Page 271 of Burn of the Everflame

I froze in his arms. Shit. What did he know? How did he know it?

He peeled away with a knowing wink, but before I could ask, he lifted me up to perch me on his shoulder. He turned to the crowd and pumped his fist. “May the Gilded Gryvern lead her to her mate!”

The guests echoed his cheer, raising their glasses to me. I looked at Eleanor, wondering if she’d told him, but her bittersweet smile, and my gut instinct, told me no. While she was adept at collecting other people’s secrets, when it came to mine, her lips were a vault.

Alixe came winding through the celebrants. Though she’d been at the ceremony, I hadn’t seen her since. Her somber features didn’t look like she’d returned for dancing and drinks.

I tapped Taran’s shoulder, and he gently slid me back to my feet. He grabbed my hand as the music resumed. “Come on, Queenie, I’m claiming a dance before Lu steals you to himself for the rest of the night.”

“I’m afraid I have to steal Her Majesty first,” Alixe interrupted.

Taran poked out his lower lip. “It’s my mating day. Let me have one dance.” His eyebrows wiggled at me. “I’ve got things to discuss.”

“Sorry, cousin,” she said. “So do I, and mine are rather urgent. A boat of Centenaries just arrived.”

Taran’s smile dropped instantly into a glare. “If they came for Zalaric⁠—”

“They didn’t. They’ve come to seek asylum.” Alixe’s eyes cut to me. “Umbros has fallen.”

60

DIEM

By the time Alixe and I arrived at the Lumnos pier, my insides had turned to stone, dipped in molten tar, and coated in broken glass. Last time I saw the Centenaries, Symond nearly killed me. I had no magic to shield myself if he had decided to come finish me off.

At least that would be preferable to the reason they’d given.

“I’ve kept them on their ship,” she explained as we rode up on horseback. I squinted through the darkness, thinking they must have left until I heard the flap of sails in the evening wind. A face appeared in the distance, onyx eyes on cream-pale skin.

“A while ago, you told me you released the Forging magic’s hold so Descended can use their magic in every realm,” Alixe said. “Is that still the case?”

I nodded. “They have to be able to protect themselves until we stop Vance and his men.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. However . . .” She looked toward the water, frowning, then back to me. “Perhaps you might consider making an exception tonight, given what you told me earlier.”

Alixe was the only person I’d entrusted with the news of Ophiucae’s survival. I knew it wasn’t a truth I could afford to conceal much longer, but this was not the time and place to start its spread. If the Centenaries came any closer, our minds—and our secrets—would be theirs to take.

I reached inward, toward the Forging magic, and flinched at a flash of searing heat. Whatever was blocking me from it had grown in intensity, now too bright and hot for me to even grasp, let alone control.

“I can’t,” I said. “There’s something wrong with the Forging magic.”

Alixe thumbed the blades at her hips. “Maybe we should turn them away. We have enough to handle here with our own people.”

Her words, and their implication—that the Umbrosians weren’t our people, too, an opinion I had done little to counteract—prodded at my conscience.

“Wait here,” I said.

As I walked to the pier, the water rippled from the downdraft of Sorae circling overhead. Her ability to sense a person’s intentions would have been terribly useful at the moment, but it had been another casualty of my choice to set the gryverns free. In its absence, she’d turned skeptical of every new arrival, and none more so than these.

A puff of sapphire flame unfurled from her jaws, briefly illuminating the anchored ship. It was painted black from bow to stern, as were its sails, and its size was far smaller than I’d expected. The sailboat couldn’t be holding more than ten at most, and all but one—a man cradling a bundle to his chest—wore the signature Centenary scarlet.

“Where’s the rest of the realm?” I shouted. “Or did you decide everyone else in Umbros wasn’t worth saving?”

“They’ll arrive soon enough,” Symond answered from the darkness. “Kindred help us when they do.”

“We’ve been at sea for days,” a female voice called out. “We need food and rest. We’ll cause no trouble, you have our word. Isn’t that right, Symond?”

Silence followed, then the muffled sound of arguing. Finally, Symond grunted a reluctant “agreed.”