Page 360 of Burn of the Everflame

The scream that erupted from my lungs felt as if it was physically cleaved from my flesh—like claws sinking into my soul and shredding half of me away, leaving a gaping, endless hole where everything good in me had been. I roared with fury, vowing vengeance on the gods, swearing to take on fate itself and make all of existence pay the price for her loss.

I held Diem’s body against me and pressed my face against her neck. The coppery tang of her blood hit my lips, and madness took over.

Fuck the promise I’d made. I wanted no part of life if living meant going on without her. Emarion could find its way without us both.

I reached for Sorrow’s Edge. The ground shifted beneath me, and the sword tumbled away. I reached for it again, and another quake rumbled under my knees.

The sound grew louder as the godstone ruins rattled and danced. At the center of what had once been the Kindred’s Temple, ropelike tendrils broke through the soil and slithered over the ground, stretching out toward the island’s shores.

One of them twisted around Diem’s wrist, and though I tried to yank her away, it held firm, spiraling further up her arm. I drew the Sword of Corbois and swung it at the thick cord to free her, but the blade bounced away without leaving a scratch.

Another wrapped around her leg, while another looped across her chest. The tendrils pulled taut, luring Diem’s body from my arms. I dug my heels in and tightened my grip, but the force of the strange vines was unbelievably strong. It was all I could do to hold on as they drew us both toward the island’s center.

I looked around for Sorrow’s Edge, praying its blade might be enough to cut her free. I watched in horror as a nest of tendrils coiled tightly around it, and the sword broke into pieces as easily as glass. The heartstone remnant flew into the air, and when it landed, another vine drew it down into the earth.

The cords around Diem thickened between us, pushing me away. One hand lost its grip, and I roared as I strained to keep hold of her with the other.

“You can’t have her,” I shouted.

One finger slipped.

Then another.

Then another.

“She’s mine!”

The last finger gave out, hooking onto something before it snapped away. I watched in helpless anguish as the tendrils enveloped Diem completely and dragged her beneath the soil.

The ground began to heat. The rocks under my hands grew hot enough to scald my skin, the air becoming hard to breathe.

I collapsed, my will to fight gone.

Because she was gone.

I couldn’t bring myself to care about the mounting heat, nor the cords that continued to thicken and spread. Ophiucae’s corpse vanished beneath them, as did the Temple ruins. I stared up at the sky, waiting for my turn to disappear.

Something glimmered in my hand. I turned it over to see a delicate chain dangling with a small gold pendant—the necklace I’d given Diem at the Challenging.

I held it to my heart, and I wept.

The strange tendrils continued their sprawl, consuming everything on the island but me. At their center, they grew into a hill, stretching higher and higher until it soared above me in a wide, massive pillar. The air grew hotter, and I wept.

The ground around me finally stilled into a field of knotty, tangled roots, while the towering column hardened over with a skin of rough, golden-brown bark. High above my head, so tall they scraped the clouds, spindly arms stretched into a giant canopy that ignited with a furious, crackling blaze. Embers fluttered down from its branches, raining over me in a glowing storm.

Though they did not burn my skin, the pain of their touch destroyed me—body, heart, and soul.

I begged for them to take me.

And I wept.

84

LUTHER

My Diem,

It has been three months since I last saw your face.