Page 344 of Burn of the Everflame

Beneath the blood and grime of war, her skin began to glow.

“My Queen,” I breathed.

The sound of distant wingbeats thumped behind us. I twisted around, fearful that Xipherus had healed and tracked us to Coeurîle, but the clouds were too low and thick to see much—just a scrap of bloody fabric twirling in the wind and falling toward the sea.

Not just fabric.

A shirt.

“Sorae, get us to land,” I shouted.

Diem shook her head. “The first time we came here, you said gryverns would die if they touched the island’s soil. That was before the Crowns cast their spell. What if it’s still true?” She pointed to the Lumnos dock. “She’ll have to land there.”

Sorae ignored my protests. Even freed of her compelled obedience, her loyalty was to Diem. She tilted, circling over the Temple. As we turned, Ophiucae’s body swung into view.

And his open, lucid eyes locked on mine.

“Sorae, drop Ophiucae n⁠—”

A column of ice shot from Ophiucae’s hand and cut me short. The jagged crystal drove through Sorae’s chest and sliced into my shoulder. Sorae let out an ear-splitting wail. Her talon went limp, and Ophiucae slipped through her claws. As he plummeted toward the island, he stretched his palm and unleashed a wave of fire. Sorae spun to spare Diem from the flames. The heat of the fire bloomed around us, melting the icy skewer until the pressure of my weight snapped it in half.

The sky became a spinning blur. Diem screamed my name, her voice growing distant. I tumbled through the air, and I thought of Perthe, who had fallen to his doom in my stead, and Teller, who’d made that wretched choice.

And my mother, who had died so I could live.

My fall ended with a crash against unforgiving stone. Bones popped, agony erupted. Something that felt both cold and broiling pressed against my skin, and a sensation of hopelessness draped over me, luring me toward the darkest corners of my thoughts. There was something disturbingly familiar about this feeling, the way that everything good in the world shrank from my grasp.

Diem’s cry cut through the daze. My bloodsworn oath to her pulled taut, dangling me in the twilight before the glittering night of death. I roared with pain as I pushed myself upright.

I blinked through bloodied eyes, and the archways of the Kindred’s Temple came into view. I ripped my hand away from its godstone platform, shuddering at the reminder of the toxin that had ravaged both my spirit and my flesh, and the bleak sensation instantly faded.

I frantically searched for my mate. She was still in the sky, pinned to Sorae, who was struggling to stay airborne. The feathers of one wing had burned away, the delicate skin beneath them blackened and raw. Only Sorae’s sheer strength of will was keeping them moving, but even that was fading. Her ruined wings beat slower and slower, the fatal soil growing closer and closer.

Blood poured from the wound in her chest, raining onto the mind-stolen Merosians below. They raised their arms, eager to claw her to shreds the moment she came within reach. Their arrows sank into her side, but still she fought. She flew.

And then . . . she fell.

With a broken whimper, her wings gave out. Her body careened, and she and Diem sank like a stone. She thrashed her unburnt wing to slow their fall, but it only succeeded in sending them into a spiral.

I threw my hands out, pleading for my godhood to answer. No magic came. I begged the gods to help them, offering up my soul to the Kindred, the Old Gods, even Ophiucae himself. Their voices were silent. Even the Merosians paused to watch the Queen of Emarion and her guardian hurtle toward their grisly end.

Sorae let out a last, desperate shriek, and the world went terribly quiet.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Not the sound of bodies hitting soil.

The sound of wings.

A blur flew past me as an enormous black beast shot overhead. My hope died in its wake, knowing Ophiucae’s gryvern would destroy whatever was left of them—but when the creature’s dark wings spread wide, they were absent of Xipherus’s distinctive red.

With a roar loud enough to hear from Lumnos, Tybold’s talons closed around Sorae and yanked her toward the sky. The sudden jerk of movement snapped Diem free, and she tumbled off Sorae’s back into another free fall.

Thump, thump, thump.