locked in heavy silence. I’d never told anyone the details of the vision that Luther and I had shared that night in the armory, then again at the Challenging, and I knew Luther never would. The only way Brecke could have recreated the armor in it so perfectly was divine interference.

Or if the vision was a future doomed to come.

My arms lifted without thinking, my body accepting what my mind was still trying to understand. Luther looped the belt around me, and Alixe stepped forward to hold the armor in place as he buckled it at my waist. She shuddered when she let it go, shaking out her hands as if the godstone plates had been painful to touch. Luther grabbed the breastplate, and across the bond, I felt his spirit darken like a cloud passing over the sun.

As he draped it over my head and latched the fastenings at my sides, I ran a finger over the armor’s edge. Every time I’d touched godstone in the past, it brought a wave of unpleasant sensations. I should have realized much sooner that a corpse was the fuel needed to make it. Touching godstone felt like touching death itself.

But this godstone felt different. Warmer. Familiar.

I looked at Brecke. “This armor—was it made using the godstone from Mort-Feu Pass?”

“No,” Alixe answered for him. “When he told me he wanted to make this, I gave him the godstone from your family’s home.”

Agony lanced through my soul.

My father.

The armor was made from his ashes. The last physical trace of him left on earth was now enrobing me, protecting me, the only thing standing between my heart and a blade.

“I discussed it with your mother and brother first,” Alixe said gently.

“They agreed it’s what Andrei would have wanted.”

“I made breastplates for them, too,” Brecke said. “He’ll be with all of you today.”

A sob caught in my throat as emotions overwhelmed me. Luther’s fingers brushed against mine to lend me his strength. I mutely swayed on my feet while he finished securing the rest of the armor to my shoulders and legs.

I managed a soft, broken “thank you” to Brecke, then Luther led me to my horse and helped me mount. The image of their Queen, godstone painted on her face and forged in armor on her body, must have been a fearsome sight, because the gathered army instantly hushed as their rainbow eyes turned upon me. I spotted my mother’s in their midst, gleaming as she took me in, and my mate’s, blue-grey and reverent, fist thumping to his chest in fierce salute.

Others joined him—my advisors first, then the Royal Guard and the women soldiers of Ignios, then Runa and Enness and their crew, the half- mortals from Umbros, a contingent of Unhoused Descended, and, finally, the Houses of Lumnos City. The mortals were too proud to echo a Descended salute, but their ripple of bowing heads was, for me, hardest won and most deeply cherished.

At the far edge of the grounds, the Centenaries watched from their camp, the only tents that still remained. Symond stood the furthest, hands in his pockets, dark eyes fixed on me.

My gaze swept across my gathered army. I could not really call them mine, when they were driven by their own survival more than fealty to my command, but they’d allowed me to lead them. The Crown I wore had won me their attention. I, Diem Bellator, had won their respect.

And when I asked them to fight, they answered the call.

“The enemy we face is united by one thing: vengeance,” I said loudly.

“Great wrongs have been done to them, I won’t deny it. Too many of you here can say the same. I understand the anger that brings. I know it well myself.” My eyes fell on Doriel, whose gaze guiltily dropped. “But healing, true healing, doesn’t need revenge. It needs change.”

I pulled Sorrow’s Edge from its sheath, the gold writing on its godstone blade glittering in the blood sun’s scarlet light. “We fight today for a future that all of us deserve, but none have ever seen. A world where no man, no

Crown, and no god may decide who or what we will be. We fight so the borders we’re born in don’t become the bars of a cage we can never leave.

We fight together, not in spite of the wrongs of our past, but because of them. Today, we fight for a new Emarion.”

“A new Emarion,” my mother shouted.

“New Emarion,” the Guardians cheered. The chant spread across the grounds, joined by more voices with every round.

“And when we emerge victorious,” I yelled, “let us remember our past, and let it never happen again.”

Another deafening cheer rose from the gathered crowd, fists and blades pumping the air. I pointed the tip of Sorrow’s Edge at the blood sun and hushed my voice to a whisper meant only for the gods.

“I’m no one’s Herald of Vengeance, and I’m not your Ravager of Realms or your Destroyer of Crowns,” I growled, recalling the titles they’d once bestowed. “But I am the Daughter of the Forgotten.” My eyes narrowed. “And I’ll choose my own fucking fate.”

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