Page 335 of Burn of the Everflame

“To do what?”

One of my soldiers took a fatal blow, and I had to abandon my brother to take their place as enemy soldiers lurched for the opening in our guard.

“Put that breastplate back on before you get yourself killed,” I yelled at him.

Teller shook his head. “Father can’t protect me—not from this.”

Distantly, I heard my mother shout my name, bringing much-needed relief that she was alive, though it was immediately followed by a surge of panic as Sorae let out a cry of pain that stopped me still.

Xipherus had sunk his teeth into her haunch, and I watched in terror as his fangs dragged through her flesh, tearing her open. She spun in a desperate bid to shake him off, sending Luther flying off her back. He caught the edge of her wing and dangled from an awkward, one-armed grip, his other hand firing off spears of shadow at Xipherus’s throat.

A fist slammed into the back of my head, and I fell to my knees. The world went wobbly as I fought to stay conscious.

“All those years sparring, we thought we were preparing to fight someone else,” Teller said. “Ironic, huh?”

A boot slammed into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs and flattening me to the ground. A heavy weight pressed into my back and pinned me down.

“I was wrong about one thing,” Teller murmured. “You, me, Father, Mother—we don’t each have our own purpose. We had the same one. And we needed each other to find it.”

Crumpled fabric pressed against my mouth, and the sweet, peppery scent of winterwood filled the air. I tried to shout for help, but my screams were too muffled to carry. My limbs turned heavy, and the sounds of battle grew distant. The last thing I felt was Sorrow’s Edge falling—no, being pulled—from my hand, and the sound of my brother’s voice carried me into the abyss.

“I’ll see you soon.”

78

AURALIE

It was unbecoming of a healer to wish a man dead, but I allowed myself an exception for Remis Corbois.

He and his brother Garath were the puppeteers who had pulled King Ulther’s strings. They had the power to loosen the noose around the mortals’ necks, and they had used Ulther to tighten it instead. When Remis usurped my daughter’s throne, and after Luther opened up to me about his past, my grievances against his father went from political to personal. It was always just a matter of time until I stood across from Remis in battle, sword raised and ready to strike.

I never imagined it would be to save his life.

“Thank you,” he wheezed, tugging away the vines encircling his throat.

I slid my sword out of the freshly lifeless corpse of an Arboros Descended. “You could have killed them yourself if you’d stop trying to raise a shield every time someone attacks.”

“Old habit,” he muttered. “Behind you.”

I swung my sword as I spun, landing it deep in someone’s side, then froze as I met the dying stare of a foggy-eyed mortal woman.

Between mortal army soldiers, mortal spies sent by the Crowns to infiltrate the Guardians, and the Mortal City residents who betrayed their neighbors in the hopes it might spare them from the Royal Guard’s abuse (it never did), I’d long ago accepted that my own kind could be my biggest threats. But with every mortal life that ended on my blade, a piece of me chipped away—a stone hammered by a chisel, sculpted into a form I never wanted to take. After all these years, and all these deaths, sometimes I couldn’t recognize the woman I’d become.

“Down!” Remis yelled.

I dropped to my knees, and a whoosh of flying magic shot over my head. Remis ran past me, deftly gutting its owner. “You could have done that yourself,” he echoed, offering his hand, “if you didn’t lock up every time you killed a mortal.”

I ignored his help and climbed to my feet on my own. “I didn’t join this war to kill mortals.”

“Neither did I,” he said under his breath.

He turned away, I did the same, and we resumed our reluctant back-to-back dance through the fighting. Though it stung my ego, I let him lead the way. He was surprisingly perceptive, and he took no unnecessary risks, something my time in the Guardians had left me unaccustomed to. It made our progress slow, but it kept us both alive.

I crashed into him to avoid a flying spear. “Why did you join the war, Remis?”

“The same reason you did.” He pushed me off and straightened his tilted armor. “Penance.”

I bristled. “I’ve dedicated my life to bringing the Old Gods back to Emarion. I have no reason to earn their forgiveness.”