Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 80

80

LUTHER

e flew beneath the clouds, hair whipping at my cheeks. I cradled oneW arm at my side, grimacing as each breath sent fire through my ribs.

The side of my leg was burned so badly, every touch made my vision spot.

Sorae’s triumph over Xipherus had not come easy for either of us. One of her talons hung limp, missing two of its toes. Large chunks of her hide had been ripped away, while claw marks dragged across her throat and belly. The edge of one wing was shredded, forcing her to fight twice as hard to keep us in the air. Her body seemed ready to give out at any moment and send us hurtling into the Sacred Sea.

She let out a whimper, and I used my legs to give a reassuring squeeze. I knew her wounds weren’t her real concern. Battered and bleeding as we were, our agony was for the woman clutched to my chest.

“Still there?” Diem whispered.

I glanced over Sorae’s side to her uninjured talon, where Ophiucae’s body dangled, unconscious, with Teller’s sleeping-draught-soaked shirt knotted over his nose and mouth. At the sight of it, Auralie’s heartbroken wail replayed in my ears, as loud and as haunting as the moment I’d first

heard it.

“He’s still there,” I murmured.

Diem’s hand slipped out from the ball she’d curled herself into and stretched toward her sword, which I’d tucked into my belt. Her fingers brushed along its golden markings, then turned upright, stained with red. I shifted the sword out of her reach, mentally throttling myself for not cleaning her brother’s blood from its blade.

There’d been little time to mourn. The sleeping draught had left Ophiucae unconscious, but it had not stopped his army’s attacks. With his soldiers closing in, we’d been forced to hurriedly whisk him away. Even Auralie had to be abandoned, left alone to weep over her son’s corpse.

Diem hadn’t wept. She’d stared at her slain brother, ghost-pale and swaying, until I gently led her away. Other than her repeated requests to confirm that Ophiucae was still beneath us, she hadn’t spoken a word. Her quiet demeanor might have been mistaken for denial, were it not for the overwhelming emotion engulfing our bond.

But it wasn’t grief. It wasn’t sadness, or guilt, or even despair—it was anger. Blistering, molten rage. She trembled with it in my arms, and I held

her closer.

It felt like cradling a bomb.

I took her palm and swiped the blood away with my thumb, hoping my touch would calm her spirit, but she quickly pulled her hand back. She didn’t want calm, and I didn’t blame her.

“How much longer?” she asked.

“A few more minutes,” I guessed, hoping I was right. A forebodingly black cluster of clouds had formed over the island. The setting sun was a quickly thinning sliver. If we didn’t make it to Coeurîle soon, the most critical part of this war would be fought in the dark.

A fitting end, perhaps.

For most of my life, my world had been ruled by control. My uncle’s dominion over the realm as King. My father’s manipulation of my family, and especially of me. My self-control over emotions I couldn’t risk revealing. The will of Blessed Mother Lumnos, around which I’d centered every choice.

Control made life predictable. Reliable. Understandable. Safe. It made my choices, and their consequences, easy to see. Even when I hated it, at least it gave me a path that wouldn’t bring my world to ruin—a trail of solid, well-lit stepping stones over the open mouth of a beast.

When Diem came into my life, control became a luxury we could rarely afford. Still, I’d clung to it in every way I could. I set myself aflame to light her darkness, lay my body on the coals so that she might have a safe place to step. Anything to keep her on the path she’d been born to walk.

Now we’d reached the final step. I’d promised Diem that we would have a future beyond this war, but the road ahead had disappeared into the

shadows, and I had nothing left of me to burn to light the way.

I held out a palm and called on my godhood. Drained from the battle with Xipherus, it scraped in search of a glimmer of magic to offer to the Blessed Mother—one final, desperate prayer for my mate.

My hand lay empty, and my stomach sank.

Diem shifted in my arms. “What’s that?”

She pointed to Coeurîle. At the height of summer, one would expect its grassy hills to be a lush, vibrant green. Instead, the island was covered in a mottled beige-brown. The nearer we flew, the more it seemed to move.

My stomach dropped lower. “Diem, you broke the spell the Crowns cast on Coeurîle, didn’t you? The one that trapped you on the island and kept everyone else away?”

“I did. Why do you . . .” Her face went slack. “Oh, gods . . . those

are—”

“People,” I confirmed grimly.

A lot of them—enough to blanket the island from shore to shore.

“Sorae, circle overhead,” Diem ordered. Sorae gave a trill that sounded closer to a cough, her body shuddering. Diem ran a hand down her neck.

“This will be over soon.”

Sorae’s head turned, and her gaze cut back to mine. The slits of her pupils swelled, transforming her golden eyes into ominous obsidian discs.

There was a message in their darkness, and though I had neither magic nor bond to read it, I knew exactly what it said.

My grip tightened on Diem.

Sorae turned her focus to the island, shifting her wings to drop us lower in the sky. I felt Diem tense as we approached the shore, and over the bond, cold tendrils slithered through her anger’s flames. Perhaps she was worried the former Crowns’ spell might still have some lingering power to hurt me or Sorae.

But after we safely flew over the island’s borders, her terror began to burn as hotly as her wrath. She shifted her weight, sliding down Sorae’s back until she was pressed hard against me. Her face turned away from the island, wearing a haunted stare.

“You don’t have to go down there,” I said softly. “I’ll lock Ophiucae in his cell. We’ll come back to deal with him another day—when you’re ready.”

Her eyes closed, then reopened. Muscles worked along her throat.

Across the link that bound us, fear and fury warred in cataclysmic waves.

She pulled her sword from my belt, then slammed it into its scabbard on her hip. “I’m ready.”

Sorae swooped over the island’s hills, and my apprehension grew as I studied the swarming people. Though we were too far to see their eyes, they moved with the same awkward, aimless lumber of the others whose minds Ophiucae had erased. I feared what it might do to Diem, and to me, if we spotted Eleanor or the others we’d left behind in Lumnos among them.

My focus shifted to the island’s shores, where large wooden ships were tied up at each of its docks, a wind-and-wave sigil painted on the sails.

“They’re Merosian,” I said.

“Why did he send them here?” Diem asked. “Why not send them to Fortos with the others?”

I sat quietly, waiting for her to work through what I’d already figured out. Knowing it would crush her when she did.

Ophiucae had been one step ahead of us all day. He’d known exactly where we’d be and when, how we planned to attack, how to lull us into thinking we’d won before showing his hand. Even our plan to bring him here had been prepared for and countered—a plan that Diem had only shared the details of this morning with me and Alixe. Our thoughts had been shielded by godstone against his intrusion . . . but Diem’s had not.

He’d used her own mind against her. Against her people. Against her brother.

When the realization hit her, her wrath blazed hotter than the sun. It seared past the edges of our bond and grew into something bigger, something else. Something that bled into the world, pulsing with a thunderous heartbeat like a living, breathing thing—a vengeful, ancient thing. It whispered and it hummed, and when it did, I heard the faintest notes of an old, beloved song.

Beneath the blood and grime of war, her skin began to glow.

“My Queen,” I breathed.

The sound of distant wingbeats thumped behind us. I twisted around, fearful that Xipherus had healed and tracked us to Coeurîle, but the clouds were too low and thick to see much—just a scrap of bloody fabric twirling

in the wind and falling toward the sea.

Not just fabric.

A shirt.

“Sorae, get us to land,” I shouted.

Diem shook her head. “The first time we came here, you said gryverns would die if they touched the island’s soil. That was before the Crowns cast their spell. What if it’s still true?” She pointed to the Lumnos dock. “She’ll have to land there.”

Sorae ignored my protests. Even freed of her compelled obedience, her loyalty was to Diem. She tilted, circling over the Temple. As we turned, Ophiucae’s body swung into view.

And his open, lucid eyes locked on mine.

“Sorae, drop Ophiucae n—”

A column of ice shot from Ophiucae’s hand and cut me short. The jagged crystal drove through Sorae’s chest and sliced into my shoulder.

Sorae let out an ear-splitting wail. Her talon went limp, and Ophiucae slipped through her claws. As he plummeted toward the island, he stretched his palm and unleashed a wave of fire. Sorae spun to spare Diem from the flames. The heat of the fire bloomed around us, melting the icy skewer until the pressure of my weight snapped it in half.

The sky became a spinning blur. Diem screamed my name, her voice growing distant. I tumbled through the air, and I thought of Perthe, who had fallen to his doom in my stead, and Teller, who’d made that wretched choice.

And my mother, who had died so I could live.

My fall ended with a crash against unforgiving stone. Bones popped, agony erupted. Something that felt both cold and broiling pressed against my skin, and a sensation of hopelessness draped over me, luring me toward the darkest corners of my thoughts. There was something disturbingly familiar about this feeling, the way that everything good in the world shrank from my grasp.

Diem’s cry cut through the daze. My bloodsworn oath to her pulled taut, dangling me in the twilight before the glittering night of death. I roared with pain as I pushed myself upright.

I blinked through bloodied eyes, and the archways of the Kindred’s Temple came into view. I ripped my hand away from its godstone platform, shuddering at the reminder of the toxin that had ravaged both my spirit and my flesh, and the bleak sensation instantly faded.

I frantically searched for my mate. She was still in the sky, pinned to Sorae, who was struggling to stay airborne. The feathers of one wing had burned away, the delicate skin beneath them blackened and raw. Only Sorae’s sheer strength of will was keeping them moving, but even that was fading. Her ruined wings beat slower and slower, the fatal soil growing closer and closer.

Blood poured from the wound in her chest, raining onto the mind-stolen Merosians below. They raised their arms, eager to claw her to shreds the moment she came within reach. Their arrows sank into her side, but still she

fought. She flew.

And then . . . she fell.

With a broken whimper, her wings gave out. Her body careened, and she and Diem sank like a stone. She thrashed her unburnt wing to slow their fall, but it only succeeded in sending them into a spiral.

I threw my hands out, pleading for my godhood to answer. No magic came. I begged the gods to help them, offering up my soul to the Kindred, the Old Gods, even Ophiucae himself. Their voices were silent. Even the Merosians paused to watch the Queen of Emarion and her guardian hurtle toward their grisly end.

Sorae let out a last, desperate shriek, and the world went terribly quiet.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Not the sound of bodies hitting soil.

The sound of wings.

A blur flew past me as an enormous black beast shot overhead. My hope died in its wake, knowing Ophiucae’s gryvern would destroy whatever was left of them—but when the creature’s dark wings spread wide, they were absent of Xipherus’s distinctive red.

With a roar loud enough to hear from Lumnos, Tybold’s talons closed around Sorae and yanked her toward the sky. The sudden jerk of movement snapped Diem free, and she tumbled off Sorae’s back into another free fall.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

The sky turned thunderous. Four gryverns emerged from the clouds and raced in a line toward the island. A blue-scaled beast I recognized as the

Meros gryvern ducked beneath Diem to catch her on his back. The others swooped around them, spewing plumes of pink, green, and yellow dragonfyre at the island below.

I stared at them, stunned. Though Diem had insisted she was happy to see the gryverns freed, I’d sensed her heartbreak when the others left. Sorae choosing Diem over a future with Tybold had been devastating for all involved. But as I watched the Ignios gryvern now, snapping his jaws with snarls that sounded like orders as the other gryverns grumbled and fell in line behind him, I realized he’d never left Sorae at all.

When I couldn’t spare the woman I loved from war, I’d raised an army

to fight at her side.

And so had Tybold.

He glided beside the Meros gryvern, and Diem yelled something to him I couldn’t hear, though when she pointed toward the continent, I sensed her plan. One way or another, her fight and mine would end on this island, but even Ophiucae’s death might not stop his puppet army from ravaging the mainland. The people of Emarion needed the gryverns more than we did.

A curl of smoke puffed from Tybold’s snout, and the Meros gryvern split off from the group and swung toward the Temple. He hovered just above it as Diem slipped over his side, swinging from his talon before dropping onto the platform beside me.

She stared up at the gryverns, eyes lingering on each one until they stopped on Sorae’s mutilated body, still clutched in Tybold’s grip. With her wings this damaged, he’d have to carry her all the way to the mainland—a grueling task, even for a strong gryvern like him. An energy-draining, muscle-snapping, body-destroying task. Maybe an impossible task.

I knew he’d do it.

And I knew he wouldn’t stop fighting until the home Sorae loved was

safe.

“One last fight?” Diem shouted.

Sorae gave a trembling howl, followed by Tybold’s roar. The other gryverns flew in silence, and Tybold nipped at the edges of their wings until they each gave reluctant-sounding chuffs.

I pulled myself to my feet and limped to Diem’s side, taking her hand as we watched them soar away—Vexes of Sophos, Arilloc of Meros, Onaar of Arboros, Rosha of Faunos, and our treasured Sorae of Lumnos, led by the fearsome Tybold of Ignios.

“Goodbye,” Diem whispered, tears sparkling on her lashes.

“We’ll see them again,” I insisted. “Ophiucae’s army is no match for six gryverns. Once they arrive, the war is won.”

“Only if he dies.”

Her skin glimmered brighter.

I held up her hand, studying the shimmer overtaking her bronze skin.

Even if her godhood had somehow escaped the effects of her broken bonded bargain with Doriel, it should have vanished once she set foot on the island. Seeing the evidence of her power shine so defiantly was the final piece of a mystery that had been lingering in my thoughts for some time.

“Diem, look,” I said, stroking my thumb over the back of her hand.

She turned her palm upright, forehead wrinkling. “I still can’t feel my

godhood.”

“But you feel something, don’t you?”

Her gaze cut to mine, searching, shadowed with doubt, though she didn’t deny it. She looked out at the Meros Descended. They watched us with foggy, vacant eyes and outstretched arms. Something kept them from breaching the Temple—perhaps the godstone it was built with, or perhaps Ophiucae’s orders.

“What if this means Ophiucae still has his magic?” she asked. She scanned the island’s rolling landscape until her eyes stopped on an area near the eastern coast where a circle had appeared in the Merosians’ midst.

She looked back at me. “Swear to me that you’ll do exactly what I say.

If we don’t do this right, we’ll both end up dead. Everyone will.”

I frowned. “Tell me your plan.”

She shook her head. “There’s no time. Please, Luther, I need your promise. Now more than ever.”

My heart, and all my better instincts, screamed their answer: No.

But when my Queen needed me, I could not refuse.

“I promise.”

She pulled her hand from mine and ran for the stairs. I swore and pulled the Sword of Corbois, following behind her on legs that cracked with each painful step. She stormed into the crowd without slowing, but unlike on the mainland, her presence among Ophiucae’s army did not go unnoticed. They swarmed her like ants, and she disappeared inside the throng.

At her surprised cry of pain, my wounds were instantly forgotten. I roared as I hacked through Descended bodies to find her, heart hammering

each time I bellowed her name and she didn’t answer.

I finally caught a flash of blood-streaked white hair gripped in the fist of a snarling Merosian. One second later, his hand thumped to the ground, no longer tethered to his body. Another second later, his head did the same.

I managed to clear her attackers enough for her to draw her sword, but her face looked pale, her confidence shaken. If Ophiucae’s fondness had protected her before, it had apparently met its end.

That left us insurmountably outnumbered, two against a thousand. We tried to fight our way back to the safety of the Temple, but a surge of mindless Merosians trapped us in place. They swung at us without mercy, more vicious than any we’d faced on the mainland. It was as if Ophiucae’s rage at her betrayal had permeated their minds, too, infusing them with his determination to make her pay a brutal price. My calling to protect my mate turned me feral, and I lost myself to a killing frenzy that left me feeling as much an empty husk as the Descended I slaughtered.

The fighting pushed us further inland until the horde was a hundred heads deep in every direction. Each person slain was replaced with countless more. Ophiucae was nowhere to be found, and his army showed no sign of stopping. The gryverns were gone, the Temple was distant. The shore might as well have been a world away.

There was no refuge. No escape.

No more reinforcements to save us.

We were going to die here.

Unless . . .

Unless.

“You have to use your magic,” I shouted.

“I don’t have any,” Diem cried back. “I told you, my godhood—”

“Not your godhood, Diem.”

She didn’t answer, but across our bond, something in her stirred in recognition. The heat around us pulsed like it heard my call.

There had always been something burning inside her. Not the simple flames of the Ignios Descended, but an inferno that burned with ancient might. Teller had been the first to name it. He’d told me his suspicions, fearing that Diem would only smother them beneath denial and doubt, but I’d sensed it long before. I’d felt its warmth every time we touched. I’d seen it in the vision we shared. I’d watched it dance, I’d heard it sing. The day

her magic unleashed in the Lumnos dungeon, I knew she was something

more profound than a Queen.

My Diem was a destiny. She was justice.

She was fate itself.

“You’re more than what Ophiucae made you,” I told her. “You’re more than the Kindred or their Crowns. And you don’t run from your power anymore. You show the world what power can be.” I turned my back to the fighting and caught her chin, tipping it to mine, whispering against her lips.

“Unleash, my Queen.”

In the moon-bright depths of her eyes, a buried ember gleamed. It fed on her anger, her hope, her compassion, her despair. It sizzled with hate and love, ice and fire, rage and relief, searing its name on my bones. Inside the heart I loved so deeply that I’d permanently stitched it to my soul, that

ember grew into a spark.

The spark became a glow.

The glow became a heat.

And after millennia of darkness, a long-forgotten Fire began to burn.

The island exploded in a wave of bright silvery Flames. The gleaming ice-white inferno spread from coast to coast. Though it sizzled with enough heat to boil my blood inside my skin, I wasn’t harmed. A sensation washed over me that I could not name, like a hunched spine finally uncurling and stretching high, or a heavy weight removed from one side of a tilted scale.

There was something wounded in it, too. Something vengeful and devastatingly sad. I’d felt its grief in her magic before—in the hours I’d held her burning body in my arms after her father’s death, and again when she’d slain the Sophosians in a sea of silver at Mort-Feu Pass, in all the moments when the heaviness of the world was more than she could bear and she’d given herself over to the Fire.

The light of its blaze blinded my vision. I focused on the touch of my hands against her face, the softness of her skin against the roughness of mine. Somewhere in the midst of the Flames, her song called out to me, and my heart swelled in harmonious response.

The Merosians did not scream or suffer. Their deaths arrived with an eerily peaceful hum. When the light of the Fire dimmed, the once-grassy hills were coated in a crust of glittering black.

I staggered backward, gazing upon her. Diem’s skin had been cleansed of its blood, her wounds healed, her skin shining as bright as the pale

Flames that flickered around us. Above her head, the Crown of Emarion had turned into a ring of ash—but from its darkened roots, sparks rained across her shoulders. Her hair danced among them, haloed in one final burst of crimson glow from the blood sun sinking into the horizon. My hand lifted to my heart in worship.

She was exactly as I’d seen her in the vision. There was so much I hadn’t understood of it at the time—her sword, her armor, her Crown, her Fire, none of which I’d seen before. Her features, too heavy and grim to belong to the feisty woman I’d known her as then.

The way she placed her palm against her chest. Not a salute, as I’d originally thought. A tribute to the bond that bound our hearts as one, and a reminder to us both that no magic, no god, and no fate could ever break it.

I whispered her name like a prayer. The silver-tinged Flames that danced around her pulsed, moving as if they were not from her, but of her.

“The Undying Fire,” I murmured. “The Kindred were not the only gods who blessed you with their magic.”

She gazed at the rings of corpses surrounding us. “Is power a blessing,” she asked softly, “if all it brings is death?”

“Have you learned nothing, daughter?”

Ophiucae’s voice boomed across the island. In the distance, he stood alone among the dead, untouched by Diem’s Flames. Dark clouds had gathered overhead, casting him in ominous shadow.

“Power is always a blessing. You must control it if you can . . . “ His hands curled to fists at his side. “And destroy it if you can’t.”

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