Page 184 of Burn of the Everflame

None of the Bellators were coping well with what had happened. Teller wasn’t speaking, and Auralie’s efforts to wear a brave face had turned into pretending nothing had happened. Diem fled on Tybold and hadn’t returned until this afternoon. Though her aura wasn’t drained, her spirit was. In her eyes, I saw only shadows. In her heart, I felt only pain.

“Bad,” Cordellia said plainly. “Things are bad. We’re losing people fast. We need something to remind everyone why we’re here.”

“We need to find Ophiucae,” Alixe agreed. “Defeating him will bring everyone back together. Is there any word on where he might be?”

Cordellia shook her head. “Aurelie’s source warned us we might not hear from them again.”

“We don’t need them,” Diem murmured. “I know where they’re coming next.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Here,” Diem said. “To Lumnos.”

Every back in the room snapped to attention.

“How do you know?” Nidara asked.

Diem’s fingers drummed on her empty scabbard. “I went to see him last night.”

“You went to the Forgotten Lands alone?” I growled.

Her eyes cut to me. “Ophiucae wasn’t there. But Vance was.”

I struggled to contain my frustration. Facing an entire army on her own was irresponsible, even for her. Especially for her.

“I didn’t go to fight,” she said quietly. “I just needed to get close enough to . . .” Her eyes pulsed with an ominous darkness. “Can I show you?”

A strange sensation tickled at my mind, like a hand tapping at the back of my skull, its soft rhythm mirroring the beat of her fingers against her scabbard. She glanced around, waiting for an objection, and when none came, her presence slid into our minds. For me, its place there felt at home, but the others grimaced at having their every thought laid bare.

But Diem was careful. She kept her godhood small—a simple, glimmering orb hovering in the palm of our thoughts. A possessive surge blazed through me as I wrapped myself around it.

She was mine. Mated or married or not, Diem was mine to love. Mine to protect, to both guide and follow. The brush of her aura seemed to answer: Yes, I am.

I kept that thought close as a vision began to play out: Diem, standing at the edge of the Forgotten Lands with Tybold at her back. Vance and his minions lining the edge of the blackened forest. A ballista we’d been forced to leave behind at the Guardians camp in Montios, loaded with a godstone bolt and pointed directly at her chest.

My Queen was unafraid. The hatred coursing in her blood was more lethal than the godstone’s venom. I had seen her at the furthest reaches of her temper, but never like this. There was no compassion left in her, nor even the furious fire of the night before. She looked cold. Hollow. A brittle shell filled with an infinite abyss.

She looked as if Ophiucae’s shield was the only thing keeping the Forgotten Lands from becoming a graveyard.

“Your army abandoned you already?” Vance called out, drawing laughter from his men.

“Not at all,” Diem said, her tone deceptively light. “I didn’t want to interrupt their fun. They’re busy drinking Lumnos dry.” She flashed a flat, humorless smile that looked wrong on her face. “They have good reason to celebrate. They sent you running without drawing a sword.”

The laughter stopped.

“Why are you here, then? Come to beg your real daddy to accept you?” Vance tutted. “What would poor Andrei think?”

The wrath that exploded through Diem was so visceral, it transcended the bounds of the memory. My body arched at its power, my spine slamming back against my chair. Around the room, I heard quiet grunts and sharp breaths as the others endured the same.

In the vision, Diem’s smile turned colder. “Actually, I’ve come for you.”

She began to stride forward, and Vance’s cockiness disappeared. “Fire the ballista,” he shouted.

“Please do,” she said. “I would love to burn another one of those bolts to ash.”

Vance’s men eyed him. “Father,” one said, “we only have one bolt left. If she destroys it⁠—”

“We’ll make more,” Vance barked. “We have plenty of godstone.”