Burn of the Everflame

Burn of the Everflame — Chapter 82

LUTHER

phiucae’s gaze settled on an opening in the soil, where a set of stairs ledO underground. “Is that what you brought me here to do?” he asked.

“Chain me up and leave me to be forgotten like before?”

Diem watched him, saying nothing. The Flames of her newfound magic crackled around her.

“Some fates are worse than death,” he said.

“Much, much worse,” she answered coldly.

Ophiucae’s hand twitched at his side. “You can still join me. We can end this war. Rule Emarion together.”

“Join you?” I cut in. “What’s left of your army is too far away to save you. You’re no match for Diem’s power. You’ve lost, Ophiucae. It’s over.”

Neither of them seemed to hear me, and nothing about the way they stared each other down suggested that this was anywhere near over.

Reminders of the vision tugged at my memory. So many of the details around me were exactly as they’d been . . . but there were differences, too.

In the vision, there had been no Temple in the distance, and Ophiucae’s body had been bright and glowing, filled with the evidence of his power.

Now, his skin was dull, no sign of his magic to be seen. Was this a trick— Ophiucae holding back until he was ready to strike?

Or had something changed the threads of fate?

“I believed in you,” Diem said. “Everyone wanted you dead, but I believed you could be a better man. Even when you slaughtered my people, I never gave up on you . . . and I hated myself for it.” She began to walk toward him. “I hated that I cared for you. I hated that I wanted you to love me back. I felt like such a weak fool.”

Ophiucae scoffed. “Everything I’ve done has been for us—for you—to secure this world for our reign. I made sure that all who defied you met their end at your sword. Would I do that if I did not care?”

“The worst part of all is that I believe you,” she said. “I think you really do believe that love is the same as ruin and destruction. Maybe you’re right.” She looked at me, and my heart roared at the sadness in her eyes.

“Maybe the people we love the most are the ones we’re doomed to hurt the worst.”

She brushed her fingers over her mating mark, and a flood of grateful love flowed through our bond. “You’re right, too,” she told me. “Hope isn’t weakness. There’s strength in trying to heal what everyone else wants to burn. You never let me forget that.” Her stare returned to Ophiucae. “And you never let me forget that the greatest strength of all is letting go.”

He eyed her warily. “That’s right. You must let go of the people of this world. Death may be a monstrous thing, but we cannot bring peace to this land without it.”

Her shoulders seemed to droop in defeat. “No,” she said, sighing. “We cannot.”

“You and I, we are gods. We have a destiny to fulfill.”

She nodded. “We do.” The Flames flickering over the island faded away. “I’m tired of fighting, Ophiucae. I’m tired of watching the people I care about suffer and die. I want it to end.”

“It will . . . if you join me.”

Diem looked up at the sky, where the clouds had parted just enough to reveal the moon, bright and full, bathing us in its light. “I’ve made my choice.”

Ophiucae smiled triumphantly as he walked toward her. “Lay down

your sword, daughter. Our war is over.”

She tossed Sorrow’s Edge behind her.

“Diem,” I said, low and urgent.

Ophiucae extended his hand. “Come with me to the heartstone. We’ll join our magic and seize the power we are owed.”

“Diem,” I warned again.

She took Ophiucae’s hand and began to walk beside him toward the Temple. “Sheathe your sword, my King,” she called out to me, “and remember your promise.”

Begrudgingly, I slid the Sword of Corbois into its scabbard on my back.

Ophiucae arched a brow. “What promise was that?”

I wondered if he saw it—the sudden hitch in her step.

“Don’t you already know?” she asked lightly. “You’ve been reading my mind all day.”

“I had to be certain I could trust you,” he said. “Now that you’ve joined me, I’ll never do it again. You have my word. Will you return my trust, and tell me what it is you asked of your mate?”

“I told him I was ready to surrender. Luther promised me that he would submit to you, too.”

It was only the years I’d spent masking my emotions that kept my grin from unfurling. I’d promised her no such thing—I never would, and she

damn well knew it.

But Ophiucae did not.

And when he gave a wide, satisfactory smile, I knew he hadn’t sensed her lie. He couldn’t—just like he couldn’t pluck the promise I’d made her from her thoughts.

The island didn’t just stifle Descended magic—it stole it even from the Kindred themselves.

Diem gave no sign of the critical revelation she’d just exposed. “What is it you plan to do with the heartstone?”

“Whatever we wish. Its power is incalculable.” He gave her a patronizing glance. “It will make that little fire of yours seem paltry in comparison.”

My legs warmed as heat pulsed from the soil.

“Heartstone magic requires a cost, doesn’t it?” Diem asked. “When you and the other Kindred cast the Forging Spell across Emarion, something must have been sacrificed to balance it out. Was it the Everflame?”

At the base of the Temple, Ophiucae motioned for her to precede him up the narrow stairs curving toward the circular platform. Diem held still, awaiting his answer.

He gave an irritated sigh. “Our mother crafted the spell. Only she knew the cost.” His expression darkened at the mention of his mother, and he left Diem behind, storming up the staircase.

“What you’re planning to do with the heartstone will require a great loss to balance it out,” she called out.

He flicked his hand without looking back. “The heartstone can take whatever it wishes. It matters not.”

“It matters to me.”

Silvery embers swirled at Diem’s feet.

“I think everything has a cost,” she said. “Not just magic. Every action.

Every choice.” Her hair danced across her shoulders, the shimmer returning to her skin. “I swayed from what I swore to do, and someone I loved paid the price.”

Ophiucae’s gaze lowered to the godstone stairs, which had begun to sparkle, illuminated by Diem’s glow.

“Tell me, Ophiucae, what price should you pay . . .”

His head slowly turned back toward her.

Diem’s eyes narrowed. “ . . . for ending my brother’s life?”

Her hands shot forward, and a blast of her Fire slammed into him, sending him hurtling into a column. I snatched Sorrow’s Edge from the ground and sprinted toward her.

Ophiucae groaned, clutching the burned, blackened flesh on his chest. “I knew you’d betray me. Just like everyone else.”

A fiery corona flickered around Diem as she ascended the stairs. She paused, and for a moment, I feared her pity for him had blinded her to his manipulation, but her hand extended—toward me.

I gripped Sorrow’s Edge by the blade, ignoring the bite of pain as it sliced into my flesh, and stretched it toward her open palm. The second her fingers brushed its handle, she clutched it and swung. Ophiucae rolled away, and the blade clanged against the Temple stairs.

Ophiucae kicked a leg out, catching Diem in the shoulder and knocking her back. I managed to grab her before she tumbled over the Temple’s side.

By the time I steadied her, he’d vanished.

We climbed to the Temple’s round central platform. The heartstone, cracked but glowing, thrummed on its pedestal as if it sensed the battle being fought for its control.

“He’s behind one of these columns,” I whispered, scanning the nine arches representing each of the realms. Diem nodded, then slipped through an archway to creep around the Temple’s outer edge. I fought the urge to follow, holding back to see if her approach might flush him out of hiding.

My eyes drifted to an opening pointing toward what had once been the realm of Omnos. The Kindred had destroyed its arch long ago, polishing its remnants to a glossy shine to hide their secret. The only relic that remained

was the sigil carved into the floor at its base—a ten-pointed star, the same one that Ophiucae had once used to mark Diem for his protection.

My anger flared at how he’d toyed with her heart, doling out fondness in between causing her pain. It reminded me far too much of Taran’s father and the way he’d treated his love as a reward for enduring his violence. It had infuriated me to see Diem sink into the same poisoned cycle in the name of family, something she had always kept sacred.

I hoped that she remembered that family could be whoever we chose, and those who hurt us never had to be part of our family ever again.

The ten-pointed star gave a sudden glimmer. I frowned, watching as it faintly glowed, then went dark.

I glanced at Diem, who was circling around the opposite side of the Temple. As she walked, the realm sigils etched above each archway glowed brighter, flaring in recognition of their Queen.

I looked back at the Omnos sigil, now dark, and slowly walked toward it. “Diem,” I called out, “I think he’s somewhere near—”

The star abruptly blinked to life, beaming with light. Ophiucae appeared in the archway and barreled toward me. I crouched and rammed my shoulder into his chest, but he managed to get a hand around my sword and jostled it free. It rattled to the ground, and we both lunged to grab it.

“Luther!” Diem called out. The Temple flooded with light as her Fire shot toward us.

Ophiucae abandoned the sword and grabbed me instead, dragging me between him and her Flames. I braced for their burn, but the heat that consumed me was blissful, as tender as a stroke of her palm against my cheek.

Ophiucae did not fare so well. He screamed in pain as the Fire blistered his flesh. Blinded by its light, I felt along the ground for my sword, but just as my hand finally closed around it, an arm curled around my neck from behind and stiffened at my jaw, another hand gripping my temple.

“Stab me,” Ophiucae hissed in my ear. “I’ll heal from your wounds.

Will you heal when I snap your neck?”

I weighed his threat. He was old—countless millennia old—but I had no way to know whether the Kindred’s age weakened their strength or enhanced it.

Ophiucae pulled us both to our feet. He gripped me against him as a shield as he backed away from Diem. “Use that magic one more time,

daughter, and your mate dies.”

“Roast him,” I shouted to her.

But Diem’s hands lowered. Her Flames shrank back, then wisped to smoke, though her glare blazed. “If you hurt him . . .”

“I’d be doing him a favor. Tell me, does he know why he’s here? Did you tell him what you figured out before the battle?”

Diem’s eyes shifted to me as a sharp, painful ache filled our bond. “I don’t care,” I growled. “If it means he takes me with him when you destroy him, so be it. I’ll wait for you in the afterlife, my Queen.”

Ophiucae began to laugh, which only seemed to deepen Diem’s anguish. “Such devotion,” he mocked. “You really shouldn’t. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s a traitor, just like her mother.”

“She is like her mother,” I agreed. “A leader. A healer. The kind of woman that thousands line up to fight for. You’re just a small, pathetic man who had their love and wasn’t worthy enough to keep it.”

His grip tightened, choking off my words. “They’re liars. Their love is fickle and easily lost.”

Diem risked a step toward us. “What do you know of unconditional love?”

She lifted Sorrow’s Edge and drew its blade across her palm. As the dark red liquid spilled across the gem at its center, a wave of energy rippled around us. Across the Temple, two glimmering silhouettes took form—one kneeling, body shuddering with a ghostly wail, and the second standing just behind.

I felt Ophiucae go stiff. My fingers tightened on my sword, slowly angling it up. With him distracted, I might have the opening I needed . . .

“They loved their children enough to do the unthinkable,” Diem said.

“And Luther loves me enough to—” She stopped, throat straining. “The only thing you love enough to sacrifice for is power.”

She took another step closer. Ophiucae yanked me back, teetering on the Temple’s steep edge.

Diem’s chin rose in defiance. “I will finish what they started. And if I’m half the woman Auralie Bellator is, then I’ll die proud.”

“Oh, you’re going to die,” Ophiucae snarled. “And so is he.”

I struck, slamming the Sword of Corbois into his thigh. The arm around my head jerked it to the side, but the other reached for his wound. Though it

was just enough to spare my life, the movement sent me careening—right over the Temple’s side.

I hit the ground hard, and pain shot up my spine. Diem screamed my name. I tried to sit up and reassure her I was fine, but my body wouldn’t move.

I heard the sound of boots on stairs, then Diem’s voice again, nearer.

Shriller. Saw the terror in her eyes. Felt her hands, trembling, cupping my face.

Ophiucae’s laughter rang out from the platform, loud and triumphant.

Diem’s focus stayed on me, but mine shifted over her shoulder.

“Heartstone,” I managed to choke out.

She turned as a tower of light, as wide as the Temple, rose into the clouds. At its edges, the starry evening wobbled with slivers of color that looked vaguely like images—an impossible, flickering mix of sunny skies, thundering storms, and bloody sunsets.

With some effort, I lifted a hand to grasp her arm. “Kill him,” I rasped.

“I can’t—not without you.” There was a wild desperation in the way she looked at me, something deeper than a scared woman tending to her wounded mate. “Can you walk?”

I forced a nod, though I wasn’t yet sure if it was a lie. She took my arm and slung it over her shoulder. The numbness in my limbs gave way to tingling, and I managed to get my legs back under me as we lurched away from the Temple.

The beam of light yawned wider, and the sky quivered and bent around its form. To the north, the light fell in an arc and spilled across the island.

Where it hit soil, a fracture formed and began to spread apart with a thunderous roar. It, too, trembled with blurry, confusing flashes—icy tundras that melted into a blistering desert, swirling over a dark, cavernous abyss.

“What is he doing?” I shouted over the clamor.

Ophiucae stood at the center of the Temple, one blood-soaked hand clasped to the heartstone’s glowing, jagged edge. His skin was illuminated, blindingly bright, and his eyes, once the same steel-grey as hers, were black as darkest night—and staring right at Diem.

“We’re too late,” she breathed.

“You can stop him,” I told her.

She shook her head. “Do you see what that heartstone can do? How could I possibly fight something that strong?”

“Diem, how many years did the Descended keep the mortals from fighting back by convincing them they have no power? The Guardians never gave up. The only power they needed was hope.” I took her hand and held it up, forcing her to see her beautiful, powerful, perfect skin and the light within. “And you, my heart, have a hell of a lot more than hope.”

Fear melted from her eyes.

Not like a shrinking puddle or a snowflake in the sun.

Like a pool of molten ore, red-hot and glowing.

Ready to be forged.

She raised one hand to the Temple . . . and she burned.

By the gods, it was stunning. After all this time, all these months, all the doubt and the worry, she let her glory shine in full. I felt the walls inside her crumble and a righteous certainty settled in its place.

She was striking.

Ethereal.

Breathlessly lovely, and knee-bendingly divine.

She was everything.

Everything.

Her Fire raged across the island, this time not to kill, but to save, to restore what was lost. Where its Flames met the heartstone’s ravaging touch, soil and sky began to heal.

“No!” Ophiucae shouted. He gripped his other hand to the heartstone, shoulders furiously drawing in. Its light swelled, pushing against Diem’s Fire and forcing it back. “You will bend to my command. You are nothing without me!”

Diem did not falter. With perfect calm, she held her ground, an inferno swirling around her. The Fire surged toward the Temple and thrashed at its edge, growing higher and hotter.

“I’ll wipe every trace of you from the continent,” Ophiucae roared, hunching over the heartstone. “When I’m done, the world won’t even

remember your name.”

Crack.

“Some things are meant to be forgotten,” Diem said.

Crack.

Glowing fissures splintered up the Temple’s columns as a web of silver formed over the godstone’s glittering black. Diem’s Fire overtook the cauldrons burning atop each archway, their colorful flames swirling into hers. The ground gave a violent tremble.

Beneath Ophiucae’s hands, the heartstone glowed brighter. “Kill her,”

he growled.

Crack.

“But sometimes,” Diem went on, “what is Forgotten will rise again.”

She closed her fist, and the heartstone shattered. A mist of shimmering remnants floated around Ophiucae like stars, then vanished in the breeze.

“No!” he screamed.

Beneath my feet, a snapping sensation rippled through the soil, and the violent light tearing through the island went dark. Huge chunks of godstone crumbled off the Temple archways and slammed into the dais, chipping away at its edges and sending pieces of the staircase crumbling to the ground. The cauldrons, now dark, tumbled off their towers, and the earth shook with another deafening boom as the platform collapsed into a cloud of dust.

When the air cleared, all that was left of the Temple was a sad pile of ruins, with a grey-eyed, dull-skinned man cowering at its center.

I followed as Diem wove through the rubble and came to a stop in front of Ophiucae. The two ghostly silhouettes moved closer as well, hovering at her sides.

Ophiucae fell to his knees, quivering. “Mercy,” he begged. “Have mercy, my daughter, my blood. I’m your father. I—I love you.”

I wanted to snatch the sword from Diem’s hands and drive it through his chest myself.

But I waited. Watching her face. Wondering if he’d ever said those

words to her before.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly.

He frantically shook his head. “I do love you.” He bowed low in submission. “With all of my heart.”

“I believe you,” she said. “And I hope you believe me when I say I love you, too. That’s not why you’re wrong.” She knelt in front of him and

curled a hand beneath his chin, lifting it so she could look him in the eye.

“My father . . .”

Ophiucae gasped as Sorrow’s Edge pierced his heart.

“ . . . is Andrei Bellator.”

He blinked once.