Page 217 of Burn of the Everflame

Vance’s voice instantly set my teeth on edge. Ophiucae sneered as if he felt the same. “She is none of your concern. Where are the Descended I sent with you?”

Vance threw me a vicious grin. “You’ll have to ask her. I left them in Lumnos.”

Sharp claws tapped against the edges of my mind—but they retreated before piercing. Ophiucae stared at me, his expression unreadable. “Did any survive?”

I glared in response.

“I’ll take that as a no.” He turned back to Vance, looking disgusted. “I cleared out a realm to give you an army, and you get them killed in a week. You’re proving to be as poor a leader as she claimed.”

“When word spreads that she killed a whole realm, the Descended will turn against her,” Vance argued. “Her army will fall apart.”

I was destroying my army well enough on my own, I thought glumly.

Vance’s scowl returned to me. “She needs to die. She claims the Crowns won’t pass on to anyone else. The sooner she’s gone, the sooner we’re rid of them for good.”

I flashed a nasty smile. “If you want to be rid of all the Crowns, I’m not the only person here you have to kill.”

Ophiucae’s lips twitched up. Vance’s hand tightened on his sword. A loaded silence passed between them.

“Why don’t you go get some rest, Father Vance?” Ophiucae suggested, drawing out the title.

“I don’t need rest,” Vance fired back. “If she’s here, Lumnos is exposed. We should go back and do the same thing we did to Sophos.”

“In time. For now, I have other plans.”

“I don’t care about your fucking pl⁠—”

“Go,” Ophiucae ordered, his growl resonating with Umbros magic.

Vance’s eyes went vacant. He stiffly lumbered away.

My glare deepened. “You say you’re not a monster, but what you did to the people of Sophos⁠—”

“They felt no pain, they had no time to panic or fear. One moment they were living their lives, and the next—” He snapped his fingers. “I assure you, it was far better than what these mortals would have done to them.”

My eyes dropped to the debris-littered street. My heart ached for the people who had lived here and the utopia that I’d hoped it could someday become.

“Once you take their mind, is there any bringing it back?” I asked.

“Will you sleep easier if I say no?”

“Tell me the truth.”

He regarded me for a moment, then sighed. “What is erased cannot be rewritten.”

I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him. But I also couldn’t bear to think about the consequences of what I’d done, if it was a lie.

“The Sophosians wouldn’t hurt me, even though Vance ordered them to,” I said. “That was your doing, wasn’t it?”

He continued to watch me, but he didn’t answer.

“You told me if I stood against you a third time, you would kill me. You said if I came to you through the Forging magic again, I would pay. I did both.”

He looked more entertained than angry. “You are a mischievous child.”

“Then why am I here?” I demanded. “Why am I still alive?”

“Because I care for you.”