Chapter
Twenty-Five
erthe led us through the palace, weaving through back hallways and hidden staircases to avoid the public areas whereP guests were mingling.
At one point, we entered the servants’ passages, causing a severe bottleneck as staff fell to their knees at the sight of me, some dropping trays of glasses or food at the shock.
I blushed and gestured awkwardly for them to rise. “Thank you so much for your hard work this evening. I’m very sorry to get in your way.”
They gaped at my words, stammering an acknowledgement and scurrying from my presence.
Aemonn snorted. “That might be the first time another Corbois has ever thanked them.”
“That’s not really something to brag about,” I said archly. “They wait on you hand and foot. You could at least be grateful.”
“We let them remain in the family and live in the palace. That’s more generous than a thank you.”
I balked. “Wait—all the servants are Corbois? You make your own relatives serve you to stay in the family?”
“Well we can’t let mortals roam the palace, can we?” He laughed as if the thought were absurd. “There’s hundreds of Corbois, Diem. They can’t all be important. If their line is too distant or their magic is weak, they’re given a choice—serve the family, or become one of the Unhoused.” He shrugged. “All the Twenty Houses work the same way.”
I shook my head in disbelief. Perhaps I should have guessed it sooner. Although I’d known a handful of people in Mortal City who worked for Descended Houses, it was far from common, and the jobs often kept them at a distance—seamstresses, stablemen and the like. My anger had been focused on the mortals’ subjugation, but it seemed the Descended had a caste system of their own.
Shouts from behind us caught my attention. “Do you hear that? Someone’s yelling.”
“The ball hasn’t even begun and someone has already overindulged on the wine,” Aemonn muttered. “A hundred gold marks says it’s my brother.”
I stopped, straining to listen. I caught bits and pieces of muffled voices, and then—
“Bring me Diem Bellator!”
I knew that voice.
I spun on my heel and broke into a sprint, leaving Aemonn behind without a thought. My heart raced as I pictured what awaited me, wondering how far it had already gone. How unfixable this might be.
When the voices had grown their loudest, I shoved through a doorway into the palace’s corridors, finding myself at the back of a crowd of guards.
“Stand down,” I shouted, trying to push my way through. “Don’t hurt him!”
The guards formed a barrier with their arms to corral me backward. “Stay back, Your Majesty,” one of them yelled. “He’s armed. It’s not safe for you here.”
“I said stand down,” I hissed. “And get out of my way.”
Grudgingly, they obeyed, and a pathway opened up through the mob. At the end of it, a man lay crumpled on his knees, blood dripping from his nose and lip.
“Henri,” I gasped, sliding down to the floor beside him. “Look at me—are you alright?”
Two brown eyes peered up through shaggy, sweat-soaked hair. They were as familiar to me as my own, and yet so filled with lethal rage I barely recognized them.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, careful to keep my voice low. “Didn’t you get my message?”
He wiped the back of his palm across his swollen mouth, smearing blood in a glossy red streak across his face. “I got it.
But I don’t accept it.”
My gaze swept over him. He was wearing simple black breeches, a ruffled tunic, and an ill-fitting dark wool doublet. I knew it was nothing he owned—borrowed, most likely. His boots had been washed and shined, his face clean-shaven. For Mortal City, his attire would have been the height of formality.
For the Descended, it wouldn’t even have made the cut for the staff.
The guards shifted and conjured a wall of shadows to block us from the view of the guests. Shouting down the hall told me that they were herding people into other rooms, and soon the murmur of spectators had gone silent.
Still, a number of guards watched with curious eyes, and there was not a single soul in this palace I trusted enough to witness the conversation I was about to have.
“I’ll speak with him alone,” I announced loudly. “All of you, out.”
“Your Majesty, we cannot leave you with him. He has weapons, he—”
“I gave you an order.” I did my best to mimic Luther’s commanding growl. “Are you disobeying your Queen?”
The guards looked to each other in obvious discomfort.
Perthe stepped forward. “Please, Your Majesty, at least allow me to stay, for your own safety. I won’t—”
“Go,” I snapped. “Now!”
He clenched his jaw and gave Henri a warning glare before waving the other guards off and leaving me alone with my betrothed.
“How quickly you’ve fallen into your new role,” Henri spat. “If you have that much control over them, surely it’s safe enough for me.”
I reached for his hands, but he yanked them away. Heartbreak squeezed my chest. “They may obey me now, but no one here is loyal to me. I can’t keep you safe—not yet.”
“I don’t need your protection, Diem. I can save myself.”
“Not against these people, you can’t. They’re dangerous, and they don’t trust mortals any more than we trust them.”
“All the more reason I should be here. They need to learn now how to bow down to their mortal King.”
I flinched, remembering Luther’s words—his accusations about Henri’s motives.
I reached for him again, and though he tried to jerk away, my palm curved beneath his jaw, his skin still slick with fresh blood. My eyes stung as desperation seized me by the throat.
“Please, Henri,” I begged. “I’m only trying to protect you. I’ve lost so much. I can’t bear to lose you, too.”
“Lost?” He laughed bitterly. “What have you lost? You’re the most powerful person in the realm.”
Henri’s features warped into a snarl of hatred and vengeance, revulsion and wrath. I could find no trace of the sweet boy I had fallen for. The man who stood in front of me now had been hardened into someone else completely.
But I saw my grief reflected in him, too. He looked at me as if he were watching me die in slow motion. As if the woman he loved was too far away to save, and he was already prepared to avenge my loss. It was the same despair-induced rage I saw in him when he talked about his mother—how they had stolen her from him, and how he would make them pay for it in blood.
“I’m still here,” I pleaded, my voice breaking. “I’m still me.”
“Are you?” he said archly. “The Diem I know would never send me away. We’ve always faced every challenge together.
We trusted each other with everything. Then you become one of them, and you want nothing to do with me.”
The hurt in his voice gripped my heart in its fist and clenched it tight. “That’s not true. I do trust you, I swear it, but tonight, I need you to trust me. You and I can’t take them on alone.”
“We’re not going to be alone.”
My blood chilled to ice. “What do you mean?”
His eyes narrowed and skimmed over my face—assessing whether I could be trusted, whether I was friend or foe. His doubt was a rusted knife, carving me up unimaginably deep.
“The rebels are waiting outside the gates for my signal,” he said finally. “Vance called in all the Guardians across Lumnos.
Some from Fortos, too. We’ve got an army two hundred strong. We’re going to take the palace.”
The world was spinning, shattering, crumbling. My eyes struggled to stay focused on the real, too lost in visions of what could be. Everything was in flames, everything covered in blood. Bodies, so many bodies. People I cared for, children, friends —all laying dead at my feet.
I gripped him by the elbow, squeezing until I felt his joints creak beneath my fingers. “Henri, have you lost your Flaming mind? Two hundred mortals is nothing against all these Descended. The Guardians don’t have a chance.”
He tried to pull away, glaring as I held him firm. “We have weapons. We have bombs. We can fight their magic—we did it before at the armory.”
I remembered what Luther had told me about Descended preferring to hide their magic from mortal eyes. I wondered now if that had been a tragically unwise choice, leaving the mortals too naive to the true danger they faced.
Or maybe that was the point—to draw the mortals into a fight they couldn’t win and give the Descended an excuse to slaughter them for good.
“This isn’t like the armory,” I argued. “You’re not just ambushing a few night watchmen. Every powerful Descended in the realm is here, along with half the Royal Guard.”
“Good. We’ll kill them all at once. We’ll destroy the entire ballroom before they have a chance to fight back.”
He said it so quickly, so casually, like running an errand or finishing a chore.
“There are children here, Henri. Innocent people who have done no wrong.”
Even before I said the words, I knew they would have no effect. The radicalization of the Guardians and the unbending hatred they preached had sunk its fangs deep and filled Henri with a venom I didn’t know how to cure.
“War requires sacrifice,” he said bluntly. “Our children are dying, too. Do you even care about the mortals anymore?”
“Of course I do. Protecting them means everything to me.”
“Then this is your chance to prove it.”
A door clattered open behind me, followed by footsteps. By the inferno that flushed Henri’s expression, and the way his palm closed around the hilt of his blade, I didn’t have to guess who had just joined us.
Henri leaned his face close to mine, his brown eyes alight with challenge. “War is coming, Diem. Time to pick a side.”
My eyes briefly closed as I nodded. My shoulders rose and fell in a slow, shuddering breath. I placed a hand on Henri’s heart and trailed it down his chest, my tears mixing with his blood as I pressed my lips to his.
“Please forgive me,” I whispered.
I snatched Henri’s blade from its sheath and jerked to my feet, throwing the weapon out of reach. As I backed away, his eyes went wide with realization, and my heart shattered.
This line, I could never uncross.
“Diem, don’t do this—”
“Guards!” I shouted. A horde of them rushed into the room and surrounded us. “Hold this man in the dungeon until the ball
is over.”
“Please, Diem, stop—”
“Do not harm him. Anyone who does will pay with their life. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they answered in unison.
I held Henri’s frantic gaze in a silent plea for forgiveness as the guards clamped down on his thrashing limbs to hold him tight. They dragged him away, roars of protest echoing in his wake, each agonizing cry a hammer strike against my ruined soul.
Just before he disappeared behind a corner, I caught his eye, and one emotion stared back at me with dreadful clarity—
betrayal.
No love. No trust. No hope.
No attempt to understand. No willingness to forgive.
Only betrayal.
A heartbroken sob cracked out of me. The pain was visceral, overwhelming. I couldn’t get air into my strangled lungs.
Would he ever see that I had done this for him, for the mortals—that stopping this attack didn’t mean choosing the Descended?
If anything, my hatred for them had just grown tenfold. They were taking everything from me. My life, my family, the man I cared for—everything that made me me was being whittled to splinters by this gods-damned Crown.
A hand settled gingerly on my shoulder.
“Are you alright?”
I went to wipe my face, then froze at the last second at the sight of Henri’s blood smeared on my fingers. A droplet of it fell and landed on the hem of my gown in a tiny scarlet pool.
“No,” I said honestly as the tears streamed down my cheeks.
A pair of hands took me by the waist and pulled me into a solid chest, enclosed within two strong arms.
My body instinctively stiffened. Something felt wrong.
An unfamiliar mix of cinnamon and vanilla filled my nose, then a lock of blonde hair caught my eye. It wasn’t Luther who had walked in behind me, but Aemonn. It was his arms wrapped around me, his hands stroking my hair, his lips offering hushed words of encouragement.
“I... I need Luther,” I stammered without thinking.
Aemonn’s posture tensed, his hands freezing in place.
“I need him to issue an order to the Royal Guard,” I added quickly.
He relaxed, and then he was nodding and holding me closer once more. And still, it all felt wrong.
He muttered something to a nearby guard, and a few moments later, I felt Luther come into the room. The power churning around him was a signature I now knew by heart. Before he even said a word, I sensed the panic rippling through him.
“What happened?” he growled. “Is she hurt? Get your hands off her—let me see her.”
I was still frozen in my despair, my bloody hand trembling at my side. Aemonn pulled back just slightly and stroked his knuckles on my cheek. “What can I do, honey? How can I help?”
I looked up into his vivid blue eyes, so full of compassion.
“Can you give us a minute?” I managed to force out.
Aemonn frowned. He wiped away the tears on my cheeks and kissed my temple, then rubbed his hands along my arms a
few times to warm them.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
At my side, Luther trembled with restraint, his eyes following Aemonn’s every touch.
Aemonn didn’t even acknowledge his cousin’s presence. He took my chin in his fingers and tilted it up slightly. “Diem,” he said softly, “don’t fret. All will be well in the end.”
I gave him a tiny, thankful sliver of a smile. He threw Luther a loaded glance before turning his back and returning to the servants’ passage.
Luther and I stood alone. I felt the burden lift from my heart—just slightly.
He grabbed my hand and began to swipe the blood away with the cuff of his jacket as he inspected my flesh. His voice
came out harsh. “Are you wounded?”
Yes, I thought.
“No,” I said. “The blood isn’t mine.”
“Whose is it?”
It took me a few tries to say it: “Henri’s.”
His eyes shot to my face. “What happened?”
I couldn’t bear to look at him. “He got my letter, but he came anyway. He said... he thinks I...” My voice gave way, more tears along with it.
Luther roughly tugged me in and cocooned me in the warm steel of his arms. One hand slid to my nape and cradled my head against his chest as he whispered promises, over and over—we’ll fix this, I’ll help you, you’re not alone.
It was no different than what Aemonn had done—and yet, somehow, everything was different.
A wave of calm cut through my anguish. My tears slowed, then ran dry. My fears grew more distant, my sorrows at bay. Not gone forever, but no longer at my heels with their hooks in my back.
As long as I stayed here, I was safe.
And I never, ever wanted to leave.
But when I closed my eyes, it was Henri I saw, and that final stare, so wrought with betrayal.
Reluctantly, I pushed Luther away, unable to meet his eyes. “The Guardians are outside—two hundred of them. They’re planning to attack the palace tonight.”
“I’ll handle it,” he said without missing a beat.
“I know they came to do a terrible thing and I have no right to ask this of you, but...” I hung my head, whispering. “Don’t hurt them. They’re mortals, Luther. If they die because of me...”
I stared at my palm, still stained with traces of Henri’s blood. Had I really thought I could make it through this war with
clean hands?
“I understand. I’ll find a way.”
Finally, I looked up. To my surprise, there was no judgment on Luther’s face, not even reluctance, only steadfast resolve.
The swift arm of his Queen, ready to administer her justice—or her mercy.
He thought for a moment, then frowned. “I may have a solution. If you release the Umbros Descended from the Forging spell’s effects, they can use their thought magic to make the mortals go home peacefully.”
My brows rose with burgeoning hope. “They can?”
He nodded. “But you must know, the consequences are significant. They won’t just have access to the mortals’ heads.
They’ll be able to read every mind they come across in that ballroom. They’ll know everyone’s secrets.” His expression turned grave. “Including yours.”
My insides twisted. “What will they do with that information?”
“Umbros Descended are fiercely loyal to their Queen. What they learn, they’ll tell her. It will give her immense power over the realm—and over you.” He paused, his chin lowering. “Especially if you have plans you don’t want the other Crowns to know.”
The meaningful look in his eyes, the weight to his voice, reverberated eerily through my head. He looked as if he knew exactly what those plans might be.
I forced down the growing lump in my throat. “Take Alixe and Taran and go. Get far enough away that your minds are out of reach. I’ll find the Umbros Descended myself.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Luther, you have to.” I started to push him away. “If they find out you’ve been smuggling half-mortal children into Umbros —”
He grabbed my hands. “They already know. My contacts there warned me the Umbros Queen read their minds and discovered it all. She’s had years to stop it. For whatever reason, she’s chosen to look the other way.”
“Still... you have other secrets you don’t want her to know. Secrets you don’t even want me to know.”
Luther glanced away, looking torn, then his features hardened. “It doesn’t matter. My place is with you. Wherever that leads.” His fingers curled around mine. “Whatever it costs.”
Why? The word rose to my lips, as it had so many times before. Why will you give your secrets away for me, but not to
me?
I stared at him, trying to piece together this puzzle of a man. This had to be about something more than earning my trust, especially when his own family was in danger.
“We should hurry,” he said. “We need to act before the Guardians do.”
“What do I need to do?”
“The Forging magic that enforces the realm borders—each Crown can waive it within their own realm. You’ll need to lift its hold on the Umbros Descended and restore the powers they lost when they crossed into Lumnos.”
I slumped, my hope deflating. “I can’t even use my own magic yet.”
“The Forging magic works in a different way. King Ulther described it to me like his bond with Sorae—a connection between the Crown and the soil. It listens for you. It must obey your call.”
I shook my head in stubborn denial even as I gave in and closed my eyes, reaching my spirit out into the darkness. The Descended magic had never listened to me. It taunted me, made demands of me, took control of me, but never obeyed me. And I’d never felt any kind of attachment with the earth. Surely I would never be able to—
I gasped aloud.
There.
There it was.
It was so tightly woven in the fabric of my soul that I hadn’t even recognized it as something new, something that once hadn’t belonged.
It wasn’t a thinking, breathing creature like Sorae—it was an energy, buzzing and crackling with life. It lived in the ground, but its current ran through every living thing in Lumnos, from the smallest blade of grass to the mightiest beast. I could flow with it to the shores of the Sacred Sea and glide along its edges to the southern flatlands of Fortos and the snowy, lavender mountains of Montios.
In the midst of it, I felt sixteen beings that did not belong, two from each realm. The Forging magic coated them and solidified around them like a hard shell. I somehow understood that one mental tap from me would break them free and release
their magic onto Lumnos’s soil.
My soil.
Because Lumnos, Realm of Light and Shadows, was no longer merely my home. It was my flesh and bone. It was a part of me—it was me.
A sense of overwhelming duty slammed into me like a fist to my gut. This was my realm to serve, and these were my people to protect.
All of them, mortal and Descended alike.
And what I was about to do—exposing our realm’s most vulnerable secrets to the least trustworthy Crown of all—could put every last one of them in danger.
I looked up at Luther. “You’re sure this is a good idea?”
“No,” he admitted. “But it may be the only way to ensure no mortal blood is shed tonight.”
My shoulders sagged. “Then I have no choice.”
With a single thought, the magic binding the Umbros Descended shattered like broken glass. Their dark, hazy energy began to roll across the realm like an ominous fog, leaving me with a nagging dread that I might have just spared two hundred lives to risk countless more.
“It’s done,” I said, sighing. “The Guardians are waiting outside the gates for Henri’s signal. I had the guards take him to the dungeon so he couldn’t tip them off.”
Luther winced, and I knew it was for me—for what he could see that decision had cost me. “Go focus on the ball. I know your wishes. I’ll see them through.”
I hesitated. I wanted to thank him, but no words seemed enough. Had the roles been reversed—had a group of Descended come to hurt Teller and my father—I doubted anyone in Emarion could have stopped me from killing them on sight.
“Go,” he urged again, softer. “You have enough on your shoulders. Let me carry this one burden for you tonight.”
I glanced down at our still-joined hands. Luther continued to wipe at the crimson smudges on my palm until Henri’s blood was no longer visible—at least on the surface.
“You’re really going to do it?” I asked quietly. “You’ll let them all go... for me?”
He brushed his thumb along my palm in a long, slow trail. “You’re my Queen. Everything I do is for you.”
And yet, as I watched him press his fist to his chest in a formal salute and walk away, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Luther’s real reason for helping me had nothing to do with my Crown at all.
AEMONN WAS WAITING for me in the servants’ passage with a towel and a bowl of warm water. I offered him a wobbly smile as I cleaned myself up. Any pretense of being the cocky, savage young Queen had already washed away. Aemonn had seen the real me, broken and vulnerable. He knew where to hit me to do the most damage. I had no choice but to wait and see where it led.
He looked me over carefully. “I wish I could tell you we could cancel the ball or delay our entrance, but—”
“I know,” I answered. “This is too important.”
I smoothed my hands over my hair, then my dress, drawing in a deep breath and imagining it carried all the confidence and sureness of purpose I so desperately needed. I took a page from Luther’s book and built a mask across my features, disguising all of my pain under a solemn, steadfast facade.
“I can handle this,” I assured him, lifting my chin. “I’m not as weak as I seemed back there.”
“I have no doubt, Your Majesty.” He gave a sly smile. “Only a fool would underestimate you.”
When we were finally lined up in front of the double doors that led into the ballroom, Aemonn leaned down and whispered. “I have one more gift for you.”
I grimaced. “I really think I’ve had enough surprises for tonight.”
“This is a good one,” he promised. He twirled his fingers in a circling motion, and a canopy of shimmers fell over our bodies, leaving a host of twinkling stars woven into our hair and clothes. The effect was breathtaking—every breath, every movement, sent tiny pinpricks of pale blue light dancing around us. We were two ethereal spirits, straight off the pages of a fairy tale.
“I can’t let a Corbois Queen walk in there unadorned,” he said, winking.
I stared down at Aemonn’s magic and imagined it as a glimmering suit of armor. The Diem inside me was a mess, heartbroken and begging for reprieve, but the Queen on the outside didn’t have the luxury of weakness. Tonight, I would have to play my part and be the bright, shiny object to distract them from the predator to come.
Behind the door, trumpet fanfare rang out, and a loud voice boomed across the room.
“Esteemed guests, may I now present the heir to the Crown, Her Royal Majesty Diem Corbois, the Unchallenged Queen of Lumnos, Realm of Light and Shadows, escorted by His Highness Prince Aemonn Corbois.”
“Thank you, Aemonn,” I said. “I won’t forget your kindness tonight.”
The doors to the ballroom cracked open, and he gave my hand one final squeeze.
“You’re a Corbois, Diem,” he murmured into my ear. “Embrace your phoenix. Rise from the ashes, and burn bright once more.”
