Page 161 of Burn of the Everflame

The pliers clattered to the ground, and Hagface sank to her knees and whimpered, clutching at her head while the others watched in amusement—all but Symond, whose shrewd gaze had never broken from me.

His fingers twitched at his sides. “You want us to fight for you.”

“For you,” I corrected. “For your people.” I nodded to the baby. “For her.”

We held each other’s stare, and he made no effort to hide the fact that he had painfully little confidence—in my plans, in my claims.

In me, specifically.

The others didn’t look much surer. In a realm infamous for its skilled liars, the Centenaries maintained their control by ignoring a person’s words and looking into the mind beneath. Fancy speeches would never sway them. Only one thing would.

“If you want answers,” I said, pointing to my temple and repeating his words, “you’ll have to take them yourself.”

The secrets I harbored could destroy so many people I loved, perhaps all of Emarion with them. But as Symond sank his mental talons in and began to feast on my thoughts, it didn’t feel like such a risk.

First, because I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t quite sure why they hadn’t done it the moment I walked in. Perhaps they were more loyal to my Crown than they seemed.

Second, because Luther had given up his secrets to the Centenaries, too, the night of my Ascension Ball. He had not just sworn to sacrifice everything to protect me, he’d done it. Again, and again, and again.

I clung to thoughts of him as my body went stiff and my mind ceased to be my own.

I tried to urge Symond toward the things I wanted him to see: the fairer world I envisioned, the council I’d established, the unjust laws I had repealed. That alone was a gamble. The Centenaries had benefited from that very inequality, and they might be willing to kill me to keep it.

So I tried to show what I had learned—that oppression could be toxic to the oppressor as well as the oppressed. That, in a world built around haves and have-nots, there would always be someone with more. That they didn’t need a Crown to have a voice. That those less powerful, even those with no power at all, deserved a voice, too.

But as more and more Centenaries crept into my head, my control went from feeble to none. Their curiosity crowded me out, and I became a silent spectator to the show.

They dove with gleeful abandon into my darkest moments. I sensed their delight as they forced me to relive the night I’d almost given up in the armory, the way I broke so completely as I clutched my father’s dead body, the tears I shed as I buried Perthe in the cold winter soil. It was only when they watched the death of their gryvern that they moved on to my happier moments.

I immediately wished they hadn’t.

They laughed with scorn at my family, belittled every proud accomplishment, ridiculed the upbringing I held dear. The intimate moments I’d shared with Luther became cheap fodder for their jabs. I listened in sheer terror as they threatened to wipe every memory of him from my mind, to take him from me in as permanent a way as their fellow Centenaries had been taken from them. Thank the gods for Drusila, who insisted that disturbing a person’s memories of their mate would be an affront to the Kindred.

Then my horror grew as they debated whether to erase my father from my memories instead.

Though I couldn’t say why, it was Symond who spared me. He commanded them past their wicked fun to the prize they’d come for: my conversations with the Kindred. Glimpses of their own thoughts slipped through as that memory on the island played out:

That’s Blessed Father Umbros!

What is a heartstone?

There’s a tenth Kindred . . .

She’s his daughter.

On the ground, by the Blessed Father’s feet, is that . . . ?

At the sight of Yrselle’s battered corpse, their thoughts went silent. I felt them hover on the Kindred’s warnings and the ominous vision of what Emarion could become. Their distrust waned with each Crown they witnessed the Kindred place upon my head. When they realized the Crowns would end with me, the normalcy they’d been yearning to return to was finally laid to rest.

They began to withdraw. They had seen the truth, unpleasant as it was. They could not doubt my calling. Now there was only the choice of whether they would join me in seeing it through.

Symond was the last to remain. He dug through my memories with an odd sense of purpose, searching for something, though I couldn’t tell what. He followed my escape from Umbros across the Sacred Sea and scrutinized every move I made on my return, each painful moment leading toward Luther’s seemingly unavoidable death, right through to my tearful surprise when I awoke to find him healed. Then he went back to replay them again.

And again.

And again.

My blood, I said into my thoughts, hoping he could hear me. The cure was my blood.