Page 140 of Burn of the Everflame

We both lunged at once. I got the hilt, but Francis got me, yanking my arm away before my grip could tighten. I swung at his jaw and felt my knuckles crack against Ophiucae’s impenetrable shield, then ducked to miss a return blow. I called on Montios magic to shift the rocks beneath his feet, and only succeeded in sending him tumbling on top of me and pinning me down.

The rest of the fight was a scrappy, all-out brawl. On a better day, I would have had him, but I was distracted, still tugging on threads, searching for my mate. When my heart fluttered with something that felt like Luther, I couldn’t stop myself from glancing its way.

It was the opening Francis needed. I looked back in horror to see him slide Sorrow’s Edge free from its scabbard.

“Go,” he panted. “Run. Now.”

I carefully pushed to my feet. “Francis, you have no idea what you’re holding. That is not just any sword.”

He pointed it at me. “I’m giving you a chance to run.”

I shook my head. “I can’t leave that sword. The mortals’ future depends on it.”

“The mortals,” he sneered, “or the Descended?”

“Both.” I held up my hands. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m supposed to believe you? You betrayed the Guardians, now you want to betray your mother.” He started toward me. “Nothing you say can be trus⁠—”

He froze.

I edged a step closer. “Francis?”

The sword fell from his hand. His head swiveled to stare at something behind him. No, on him—a plumed black arrow protruding from the nape of his neck.

“Got him,” a woman called out.

Francis sank to his knees as two women came running toward us. They were muscular and laden with weapons, and they moved nimbly over the slippery rubble. When they reached me, their dark red eyes skimmed my body in a methodical path. One of them reached for my wounded eye, the other grazing my broken arm. My skin shimmered as my godhood absorbed their healing magic.

“You’re healers?” I said. “You fired that arrow?”

The women looked dismayed at my confusion. “We serve in battle, Your Majesty. We would not survive long if we could not defend ourselves.”

I felt a little ashamed. I’d long known the healers of Fortos were trained to fight if needed, but these women looked as competent as any soldier. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised. I was a healer—could I not be a warrior, too?

“I need your help,” I begged, frantically looking around. “I have to find my⁠—”

My eyes stopped on a head of black hair laying against a bloodied rock. I staggered forward a step, then stopped again, crying out in horror. The skull was gruesomely misshapen, and the body attached to it was missing from the rib cage down.

No chance of survival. Not even for a Descended.

My eyes fled the horrible scene, only to spot a torso feet away—and further, an arm, still clutching a sword of Fortosian steel.

My ears began to ring. My legs wobbled. The world teetered on the edge of freefall.

I sharpened my gaze on the dismembered hand.

And then . . . I laughed.

My hands tightened over my mouth to suffocate the sound. A man was dead—brutally, violently dead. This was not a time for laughter. And yet I could scarcely remember being filled with this much joy.

Because that sword, its handle plain and unremarkable, was not the Sword of Corbois.

And that man was not Luther.

I sent up a prayer for the dead man’s soul, then surveyed the rubble, knowing my mate was somewhere beneath it. And knowing, somehow, that he was alive.

I closed my eyes. Forced my lungs to slow. Healed the last of my wounds to quiet my gryverns’ anxious pleas. Closed my ears to the murmurs of the healers and the sounds of warfare coming from Fortos City. Slipped a hand beneath my leathers and laid it on my mating mark.