Page 60 of Burn of the Everflame

I’d always prided myself on knowing Diem’s heart, its values and its limits, but this was not the same Queen I knew. I had no idea what she was thinking—or what she was going to do.

She tucked her sword back under her cloak. “I’ll handle their punishment. I’m the one they trapped on the island.”

He shook his head. “You spent weeks there. I spent millennia.”

She took another step. “Omnos⁠—”

“My name,” he growled, “is Ophiucae.” He raised both palms, magic swirling through his fingers. “And I will have my revenge.”

Diem’s lips pressed thin. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, drew in a breath, and⁠—

The ground began to rock. A deep crevasse split open around the former Crowns, trapping them, rather ironically, on an island of their own. Cobblestones lining the path to the palace wrested free of the soil and wedged together above them in a dome.

Ophiucae looked more amused than angry. “Children always think they’re smarter than their parents.” His fingers twisted, and a strange, hollow feeling filled the air, followed by muffled chokes. Ophiucae was suffocating them inside their rocky cage.

Diem’s eyes narrowed. She raised a palm and funneled a breeze through the cracks between the stones.

Ophiucae’s aura throbbed, and a bolt of lightning splintered down from the now-blackened sky. Diem barely managed to raise a shield above the dome before it struck.

He poured more power into his attacks, and Diem’s shield met him blow for blow, a rainfall of sparks glittering around us. With Ophiucae distracted, I slowly edged toward her, careful not to draw his eye.

“Twice you defied me,” he seethed. “I warned you I would not allow it again.” His eyes blazed with silvery light. “When a child has gone astray, the parent has no choice but to bestow . . . discipline.”

His head turned, then his outstretched hands and the malicious magic flowing from them followed. Away from the former Crowns—and onto me.

Diem screamed. The depth of her terror was so raw, it felt like it sprung from inside my own chest. Ophiucae fired his volley, and I steeled my shoulders for the impact.

A blur crossed through my vision, then light exploded around me. Diem’s aura vibrated, pulsing and shuddering and blooming with new power. When the blinding brilliance faded to a feminine silhouette standing between me and Ophiucae, the shock on his face matched mine.

Diem had thrown herself in front of me, sacrificing herself to take his lethal blow.

And it had only made her stronger.

If there was anyone alive whose magic might be strong enough to kill Diem, it would be her sire. We’d wondered, feared . . . now, we knew. Ophiucae was immune to Diem’s magic—and she was immune to his.

He staggered back a step, then fired again with a blow so staggeringly potent, the ground between them fissured and steamed. Again, it disappeared into her skin, and her magic flared with newly captured strength.

She raised a hand toward his army of mortals and clenched it into a fist. A fracture split across the shield he’d placed over them, accompanied by a foreboding crackle. His soldiers’ murmurs turned to shouts. Several took off in a sprint for the coast, their mission abandoned.

Ophiucae looked Diem over as if seeing her anew. As if seeing her, for the first time, as a genuine threat.

Diem pulsed her aura in silent challenge. When Ophiucae didn’t answer with a burst of his own, I knew we’d won. Shielding the mortals for hours had drained him, and Diem had just absorbed much of the power he had left.

A different day, a different battle, and we’d all be corpses . . . but not today.

“Xipherus, come,” he growled. A faraway howl answered back. He glared at the mortals. “Return to the boats.”

“This is not what we agreed to,” Vance said, scowling. “You said we would take back the re⁠—”

“Back to the boats,” Ophiucae roared. The mortals stiffened in uncanny unison, then shuffled away, eyes glassy and faces blank. His gryvern swooped in and landed beside him, and his muscles drew taut with the fury of failure as he mounted its back.

“Let’s talk peacefully, Ophiucae,” Diem called out. “I don’t want this to end in violence and death.”

“Don’t you worry, Daughter of the Forgotten.” He reached forward and plucked something from the air. Diem stumbled forward, hands flying to her neck. “This is far from over.”

17

DIEM