Page 106 of Burn of the Everflame

He smoothed his thumbs over the lines of my anguished expression, trying to erase it away. “I know you doubt yourself, Diem, but I do not. Blessed Lumnos will guide your hand and help you see it through, just as she has guided me. Whatever she has commanded you to do, I beg you, my heart, have faith. You are our savior, and she will not let you fail.”

A chasm opened inside of me at the knowledge of the excruciating pain I was about to cause. I’d wanted so badly to give him the elusive happiness he deserved, only to become the one tearing it to unmendable shreds. The cruel irony was more than I could take.

So I spread my arms, and I leapt into the darkness.

“Yes,” I said. “You’re right.”

His smile faded at the flatness of my tone. “Is this because he’s your sire? You’re upset because you don’t want to kill him?” He quickly wiped his face clean of its joy. Somehow, that made it worse. “Fuck. I was thoughtless. I’m so sorry, Diem, I know this is difficult for you.”

“I’ll do what I have to do.”

Over the bond, I felt the guilt creep into him, scolding him that he was to blame for my sudden coldness.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

He didn’t believe me.

I didn’t believe me.

He reached to stroke my hair, and I flinched away. “I should eat. I need more energy for this to work.” It was the one excuse I knew he wouldn’t question. He’d been offering to fetch me a hot meal no less than five times per day, shoving a piece of fruit or bread into my hands every time I showed a trace of exhaustion—which, these days, was often. “Could you get me something from the kitchens? Maybe those spiced figs I like?”

He eyed me skeptically, perhaps knowing, as I did, that the figs required an hour to roast. “You’ll be here when I return?”

“Yes,” I lied. “I’ll keep working on the godstone.”

He held my gaze for a moment before turning for the palace. With every step he took, another crack opened in my spirit.

Maybe Marthe Hanoverre had been right about me. After all the times I’d promised to fight, I was still the same pathetic girl who only seemed to run.

I was not the only one to blame. Luther had placed his faith in Lumnos. Watching him beg her forgiveness for his doubt, unaware that she’d engineered his heart’s destruction, left me quaking with rage.

The two women he’d devoted himself to would be his ruin.

Neither of us deserved him.

My godhood churned within me, feeding on the vicious emotions that turned my thoughts black, and my skin began to glimmer. I felt, ironically, like all those moments before, when I’d lost control.

I needed an outlet.

I needed revenge.

I stormed into the palace and to my suite, past the guards dragging out the last of the furniture from the parlor. I dismissed them and grabbed an object I’d hidden in a drawer of my desk, then set off on a warpath for the one place I knew I’d find my target. When I arrived, I threw open the double oak doors of the palace library with a menacing crack.

My eyes scanned the startled inhabitants, cataloging each of their terrified faces before stopping on a familiar one staring outside. I walked toward the latter and slammed the doors behind me with a gust of Meros air.

Despite my dramatic entrance, my brother barely acknowledged my approach. He pointed at a nearby stack of dusty books without looking away from the window. “What do you think of these?”

I grabbed two and held them up. “A Compendium of Curative Ointments? A Study in Sutures? Teller, do not tell me you want to be a healer. You turn green at the sight of blood.”

“They’re not for me.”

I followed his line of sight outside to the palace gardens, where Lily was filling a basket with cuttings of the medicinal herbs I’d planted months ago.

“I asked Mother what books might help with Lily’s training,” he murmured. “She suggested these.”

That alone was a testament to Teller’s desperation to win Lily back. I hadn’t seen my mother and brother in the same room since returning home, let alone seen them speak.

I tossed the books down, and Teller’s gaze finally broke away. He took one look at my faintly glowing skin and frowned. “What happened?”