Page 116 of Burn of the Everflame

Outside the ballroom door, several guards stepped forward to secure bronze metallic clamps to all our arms but Teller’s. When one clicked shut around my wrist, a sinking pit of numbness spread through my chest.

“Magic-blocking cuffs,” Alixe explained, cringing as hers snapped closed. “I thought this might make the mortals feel safer to speak their minds.”

“They chose my mother to hold a seat,” I said. “Trust me, speaking her mind won’t be an issue, with or without the cuffs.”

“Now that arm, Your Majesty,” a guard said, gesturing to my other wrist.

“The Queen already has one,” Luther said.

Alixe awkwardly cleared her throat. “The Houses insisted that Diem cuff both wrists on account of her strength. It was a compromise—their first demand was flameroot.”

Luther started to argue, but I waved him off and let them cuff the second wrist. It hardly mattered today. My godhood was so drained, I barely had enough magic to light a room.

“What are they doing here?” my brother asked. I followed his glare to a nearby bench, where Doriel and Obaneryn were seated, hand in hand.

Yesterday’s fury rekindled in a blinding flash. I reached for my sword. “Apparently, I didn’t make myself clear enough in the library.”

Doriel popped to their feet. “Don’t kill us yet.”

“Yet?” Obaneryn sighed. “This was a terrible idea.”

“I want to stay for the meeting,” Doriel rushed on. “No realm has ever tried this before. Someone should be here to record it for the archives. My people will want to read about it and study what happens.”

I gave a disbelieving laugh. “You want to use this for research?”

Doriel looked as if I’d just asked them if they wanted to breathe air or blink their eyes.

“I hate to admit it, but they’re right,” Teller said. “There should be a record so other realms can learn from this, if the council works.”

“When the council works,” Luther corrected.

“Fine,” I said. “But if you’re not out of my realm the second this meeting ends . . .”

“We will be,” Obaneryn assured me.

I started to enter the ballroom when whispering behind me had me slowing my pace.

“Doriel, do your archives have any information on how to form raw godstone?” Luther asked.

“The Blessed Kindred kept meticulous records on godstone,” Doriel answered. “Unfortunately, most have gone missing.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Any idea where they might be?”

Doriel’s gaze turned to mine. “The same place all lost things go—Umbros.”

29

DIEM

Iwasn’t expecting the warmest welcome, but the reception I received in the ballroom was glacial. A hundred eyes of blue and brown—and a handful of orange—noted my arrival, and not a single knee bent. It seemed my abdication of power had already taken root.

This was your plan, I reminded myself, holding my chin high despite the slight. You wanted a Crownless Emarion.

My urge to demand their submission was the only reminder I needed of why this council was vital. Power was a poisonous gas, corroding you from the inside the more you breathed it in. The line between using it to help and to hurt was dangerously thin and rarely all that clear.

“There are some people I’d like you to meet before we begin,” Eleanor said, hooking her arm in mine. She hurried me into the crowd and began a series of introductions—mostly young, all members of elite Houses. It didn’t take long for me to realize these were her Embers. They were more aloof than I’d expected, showing the cool detachment of their older kin rather than the fire for revolution she had suggested. Then again, all eyes were on me, and openly defying their Houses was a perilous game.

As we made our rounds, I kept an eye on the others. Taran and Zalaric quickly ingratiated themselves with the Unhoused Descended, who’d made the trek from their villages on the realm’s distant western coast. With their simple clothes and weathered bodies well acquainted with labor, they looked shockingly like mortals. Most had been cast from their Houses for disobedience, though some had been abandoned simply for having magic too weak or a bloodline too distant. I wondered, with great unease, if that made them more likely to challenge the Houses or an easy target to be wooed back under their influence.