Page 35 of Burn of the Everflame

“Too late,” I gritted out.

I put my foot on Ignios’s chest and dug my heel deep into his ribs, his gasps sweet music to my ears. I pulled the Sword of Corbois and lowered the tip of its blade to his neck.

The palace trembled as something massive smashed against the exterior walls. The roar of a gryvern boomed through the air, and the King’s eyes grew wide with hope.

I shook my head. “Tybold can’t save you this time.”

Seconds later, we heard another gryvern’s shriek, this one higher pitched, and the fleshy thud of two enormous bodies colliding. Somewhere inside the churning ball of rage I’d become, I felt a stab of shame at knowing I’d set Sorae against her long-lost love.

Diem wouldn’t want this.

Not for Sorae, and not for me.

The thought momentarily stilled my hand. Diem was compassionate above all else. Where the world wanted to wound, she wanted to heal. Even for the worst of us—Ophiucae and Vance, Taran’s selfish brother Aemonn and their abusive father Garath, practically every member of House Hanoverre—Diem had found it in her heart to spare them the brutal consequences they had earned. She believed they could be better.

Because she was better.

Better than any of us deserved—including me.

The sword’s point dug in further, drawing a pool of blackish blood into the hollow of his throat. The palace shuddered with another blow, and cracks splintered across my shield as it threatened to give way.

Around me, voices rang in chaos. More howls resonated through the walls as the other gryverns felt their Crowns’ panic. The metallic hiss of weapons unsheathing joined the cadence of bootsteps flooding through the halls.

The room had become a tinderbox, and I held the match.

“My Queen would command me to spare you,” I seethed between clenched teeth.

He screamed as his ribs snapped beneath my boot. The flames biting at my calves flickered, then guttered to smoke.

“Luther,” Alixe yelled.

“Perhaps I should,” I rumbled on. “I would take great joy out of watching your poison run its course.”

Alixe shouted my name again. Somewhere, trumpets began to blare. The assaults on my shield stopped.

“But I am not my Queen. She is”—I flinched—“was good to a fault. All my goodness died with her.”

Sizzling light seeped from my hands and imbued the sword with a pale blue corona. Sparks skittered over his body like spiders, searching for patches of flesh the godstone had not yet devoured and using them as a doorway to burrow inside him.

I lifted my boot just enough to let him shriek for mercy. A futile effort, but a pleasure to hear.

I raised the blade over his heart. “As Keeper of the Laws to Her Majesty Diem Bellator, I hereby condemn you to death.” My eyes narrowed. “When you see the Kindred, tell them I’m coming for them next.”

“Luther!”

This time, it was Auralie’s voice. She was standing beside me, one palm on my arm. Strangely, my magic had let her pass through my shield.

“He’s here,” she said, her voice shaky.

I looked around. The room had emptied. Only the mortals and my cousins remained.

“Who?” I asked.

“Ophiucae. Lumnos is under attack.”

11

DIEM