Page 356 of Burn of the Everflame

She was everything.

Everything.

Her Fire raged across the island, this time not to kill, but to save, to restore what was lost. Where its Flames met the heartstone’s ravaging touch, soil and sky began to heal.

“No!” Ophiucae shouted. He gripped his other hand to the heartstone, shoulders furiously drawing in. Its light swelled, pushing against Diem’s Fire and forcing it back. “You will bend to my command. You are nothing without me!”

Diem did not falter. With perfect calm, she held her ground, an inferno swirling around her. The Fire surged toward the Temple and thrashed at its edge, growing higher and hotter.

“I’ll wipe every trace of you from the continent,” Ophiucae roared, hunching over the heartstone. “When I’m done, the world won’t even remember your name.”

Crack.

“Some things are meant to be forgotten,” Diem said.

Crack.

Crack.

Glowing fissures splintered up the Temple’s columns as a web of silver formed over the godstone’s glittering black. Diem’s Fire overtook the cauldrons burning atop each archway, their colorful flames swirling into hers. The ground gave a violent tremble.

Beneath Ophiucae’s hands, the heartstone glowed brighter. “Kill her,” he growled.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

“But sometimes,” Diem went on, “what is Forgotten will rise again.”

She closed her fist, and the heartstone shattered. A mist of shimmering remnants floated around Ophiucae like stars, then vanished in the breeze.

“No!” he screamed.

Beneath my feet, a snapping sensation rippled through the soil, and the violent light tearing through the island went dark. Huge chunks of godstone crumbled off the Temple archways and slammed into the dais, chipping away at its edges and sending pieces of the staircase crumbling to the ground. The cauldrons, now dark, tumbled off their towers, and the earth shook with another deafening boom as the platform collapsed into a cloud of dust.

When the air cleared, all that was left of the Temple was a sad pile of ruins, with a grey-eyed, dull-skinned man cowering at its center.

I followed as Diem wove through the rubble and came to a stop in front of Ophiucae. The two ghostly silhouettes moved closer as well, hovering at her sides.

Ophiucae fell to his knees, quivering. “Mercy,” he begged. “Have mercy, my daughter, my blood. I’m your father. I—I love you.”

I wanted to snatch the sword from Diem’s hands and drive it through his chest myself.

But I waited. Watching her face. Wondering if he’d ever said those words to her before.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly.

He frantically shook his head. “I do love you.” He bowed low in submission. “With all of my heart.”

“I believe you,” she said. “And I hope you believe me when I say I love you, too. That’s not why you’re wrong.” She knelt in front of him and curled a hand beneath his chin, lifting it so she could look him in the eye. “My father . . .”

Ophiucae gasped as Sorrow’s Edge pierced his heart.

“ . . . is Andrei Bellator.”

He blinked once.