Page 126 of Burn of the Everflame

Norwick waved them off. “I answer to Blessed Lumnos for my choices. I fear her more than the lot of you.”

“Wait,” Eleanor shouted, waving her hands. “Wait! There might be a way to save your magic.” At those words, the room fell to an eager lull. “The bargain requires the Houses to vote as one, and it forbids any Head of House from voting against Marthe’s plan. Those are the only terms, right? Well if there are no Heads of House left on the council, then as long as the Houses still vote together, the bargain won’t be broken.”

“We made this pact to protect the council’s future,” Marthe insisted. “We must see it through, even if it costs us our magic.”

No one—not even Garath—spoke up to agree. You could have heard a hairpin drop in the silence that followed as the Heads of House mentally combed through the bargain’s wording for their last ounce of hope.

The Head of House Ghislaine gave me a wary look. “If we resign from the council . . . you choose our replacements?”

“Unacceptable,” Marthe said. “She’ll pick our weakest, poorest members. She’ll keep the council in her pocket. She’ll⁠—”

“Oh shut up, Marthe,” Ryx and Ravyn said in unison.

“We should have known not to listen to you after you botched the Challenging,” Ravyn said. “Crawl back to your crypt and let the rest of us clean up your mess.”

I’d had precious few moments of joy since returning from the island. Watching Marthe’s craggy jaw hang open was easily top of the list.

“How do we know you’ll pick someone worthy to speak for our families?” one Head of House asked me.

“What about a compromise?” Eleanor offered. “She’ll select your replacements immediately from the people in this room. You brought your advisors and your closest allies. Let her choose from among them.”

I caught Eleanor’s gaze, my eyes bulging in silent panic. I barely knew the Heads themselves, let alone the supporters crowded around them. How could I possibly make such a critical decision on the spot?

Then she did the strangest thing.

She winked.

Slowly, unhappily, each Head of House gave their reluctant resignation from the council, and their focus shifted to hiding their less clever—or less controllable—family members from my sight. Even Garath succumbed to the pressure, selfish to the core.

Marthe, of course, was the final holdout. She sat in her chair, hands folded neatly in her lap, and didn’t say a word. She bore into me with her malicious glare, and I began to wonder if my magic was still suppressed, because it felt as if I could hear every nasty thought: I’ve lived this long. I don’t have much time left. What does it matter if I spend it without magic? At least I could take my rivals down before I go.

So I used my last, best weapon: I grinned.

A goading, do-it-I-dare-you grin. A let’s-watch-the-world-burn-together grin.

A triumphant grin.

Because I’d already won. If she accepted, she was off the council, and her dreams of running the realm would end. If she refused, she’d practically be doing me a favor, cutting my enemies off at their knees, and she’d provoke a war against House Hanoverre. That was one war I’d welcome with glee.

And so the brief, ignoble reign of Marthe Hanoverre came to an end, not in a blaze of spiteful glory, but in a pinch of her wrinkled face and two mumbled words: “I resign.”

Eleanor ran to my side and immediately rattled off a list of names that sounded familiar. As I repeated them aloud and their owners stepped forward, I realized why—these were the people she’d introduced to me before the meeting.

Eleanor’s Embers.

And my beautiful, clever Regent had chosen them well. Though their names might have raised some curious eyebrows, none provoked any protest. Far from being outcasts, they were well-liked and well-connected, known for being clever or fair. At worst, the others might have seen it as Eleanor playing favorites with her friends at court.

None would suspect we were laying the flagstones of a revolution.

When the last of the Embers were seated at the council table, Eleanor squeezed my hand three times, and we exchanged a smile, profound with relief and bright with a fragile yet burgeoning hope.

I leaned forward in my seat, and the path to a better Lumnos began at last.

31

DIEM

Agreat many impossible things had happened in my life over the past year, but finding myself alone and forgotten in the palace ballroom felt like one of the more improbable.