Page 58 of Burn of the Everflame

16

LUTHER

The mortal slid his blade out and laughed as he walked away, leaving Zalaric wobbling on his feet. His blue eyes filled with fear, the scared little boy I’d once saved still visible beneath the strong, confident man he’d become.

When I left Lumnos months ago, Zalaric and Taran had just begun an unlikely romance. My cousin’s heart had been broken once, long ago, in the cruelest way possible. That wound, he’d never healed from. This one might crush him forever.

“Turn around,” Ophiucae said, voice booming with the compulsion of Umbros magic. My body betrayed me and obeyed. “You were trying to hide something from me earlier. I want to know what it is.”

He heard every clang of the alarm bells in my head, and it heightened his interest. He grabbed my hair and yanked my skull back to expose my throat, then pressed his godstone blade to its flesh.

“Withdraw your magic,” he ordered.

My godhood howled, equally enraged but equally bound. The shadows around the palace fell away, and the mortals’ victorious shouts grew muffled as they breached its doors and disappeared into its halls.

Ophiucae’s gaze drilled into mine. “Show me everything.”

Though I fought with all that I had, I did.

He dove into my memories with eager interest, drowning himself in everything I’d never wanted anyone to know. I could feel his determination to leave no stone unturned and no secret unrevealed. It reminded me of Diem gorging her curiosity in the Sophos library, how her captivating eyes had grown bright with her warring urges to examine every page at length or hastily devour as many as she could.

Just thinking on those two cherished days she and I had spent alone brought the memories to the surface, and a rapt Ophiucae watched them all. Every vow and confession. The fleeting peace we’d found among the bookshelves and my indescribable joy at holding her and knowing she was mine. The happiest memory of my life—and the one I was most desperate to keep sacred. To my relief, he passed over our more intimate acts, but the others he lingered on, studying her words and mannerisms, judging mine.

“Is this what you fear me seeing?” he asked. “Or is there something more?”

He prodded deeper, and the gates gave way.

It was no secret that I’d shown Diem a side of me I kept private, but so had she. In the safety of my arms, she’d let her grief and doubt consume her. She’d let herself shatter, knowing I’d keep the pieces of her safe until she was ready to put them back together and face the world again.

Diem hated to show weakness, but I had painstakingly proven I would never see her for less than the warrior she was. In return, she’d let down her guard, trusting me to keep the most vulnerable parts of her between only us.

And I’d failed her. Again.

Ophiucae’s brutal search of my mind continued. The distant sounds of a roaring gryvern, crackling flames, and terrified screams went unheard beneath the suffocating presence of his control. I had the sense that time was passing—the sky growing darker, the air turning chill—but I had no idea whether it was minutes or hours.

“We found ’em all,” Vance called out. “These two”—the sound of bodies hitting the soil—“might as well be dead already. We caught the other two”—two sets of footsteps stumbled forward, as if pushed—“trying to untie a boat at the pier. And she”—a soft, feminine whimper—“was trying to claim safe haven with the Guardians. The other Guardians.”

“And the others?” Ophiucae asked.

“Killed the ones we saw. Couldn’t find their brats, though. They hid ’em somewhere.”

A small relief. If the children were safe, perhaps Lily, Teller, and Eleanor were, too.

But Alixe, Taran, Zalaric . . .

“I sent my gryvern to burn their city,” Ophiucae said. His gaze dropped to me. “I was just finishing with the Prince.” He pressed the flat of his blade beneath my chin, forcing me to lift it toward him, then tilted his head with a pensive look. “I watched my siblings waste away because of the promises they made to their mates. I told myself I would not make the same mistake. I would never succumb to a petty weakness like love, because I was stronger—and I was. That’s why I’m here and they’re not.”

A crack of thunder boomed in the distance. The air vibrated with the steady thump of an approaching gryvern, yet Ophiucae held my stare.

“I’ve had a very long time to think on it, and I understand now that I was wrong. Love is powerful, indeed. It’s one of the most formidable forces in existence. It doesn’t make you weak . . .” He bared his teeth. “It makes you blind.”

The wingbeats grew louder. Murmurs rose from the mortals as an ecstatic reptilian trill preceded the click of a gryvern’s talons landing on stone.

Ophiucae leaned his face closer to mine. “Love,” he said, spitting the word with disgust, “makes you hold on to a person against all reason, even when it destroys you. Even when protecting yourself means letting them go.” He rotated the blade until its edge hovered over my pulse. “Perhaps I should do it for her.”

“I agree—you should let him go.”

My heart stopped.