Page 293 of Burn of the Everflame

He was trying. For Luther, for his family, he was trying.

I looked nervously at my mother. Her stubbornness was the stuff of legend. I doubted there was anything that would win her acceptance of Remis if she’d made up her mind not to give it.

But she was trying, too. And she was, if nothing else, strategic.

She gave a light shrug. “As your father would say, never turn down allies in wartime.”

I drew in a deep, grounding breath. “Good, because there’s something I need to tell you all . . . and we’re going to need every ally we can get.”

65

DIEM

“In two days, we’re all going to be dead.”

The voice hung in the air, echoing through the wooden rafters of the otherwise noiseless council meeting room. Its owner—the new governing council representative from House Hanoverre—sank back in his chair, knotting his hands in his hair.

“Actually,” he went on, “we’re dead already.”

“We are very much alive,” I said. “And we’re going to stay that way.”

The gathered faces stared back in patent disbelief. The news that Ophiucae was alive had been a hard blow for the council to take, but they initially remained optimistic, trusting in my promise that I had a plan.

Then came the other confessions: That he was a Kindred. That he might be headed for Lumnos. That he had at least two—maybe three, four, or five—realms’ worth of Descended as his soldier-slaves. With each revelation, their faces grew paler, their voices less steady. And when I told them I no longer had magic to fight him . . .

That had silenced them all.

My advisors had reacted the same way. Though hours had passed since our morning meeting, their faces still wore the stunned, disoriented look of a person staggering in the wake of a bomb. Only the mortals had taken the news in stride. Magic had never been their savior, and its loss would not condemn them now.

“We’ve been preparing for this,” my mother said. “We will defeat him.”

“How?” someone asked. “He’s immortal. He can’t be killed.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t be killed,” another said hesitantly. “He’s a Kindred.”

My mother’s palms hit the table. “Are you mad? He wants your kind dead. Why do you think so many of my people joined him?”

“The Kindred spoke to Diem,” Luther said. “The real ones—the ones we worship. They gave Diem their Crowns so she could stop him.”

“Why are we here?” Norwick Benette asked. “The power to command the Royal Guard still lies with the Crown. What are you asking the council to do?”

“I’m asking you to fight,” I said. “Go back to your communities and gather as many as you can to join our army.”

The Althiena woman recoiled. “But that’s why we have an army—so we don’t have to fight.”

“The army might not be enough.”

“Maybe it would have been, if you hadn’t let so many of them defect,” Garath muttered. Though he’d been forced to cede his place on the council to Eleanor, it had not stopped him from attending the meeting and injecting his vitriol every chance he could get.

Aemonn sat behind him, eyes cast low, avoiding his brother’s accusatory stare. The progress he and Taran made last night seemed to have vanished in their father’s presence.

“I gave everyone in the army a choice,” I said, bristling. “I will not lead an army of slaves. I’m not like him.” Those final words echoed in my thoughts, rattling through me like a question my bones and blood could not answer.

“We don’t know how many Descended Ophiucae has forced into his army,” Alixe cut in. “That number is only going to get higher the longer we wait. If we make our best and biggest stand now, we could end this war in a single battle.”

“You want us to fight alongside them?” the Althiena woman asked, nervously eyeing my mother and the Guardians seated behind her.

“The rebels are terrorists,” Garath said. “They shouldn’t even be here.”