Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 77

77

DIEM

our Majesty? Are you alive? Are you hurt?”“Y I answered with a groan. Two strong hands gripped my shoulders and shook. The movement sent my stomach flipping as if I was tumbling through the air. Confused thoughts and attempts to answer were overridden by a desperate need to make the free fall stop.

“Diem, are you alright? Are you still . . . you?”

Then it hit me—where I was. The war, the battlefield. Ophiucae. My mother and my mate, somewhere in the thick of combat. And my brother . .

.

“Teller,” I rasped.

Alixe helped me sit up, and nausea churned again. I drew in air through my nose to keep it down, and the lingering traces of a cloying, spicy fragrance dragged a memory from the haze.

“That little shit drugged me,” I mumbled.

“Your brother?” she asked. “Why would he do that?”

A different kind of sickness rose as a gnawing suspicion began to grow.

I looked at the forest, searching the trees. Lily’s face, wrecked with concern, peered out from between two trunks.

“Where is he?” I shouted at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lip trembling. “The healers were using it on the wounded soldiers. He asked me to give him a vial. He said . . .” Her body shuddered as more tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Where is he?” I yelled again, panicked and shrill.

Her eyes shifted beyond me, and I swiveled toward the battlefield. At its center, a shock of auburn hair bobbed through the clashing fighters.

“He told me he was going to stop Ophiucae,” Lily cried. “I didn’t know he was going to use it on you, I swear.”

I spun back to her, heart seizing in my chest. “Lily, if Ophiucae sees him, he’ll kill him.”

A horrible grief fell over her stare. “I know.”

I tried to stand, but the sleeping draught Teller had used on me was slow to fade. I crumpled to my knees as the world reeled around me. Alixe hauled my body against her side and dragged me toward the forest.

“I have to stop Teller,” I protested, feebly trying to push her away.

“You’re in no condition for that. And we have a bigger problem.” She glanced to her left, where a group of riders approached from the west. “The rest of the Unhoused Descended, I’m guessing,” she said. “I don’t think this half came of their own free will.”

My heart sank. “Alixe, Ophiucae got to the Montios Descended, too. He claims they’re headed to Lumnos.”

Her face drained of its color. “I’ll send a rider to warn them, but . . .”

She trailed off, and we shared a look of helpless anguish. Montios was closer to the palace than the Fortos border. Even at their fastest pace, there was no chance our rider would beat the Montios Descended. For all we knew, they were already there.

If they were, the final pocket of safety in Emarion had vanished. Every single realm was either emptied of its people or under siege. The future the Kindred had feared was dangerously close to coming to pass.

“Rest here until the draught wears off,” Alixe said, setting me at Lily’s feet. “When it does . . .” She fell quiet again. Alixe had gotten us this far, but we both knew the next part was up to me.

“Hold them off for as long as you can,” I said. “Retreat, if you must.

Whatever it takes to keep our people alive.”

She hesitated, her eyes lingering on mine. We both seemed to sense what this moment signaled.

My relationship with Alixe had always been complex. I’d admired her from the start, but her insistence on hierarchy put distance between us, preventing the casual kind of friendship I shared with Taran and Eleanor.

Though her loyalty to me as Queen had been faultless, I found her obedience hard to admire, considering the years of brutality the Royal Guard had inflicted on Mortal City under her supervision.

I’d been tough on her, sometimes unfairly so. I’d demanded more of her than anyone else—and more than anyone else, she had risen to the challenge. No matter how harsh my words, she never hid behind excuses.

She used her shame as fuel to confront the wrongs she’d once defended, and she had gone beyond my orders, seeking out her own ways to use her titles for good. Descended like her made me believe that change could be more than just a dream.

And that gave me hope that this war was worth everything we’d have to sacrifice to win it.

“I believe in you, High General,” I said. “Let’s go save our people.”

She placed her fist against her chest with a deep, slow nod. I returned the gesture, then Alixe ran for the west. Lily helped me lean against her as we shuffled to the mortal healers.

“By the Undying Fire,” Maura said when we arrived, fussing around

me. “What happened?”

“Winterwood,” I gritted out.

Her eyes flared in surprise. “Smelled or consumed?”

“Smelled,” Lily answered for me. “Only for a few seconds.”

Maura gave her a curious look that had Lily’s gaze taking a guilty drop to her feet.

“I need . . .” I winced, struggling to steady my spinning head long enough to pull the antidote from my memories. “Need . . .”

Maura leaned on her cane and gave a sidelong glance at the other healers. “Can someone help Her Majesty? What substance can counter the effects of winterwood?”

“A tea of dried sunrise splendor mushrooms,” a trainee said excitedly.

Another shook her head. “Not a tea. You have to grind them into a powder and have the patient breathe it in.”

“Ah, but sunrise splendor has no effect on Descended,” Maura corrected. “Their healing abilities cleanse it from the body too quickly.

What must you use instead?”

“Maura,” I said impatiently, but she clicked her tongue to cut me off.

She and my mother had always insisted that, to develop a healer’s calm in the midst of chaos, the best time for a lesson was when things were most urgent. Maura’s own wife could be dying in front of her, and she’d still use it as a chance to teach.

“Anyone?” she asked, looking around. The trainees hung their heads in defeat.

“Lumnos pine,” Lily said quietly. “The roots have healing qualities when they’re burned.”

Maura beamed. “Very good, Lily. You’ve been studying.” She glanced up at the canopy of leaves above us. “Unfortunately, the trees in this area are mostly oak, but I’m sure there are pines around here somewhere . . .”

“I’ll find one,” Lana said. Her voice was small as she edged out from behind Maura. She’d been hiding from me, I realized. I wanted to tell her that Henri’s shame was his alone, not hers. I also wanted to scold her for risking her pregnancy by coming, but knowing the threat Lumnos was under, perhaps she’d made the wiser choice.

And, despite everything, I wanted to ask her if Henri was here somewhere, too.

She ran off before I got the chance, and other healers left to help her.

When they returned, she hurriedly tossed the roots to the ground in front of me and backed away. Lily set them aflame with a spark of Lumnos light.

The warmth of the fire was bizarrely entrancing. I leaned in, gulping in as much of the smoke as my lungs could hold. Something stirred in my chest, luring me closer, then closer, then closer, even as the flames singed strands of hair that had come loose from my braid.

Maura pulled me back with a nervous chuckle. “Careful, dearie. Any closer, and you’ll burn.”

My mind began to clear, and I managed to rise on my own as strength slowly returned to my limbs. I reached for my sword, staggering toward the battlefield.

“Wait a while longer,” Maura urged. “Those roots take time to work, even for your kind.”

I flinched at those words—your kind. Maura was like a second mother to me. Hearing her label me as something other was an unexpected blow.

She scowled. “Don’t you look at me like that. I love you as deeply as my own girls. We don’t have to be the same kind to be family.” I threw my arms around her neck, pouring my appreciation for everything she’d done for me into the embrace, and she fiercely squeezed me back.

“I knew you’d never stop being a healer, Diem Bellator,” she whispered in my ear. “You just found a bigger wound to mend.”

She let me go with a weepy smile. I threw Lily one final look, wishing I had time to thank her for loving the two most important men in my life when they needed it most. The best way I could thank her now was by saving their lives, and that’s what I set my mind to do when I turned and marched for the fighting.

In my current state, entering the front lines was nothing short of suicidal. I had no magic, no shield. I was still unsteady on my feet, and it was a struggle just to lift Sorrow’s Edge. The way magic flew back and forth around me, I had to be vigilant even from my own soldiers’ errant attacks.

I called my brother’s name as I moved through the chaos. Blood was everywhere—dripping from head wounds, seeping through tunics, smeared across hands and faces—camouflaging Teller’s coppery hair in a sea of red.

I ducked to miss a bolt of shadow. Would he even respond, if he heard me? Could he? Gods, if I was too late . . .

“Teller,” I shouted again.

Deep within the brawl, two familiar brown eyes locked on mine, then turned away. I set off at a sprint, bouncing off shields and tripping over corpses. A spear glanced off my armor and sliced my cheek, but I barely felt the pain, consumed by my race to stop my brother.

I nearly collapsed with joy when I finally caught up to him—until I saw his state. He was covered in an alarming amount of blood, and I couldn’t tell whether it belonged to him or the horde of enemy soldiers that had him trapped on every side.

“A little help?” he grunted, deflecting an axe meant for his neck on the right as a spear of fire crashed against his godstone breastplate on the left.

I stormed toward the soldiers, who watched me approach with unsettling apathy. They didn’t raise a shield or run away. They showed no emotion, even as I struck them down. They were no more sentient than swords, abandoned by their wielder and left to tumble, forgotten, to the ground.

Against Teller, though, they fought like hell. Even the empty-handed mortals launched at him, clawing at his throat and eyes. I cut them down as quickly as I could, but for every one that fell, more rushed in to take their place.

I shoved my body against Teller’s to guard his back. “If they don’t kill you, I will,” I snapped. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

“I’m a member of the Royal Guard, remember?” he said, sounding oddly amused. “The High General ordered us to fight.” He put his boot in the chest of a mortal lunging for his face. “So . . . I’m fighting.”

“I don’t care what Alixe ordered. I told you to—”

“I’m not hiding in the trees. You wouldn’t, either. That’s not who Father raised us to be.”

I growled, knowing I couldn’t disagree on either point. I threw my frustration into a punch that smashed across a Fortos Descended’s jaw. “At least stop fighting alone. You’re a fool if you think you don’t need help.”

He let out a loud laugh. “I know that, D. Do you?”

I shot him a glare over my shoulder, and he smirked, looking far too pleased for a man bleeding from ten different places. His smile didn’t last long—within seconds, more of Ophiucae’s soldiers set him in their sights.

They circled around us, magic churning at their palms.

“Get back to the rest of the Guard,” I shouted. “You’re too outnumbered here.”

He nodded. “Good idea. You lead the way.”

I pushed off my heels and surged back the way we’d come, swinging Sorrow’s Edge in a wide arc to clear a path. I caught sight of my soldiers through the fighting, and I frantically waved them down.

“Your Majesty,” one of them said, running over. “What are you doing out here?”

I pointed behind me. “Will you stay with him?”

Her brows furrowed. “Stay with who?”

I groaned, realizing too late what Teller had done. When I turned, he

was moving fast in the other direction.

“Asshole,” I screamed.

His laughter answered back.

I ran to catch him, then smashed into a wall of Ophiucae’s men. With my soldiers at my side, I could no longer push through ignored. The mind- stolen Descended trapped me in a cage of their arms as they stretched beyond me to swipe at my people. Their relentlessness was sobering, especially knowing the soldiers on my front lines had been fighting wave after wave of this for hours.

I understood my father’s warnings about “survival at any cost” in a way I never had during our lighthearted lessons outside the family cottage. In this kind of warfare, there was no honor, no strategy, no clever tricks to

outsmart your opponent, no high-minded attempts at diplomacy, no moral hand-wringing over who should live and who should die. Those were the concerns of people with fancy fucking titles who watched the carnage from a distance.

Out here, you had one thought and one alone.

Fight.

The reminder kept the fire in me burning as I battled my way back to my brother. “Teller, do you want Ophiucae to see you?” I snarled when I reached him.

“Not yet,” he said. “But you must, the way you keep screaming my name loud enough for him to hear.”

My eyes darted across the field. Ophiucae was closer than I’d realized, but his attention was on the east, where Sorae had thankfully broken free of the Meros soldiers. She sped toward us, Luther on her back.

A breeze wafted through the battlefield, and a strange scent filled the air. Something sweet and slightly spicy . . .

I knocked my brother’s hand away as it stretched toward my face. The vial of winterwood in his fist overturned, and Teller paled as he watched the liquid splash against his breastplate. He grabbed his knife and sliced the armor’s straps, pulling it from his chest, then he ripped off his tunic, frantically soaking up the dripping liquid.

“Trying to drug me again?” I yelled. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Actually, I’m thinking more clearly than I ever have.” He crumpled his tunic into a ball, tucked it into the waist of his pants, and barreled into my chest with enough force to knock me on my back. As I hit the soil, I caught a blur of movement in the sky, followed by a gryvern’s frantic screech.

“Let me go,” I said, writhing beneath him. “I have to distract Ophiucae before he hurts Sorae.”

He wrestled with my arms to pin them down. “The sooner you let me do this, the sooner this ends.”

Suddenly, Teller flew off me, his collar clutched in the fist of one of my soldiers. “Your Majesty, I’m afraid your brother is lost to thought magic.”

She lifted her blade to his throat.

“No!” I scrambled to my knees and tugged him out of her grip. “I’ll handle him. Just give us cover.”

My soldiers backed into a circle around us, and I pulled Teller’s face close to mine, fearing her suspicions might be correct. I scoured his gaze for

the telltale fog of Ophiucae’s control, but his eyes were clear and bright.

“Do you know the hardest part of being a Bellator?” he asked. “The rest of you are so sure of who you are. Father was a soldier. Mother was a healer. Even when you became Queen, you doubted yourself, but you never doubted that you were meant to help people.”

My heart stuttered as an arrow whizzed past his ear. Above us, Sorae screeched, and Xipherus snarled a warning. “We’re in the middle of war, Tel. Now is not the time—”

“I wanted to be that sure of something,” he interrupted. “I threw myself into school, and Sophos, and the Royal Guard, even Lily. I thought if I tried hard enough, eventually I’d feel like I was where I was meant to be. I wanted that more than anything.” He sighed. “Especially with Lily.”

“You’re eighteen. No one knows who they are at eighteen. You can make it work with Lily. If this is about her being Descended—”

“It’s not. For once, it’s really not.” He smiled, and I frowned. There was something about his calmness in the midst of so much violence that my instincts screamed at me not to trust. “Making that godstone mixture was the most confident I’ve been in a really long time. It felt so right. I haven’t felt that way since I stabbed Ophiucae in Sophos. I felt it when I made the flameroot paste, too. When I saw the healers’ sleeping draught and realized what I could do with it, I felt that way again.”

Two Descended broke past my soldiers and lunged for Teller. I put Sorrow’s Edge through the chest of one and drove an elbow into the face of the other. “If you were trying to keep me out of the battle, you’re doing a terrible job of it,” I said irritably.

Teller stared at me with clear-eyed focus, as if we were entirely alone.

“If I wanted to do that, I would have given you a stronger dose. Lily told me winterwood wears off once the patient stops breathing it in. Remember that, alright? You might not have long to do it.”

“To do what?”

One of my soldiers took a fatal blow, and I had to abandon my brother to take their place as enemy soldiers lurched for the opening in our guard.

“Put that breastplate back on before you get yourself killed,” I yelled at him.

Teller shook his head. “Father can’t protect me—not from this.”

Distantly, I heard my mother shout my name, bringing much-needed relief that she was alive, though it was immediately followed by a surge of

panic as Sorae let out a cry of pain that stopped me still.

Xipherus had sunk his teeth into her haunch, and I watched in terror as his fangs dragged through her flesh, tearing her open. She spun in a desperate bid to shake him off, sending Luther flying off her back. He caught the edge of her wing and dangled from an awkward, one-armed grip, his other hand firing off spears of shadow at Xipherus’s throat.

A fist slammed into the back of my head, and I fell to my knees. The world went wobbly as I fought to stay conscious.

“All those years sparring, we thought we were preparing to fight someone else,” Teller said. “Ironic, huh?”

A boot slammed into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs and flattening me to the ground. A heavy weight pressed into my back and pinned me down.

“I was wrong about one thing,” Teller murmured. “You, me, Father, Mother—we don’t each have our own purpose. We had the same one. And we needed each other to find it.”

Crumpled fabric pressed against my mouth, and the sweet, peppery scent of winterwood filled the air. I tried to shout for help, but my screams were too muffled to carry. My limbs turned heavy, and the sounds of battle grew distant. The last thing I felt was Sorrow’s Edge falling—no, being pulled—from my hand, and the sound of my brother’s voice carried me into

the abyss.

“I’ll see you soon.”

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