Page 74 of Burn of the Everflame

My ears rung. My hands began to tremble.

“Whatever he did to you, you clearly survived it,” he went on. “No harm done. You have his throne and his realm. Have a little heart, and leave him his life.”

I closed my eyes. Rage consumed me, searing through my veins like molten lava. My skin grew brighter, hotter, as magic crackled at my palms.

Amid the firestorm igniting inside me, there was a glimmer of something else. Something like guilt and regret and concern, all tied into a churning knot. It couldn’t belong to me, because when I thought of condemning Ignios to a slow, torturous death, I felt no guilt. And when he met the end he deserved, I wouldn’t regret my part in it at all.

When I opened my eyes, flames thrashed at my feet, their fluttering points an angry whirl. The people around me stumbled to get away as the air wobbled in the rising heat.

I flung out a hand. Backs arched and eyes unfocused as my Umbros magic branded an image in their thoughts: trails of skeletons, picked clean by vultures and bleached white by the sun, lining the sand dunes outside the Mortal City of Ignios.

“He exterminated them,” I yelled, voice shaking with fury. “He could have let them flee to another realm. Instead, he made them burn while he and his guards watched.” I turned my glare on the former Crowns. “And you all let him do it.”

Ailani shook her head, trying in vain to clear the sight from her eyes. “It wasn’t our place to intervene.”

My skin blazed bright enough to light the yard, my hair swirling over my shoulders in an ominous breeze. “You made it your place to trap me on the island. You came to my realm and locked up my people. If the King of Fortos had kept all the Fortosian steel for himself, you would have made it your place to storm his realm and stop him. When there’s something you want, you find an excuse to intervene. But the Ignios mortals had no wealth to bribe you with and no resources to trade, so you looked away.”

I dissolved the mental image to force them all to meet my glare, but their expressions were stubborn, their belief in their innocence undaunted. My anger darkened, icy and inhumane—terrifyingly close to what I’d felt the day I ordered the Fortos High General to slit his own throat.

“If their lives meant nothing to you, then yours mean nothing to me.” My gaze turned to Luther. “If anyone tries to give his brother the poultice . . . kill them.”

20

DIEM

The walk to my old room was a sobering journey. Vance and his men had ransacked the palace, slashing their blades through tapestries and art, shattering mirrors and windows. Bodies of dead guards littered the halls, as did the corpses of palace staff. The higher-ranked royals had hidden away in their rooms behind fortified doors, leaving the less fortunate to take the mortals’ wrath.

The sight of it made me ill. The poor fighting the poor, the oppressed taking their vengeance on other oppressed, while the privileged few escaped unscathed.

By the time I reached the royal suite—spotless and untouched, of course, thanks to the bloodlocks—I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to retch or tear the place to the ground.

The room was dark, lit only by the fading glow from my skin, and it was empty, save for a figure seated by the dormant fireplace, shoulders hunched.

I closed the door behind me and took a seat across from him, slamming back against my chair. “Well,” I muttered, “we’re home.”

My brother’s eyes lifted to me, the festering misery in them equaling mine. “This isn’t home.”

I glanced around the room, my gaze lingering as old memories arose. I couldn’t deny I’d been happy here for a while. I’d fallen in love with Luther in this palace, found new friends and new strength in who I was. As Queen, these rooms had been my refuge.

But it had never been that way for Teller. He had been dragged here unwilling, an innocent bystander to my fate. This palace meant the death of our father, the destruction of home. Without Lily, his memories here only brought pain.

And after all that I’d changed, I had to admit, it didn’t feel much like home for me, either.

I dragged my hands over my face, trying to quell my still-blistering temper. “We can find you a place of your own after the war, but I’d rather you stay here until all this is over.”

He didn’t answer.

“Happy eighteenth birthday, by the way,” I said. “Sorry I missed it. I threw you a party on the island. Perthe and I gorged on cake and wine, then read a few textbooks in your honor until we passed out from boredom.”

He sat straight up. “Perthe survived?”

My heart dropped into my stomach. “No,” I rushed out. “I only meant—” I cringed at my stupid, careless joke. “I visited his grave every day. Talked to him about . . . everything. He kept me company.”

Teller’s expression shuttered. He drooped back over his knees, hands balling into fists. The room went quiet until fluttering wings and the click of talons on stone marked Sorae’s return to her perch. She peered inside an open arch at me, then at my brother, and let out a sympathetic whirr.

“I saw the Ignios King stab you,” Teller murmured. “I thought he killed you.”

“He tried to.” The mating mark burned. “I wasn’t ready to go yet.”