Burn of the Everflame

Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 81

ALIXE

’m running out.”“I “Me too.”

“Push yourselves harder,” I told them. “Even if you feel empty, keep going. Your godhood has reserves—you just have to find them.”

“We’ve been using our reserves. They’re empty, too.”

“Find some more,” I snapped.

The line of Centenaries beside me fell silent, though their gazes shifted back and forth in unison, eyebrows lifting and diving, as the conversation continued without me.

“If you can share thoughts, you still have magic,” I barked. “Stop arguing and use it.”

Normally, I prided myself on my ability to stay calm under pressure, but my patience had worn thin. I’d underestimated what it took to fight an enemy that never retreated and never tired. In a woefully morbid way, Ophiucae’s soldiers had proven how far the body could push itself when the mind wasn’t there to give up. After hours of fighting, they were as determined as they’d been on the very first wave.

The psychological effect was almost worse than the violence. Our training had given us the advantage at first, but as our energy and magic waned, so had our morale. The mortals were exhausted, and most of the Descended had depleted their magic, forcing them to turn to weapons, which many had never used until today. It made the fighting sloppy and the

casualties high.

We were losing.

I was losing.

Diem had put her trust in me to lead in her absence, her army had put their lives in my hands. Emarion’s future was at risk . . . and I was losing.

“Our Queen did not tolerate Centenaries who whine,” Symond cut in, giving his fellow Umbrosians a withering stare. “Do not disgrace her memory with your weakness.”

Their chins sank. They lifted their palms toward the fighting, brows low with renewed resolve.

“Thank you,” I murmured to Symond, “but you really shouldn’t talk about Her Majesty as if she’s dead.”

He scoffed. “I wasn’t talking about Diem.”

I swallowed my retort. I hated the open disrespect he showed toward Diem, but if indulging Symond’s grudge kept the Centenaries here and fighting, so be it. Until Ophiucae was dead, the threat of his magic on our army’s minds remained. With most of the godstone mixture having melted away in the summer heat, the Centenaries were our last defense.

I squinted through the early evening dusk, scanning the field. Though the moon was full, a blanket of clouds had hidden it away, leaving us fighting in the dark. With our army surrounded on three sides, I’d forced myself to stay by the tree line so I could issue strategic orders, but I could barely see the fighting, let alone tell my army from theirs.

I raised a palm to fire off an order: four short pulses of light, which would direct more soldiers toward the overwhelmed western front. One,

two— Nothing.

I frowned and jabbed my hands forward, but no more light came out.

On the battlefield, soldiers began to push east, obeying an order of two bursts of light—the exact opposite of where I needed them to be.

I dug my heels in, pulling every muscle taut as I strained toward the sky, scraping for any bit of magic I could find. I managed to pull one more burst,

followed by a weak, flickering glimmer.

Beside me, Symond snickered.

“West,” I shouted. “Move west!”

By the grace of the Blessed Kindred, enough of the soldiers heard me, and the lines began to shift. I rubbed my sternum, frowning at the emptiness consuming my chest.

“Your godhood has reserves, High General, you just have to find them,”

Symond mocked, echoing my words.

I glanced at Symond. Sweat dripped from his forehead, his face sunken from long hours of maintaining a constant stream of power. Though he’d done nothing but complain about his presence here, he was fighting with all he had.

“When you arrived, you claimed you were here against your wishes, but the Centenaries don’t make any decisions unless you all agree,” I said.

“That means you chose to come here.”

He huffed. “Chose is a strong word.”

“You also said you were here because of someone you loved.” I lowered my voice. “It was her, wasn’t it? Yrselle?”

“Maybe you should focus more on them than my affairs.” He nodded to a cluster of Ophiucae’s soldiers that had broken free of the fighting and were staggering toward us. My waning magic had caused the illusion concealing the Centenaries to vanish. I pulled my shortswords and ran.

Taking their lives was easy work. My muscles were fresh, my instincts strong. Resheathing my weapons and resuming my post was harder. I’d been in leadership long enough to accept that I was more useful to my army here, but the warrior inside me was begging for a chance to let loose.

Symond gave a slight nod when I returned to his side, which I imagined was the closest he would get to expressing his thanks.

“I feared Yrselle,” Symond said as we both watched the fighting, “and I respected her, because she was a Queen worthy of fear and respect. But I did not love her. Not in the way you imagine.”

My brows lifted. “You two weren’t . . . ?”

“Are you asking if I fucked her? Of course I did. I’m a Centenary. I’ve fucked them all. Usually at the same time.” He smirked. “If I recall correctly, you fit in with us quite well, in that regard.”

My cheeks warmed. Though having multiple partners wasn’t unheard of in Lumnos, it was treated as something scandalous, better kept private.

Even the Kindred’s mating magic seemed to insist that true love could only ever be shared with a singular person, an idea that never sat right in my soul.

The nights I spent in Umbros with the Centenaries had been the first time I’d seen people like me living and loving with no shame or judgment.

Even Drusila and her mate had joined in, and the other Centenaries had embraced it. Encouraged it, even. It left me with a newfound confidence

that there was nothing wrong with me or my desires—and it had made my evenings in Lumnos far more eventful since our return.

“But you did have someone you loved,” I pushed. “Someone you lost?”

Symond’s expression guttered, and silence fell between us. I shouted a few more commands to the archers, then to the soldiers who’d been ferrying the wounded to the healers in the trees. My hands, useless without their magic, clenched around the handles of my blades.

“I had a son,” Symond said abruptly.

The other Centenaries’ heads spun toward him. “Her Majesty gave you permission to have a child?” one asked incredulously.

“No. I never told her.”

The Centenaries exchanged stunned stares. For any of them to defy Yrselle was unheard of. For Symond to do it—their leader, the Queen’s most trusted Descended . . .

He refused to meet their eyes. “I was traveling on orders from the Queen. I had no contraceptive tonic on hand. I believed a single night would do no harm. I didn’t know a child came of it until years later.

Decades. By then, he was a man. He risked everything to come to Umbros and meet his father. How could I take his life for that?” Symond shook his head. “I kept him hidden in the city. Trained him to use his magic.” He gave a slight, proud smile. “He was powerful. He could even shield his mind from me. When time passed and he wasn’t discovered, I thought . . . maybe from the Queen, as well.”

“You selfish prick,” Drusila hissed. “You know the law—if our numbers exceed one hundred, the youngest must die. If the Queen had found him, my daughter would have been executed. Her Majesty would never make an exception to that law.”

Symond chuckled, worsening Drusila’s ire, though his callous demeanor lacked its usual bite. “He was wounded in the first attack on Umbros. He kept it from me—didn’t want me to think him weak. I only learned of it when he asked if I’d been the one who sent healers to his home.” His glance cut to me. “The same ones that tried to help your Prince. They couldn’t do anything for him, either.”

“Godstone?” I guessed. He nodded, and I gave a sympathetic wince.

“Do you know what Her Majesty said to me before she left for the island?” he asked. “‘I’m sorry they could not save him.’” He laughed again,

and his gaze drifted back to the fighting. “Of course she knew. She’d always known.”

Wingbeats drew my eyes to the southern flatlands. I swore as a pair of large, golden eyes glowed against the evening sky. I’d prayed the wounds Sorae had inflicted on Ophiucae’s gryvern had been enough to kill him, but Xipherus had healed enough to rejoin the battle—and he looked ready to take his revenge on the army Sorae had left behind.

“Ballista,” I shouted, though my command disappeared beneath the gryvern’s outraged snarls. I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Ballista!

Load the ballista!”

Even if they’d heard me, my army was too overwhelmed to obey. The ballista was surrounded by Ophiucae’s soldiers, and the mortal rebels who manned it were busy fighting for their lives. I spotted Lonard and shouted for him to come to their aid, but he was in his own desperate press against some Unhoused Descended.

The gryvern swooped low, unleashing a plume of fire that sliced through the center of the field. His slaughter was ruthlessly indifferent, setting Ophiucae’s army and ours ablaze in equal numbers. Our soldiers began to panic and flee for the forest. Xipherus swung north, cutting off their retreat with another fiery burst. He did the same on the eastern front, then headed west to pin the armies inside a wall of flames.

“I have to get to the ballista,” I said, pulling my shortswords.

“If you go out there alone, you’re not going to make it,” Symond warned.

“If I don’t take the gryvern down now, he’s going to burn every person on that field.”

“Then I suppose I can’t let you go alone.” He glanced at my shortswords. “Loan me one of those?”

I hesitated. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I dishonored my Queen once before. I won’t do it again by running

away.”

“Do you have any magic left?”

“No,” he admitted. “But neither did your Queen.” He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I suppose I have to honor them both. Now give me a blade before I get bored and find something more interesting to do.”

I handed him a shortsword. “Do you know how to use it?”

“Swing it around and pray it hits something?”

“More or less.” I glanced at the other Centenaries and pointed toward the forest. “Get inside the tree line. Stay out of sight.”

The Centenaries ignored my order. They ran past me and scattered,

searching nearby corpses for weapons.

“We’re coming with you,” one shouted.

“You’ll need all of us to get through,” another said.

“We act as one,” a woman said. “That’s what we agreed.”

The other nodded. Drusila alone hesitated, glancing back toward Lumnos.

“Drusila,” Symond said, “if you wish to go back . . .”

She shook her head. “Centenaries do not whine, Symond. We don’t flee, either. We honor our Queen.”

He would not argue that. Their night-black eyes turned to me, awaiting my command.

And so, fighting in the name of two very different women, I set off with the Centenaries to join the battle. Though I had no magic left to offer, I whispered two prayers—one to Blessed Mother Lumnos, and another to Blessed Umbros, beseeching him to guide his people’s blades. When I managed to summon a weak burst of shadow, enough to open a break in the fiery wall around the fighting, my heart swelled at my prayers being answered—only to shatter as two Centenaries were killed within seconds.

“Keep pushing,” I shouted. “And keep swinging!”

The fighting blurred in the darkness, occasionally lit by white-hot explosions as Xipherus roared overhead. Screams rose around us as soldiers burned, smoke filling my lungs with every breath. Fear began to grow that the ballista would go up in flames before I reached it.

Symond took a dagger to the ribs and hit his knees. I forced myself to leave him behind, knowing that if I failed, his sacrifice would be for nothing—but moments later, he reappeared at my side, wincing and holding his wound.

Emboldened by his courage, I pushed myself harder, hacking through what felt like endless streams of black-charred bodies. In the murky light of night, I couldn’t be sure that only enemy soldiers fell beneath my blade. I had to reach that ballista, whatever the cost.

The Centenaries’ numbers dwindled fast. I shouted orders as we advanced, reminding them of all they fought for. By the time the ballista’s large wooden structure finally came into view, only a few remained.

“Alixe,” Cordellia shouted, spotting me across the din. “The gryvern— we have to stop him.”

“I know,” I yelled back. I pointed to the ballista. “Can you fire it?”

“If you can shield me,” she said.

I shook my head. “No magic left. We have to risk it.”

She nodded. “Understood. Clear my way.”

She fell in beside me, and we forced our way through the horde of enemy soldiers. Bodies lay in heaps as we passed, many of whom I recognized as Guardians. If Cordellia noticed, she didn’t let herself show it.

Throughout the war, Diem and I had been forced to plead with the Descended not to give up, to reassure them, remind them of the stakes, shame them for their cowardice, even at times threaten them into staying in the fight. Meanwhile, the mortals tended their wounds, mourned their dead, and prepared for whatever came next. It shamed me to see how years of pain had forced them into resilience, while our privilege had only nurtured fear.

We made it to the ballista, and I shoved Cordellia up onto its wheeled platform, then joined Symond as we fought at her back. She spun the firing arm back and forth, tracking the gryvern’s movement in the sky. Ophiucae’s soldiers clambered at the sides of the platform, clutching at her legs. She kicked them off, but it cost her precious opportunities to fire as Xipherus soared in and out of range.

Symond grunted as a soldier crashed into his wounded side. “Could you hurry it up?” he yelled out to Cordellia, shoving the soldier toward me so I could bury my blade in their back.

“I’m trying,” she shouted, slamming her boot into the groin of a man who’d climbed in front of the ballista’s loaded bolt. He tumbled to the ground as another man lurched toward her, gripping her arm. I lunged to grab him, but a sword went slicing near my head, forcing me to turn away to block it.

Xipherus banked, soaring back in our direction and flooding the eastern flatlands with dragonfyre. Cordellia’s face set into a focused glare. With her free arm, she swung the ballista toward the beast, closed her hand around

the trigger, and—

Boom.

The world went spinning. I had the briefest awareness that I was flying through the air before I slammed into something hard and wet. My ears were ringing, my head pounding. I put a hand down to push myself upright, and it clutched against something that felt disturbingly like bone.

Boom.

Bursts of flame exploded nearby, sending bodies—and pieces of them— flying past me. I shook off my daze and looked around. The air was hazy with smoke set aglow by fiery debris. The ballista lay on its side, a godstone-studded bolt still loaded in its arm. The crowd of soldiers had been scattered by the blasts, leaving the area eerily quiet.

“Symond?” I called out, squinting through the haze. “Cordellia?”

No one answered.

I shakily pushed to my feet. One side of my body was burned, my scorched flesh peppered with scraps of metal—the hallmark shrapnel of

rebel bombs.

Boom.

I crouched low as more explosions went off. They were all coming from the same place, and they all detonated with the same orange-yellow hue of mortal fire.

“Symond?” I called out again. “Cordellia?”

A moan rang out in answer. I ran toward the sound and discovered Symond half-buried beneath a pile of bodies and bleeding from a gash at his temple. “What happened?” he asked woozily.

“Rebel bombs. Either Ophiucae got inside the Guardians’ heads and turned them against us, or the dragonfyre ignited their supply.”

“What about the gryvern? Is he—”

A faraway roar answered for me, sounding almost gleeful. Symond glanced at the overturned ballista, and his head rolled back with a groan.

“We’re fucked.”

“Centenaries don’t whine, remember?” I grabbed his arm and dragged him free. “This could work to our benefit. The bombs scared the gryvern off and cleared Ophiucae’s soldiers. It bought us time.”

“A blessing from the Kindred,” he said dryly, gazing around at the carnage.

I beckoned for him to follow, and we ran to the ballista. We pushed against its base, trying to haul it upright, but its weight was too much for us to budge.

For the first time, I saw genuine fear creep into Symond’s features.

“Can it still fire from its side?” he asked.

I looked over the structure. While serving as Remis’s High General during Diem’s exile, he’d ordered me to pull a ballista from the Royal Guard’s armory that had been gathering dust since the Blood War. He’d insisted that it was just to scare Diem off from returning to the palace with her mother and getting herself killed by the Emarion Army, though I’d never been entirely confident that he wouldn’t use it. It had, however, given me a chance to study the weapon up close and learn how it worked.

The rebels had been clever enough to anticipate something like this— they’d built a frame around the ballista’s sides to protect the curved arms of its bow. However, the handle of the tightening wench had been damaged in the fall. I could fire the bolt that had already been loaded, but then the ballista would be no more useful than a pile of firewood.

“We’ve got one shot,” I told him. “It has to count—if I don’t hit the gryvern’s heart, it won’t be enough to kill him. Can you find a way to draw him close?”

“I suppose now is the time to confess that I saved a little bit of my magic, in case I needed it to get out of this alive.” His stare rose to the darkened sky. “Drusila was right. I am a selfish prick.”

“You’re not selfish, Symond. Maybe you can use your magic to—”

“Sorry, High General. You’re on your own here.” He turned on his heel and walked into the haze. “May the Blessed Father forgive me.”

“Symond, wait,” I shouted. “Come back! Symond!”

The smoke enveloped him, and he was gone.

Panic began to rise. I climbed off the ballista and searched the area, shouting for soldiers to help me, but the rebel bombs had sent everyone in the area running to get away. I managed to find Cordellia, her body slumped on its side. I felt for her pulse—strong, thank the gods, and no serious wounds that I could see, but no matter how hard I shook her, she wouldn’t respond.

In my war against fear, the tide took a decisive turn. My magic and my allies had abandoned me, and my hope wasn’t far behind. I considered calling a retreat—praying for Diem to save us, begging Ophiucae for mercy

if she didn’t. A wise general would cut their losses and save what lives they could. I knew Diem wouldn’t blame me if I did.

But no matter how bad things got for her, she had never given up. When the Centenaries had played their dinner game and asked her which of us she’d save if we were trapped in a fire, she hadn’t missed a beat.

All of us, she’d said. She’d run into the flames, again and again, until every last person was safe.

I ran to the ballista and shoved the launch arm down, pointing the bolt as high as it would go. “Xipherus,” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The gryvern ignored me, circling over the western front and gleefully spewing flames.

“Xipherus,” I shouted again, waving my arms. “Over here!”

Still nothing. He was either too far away to hear me or too engrossed in

burning my army to care.

“Xipher—”

A crack of lightning shot from the sky and struck the ground a few feet in front of me, sending a cloud of sparks flying into the air. I stilled in surprise—then held my breath as Xipherus’s slitted eyes slid across the battlefield.

“Over here,” Symond’s voice rang out in the darkness.

Another bolt of lightning splintered from the clouds and snapped against Xipherus, scorching his hide. In the brief flash of light it cast, I spotted Symond standing just ahead, gripping a Sophos Descended by the temples.

“Get over here and fight me, you ugly lizard,” Symond yelled.

With an outraged snarl, the beast flared its wings and turned toward him —toward us.

Symond glanced at me over his shoulder. “Take your shot, High General.”

I nodded, gripping the ballista’s controls with both hands. The gryvern speared closer, steel-grey fire smoldering in its throat. It cracked its jaws to prepare a flood of flames, and I steadied my aim on its chest, shifting one hand to the trigger. One shot to the heart. One shot to save my people.

Symond’s hands went slack, and the Descended whose magic he’d commandeered collapsed at his feet. He turned his back to the approaching gryvern and stared at me, expression solemn.

This was my war to finish now.

I’d spent my life fighting my Corbois name. I’d been so desperate to prove that my accomplishments were earned, not gifted, that my name had become a burden. In many ways, a mark of shame.

But I could make it something to be proud of.

I was Alixe Corbois.

Like the sigil of my House, I was a phoenix.

And like my Queen, I would not fear the flames.

Xipherus opened his jaws again, and a wave of dragonfyre came surging toward us.

“Now!” Symond yelled as the flames engulfed him.

Twang.

The ballista fired.

A massive beast collapsed against the soil.

The excruciating pain of the fire that consumed my body faded into a comforting, everlasting warmth, and I finally felt pride for the name I bore.

In the darkness of my mind, Andrei Bellator appeared with Teller at his side. They smiled, extending their hands toward me.

And together, they welcomed me home.