Page 272 of Burn of the Everflame

I hesitated, and the woman spoke again. “There’s a child aboard, and her father—from Meros. If you won’t take us, I beg you, take them.”

Sorae snarled another plume of fire to light the night, and I spotted Drusila, the Centenary who had spoken up in my defense in Umbros. It was her child, I realized, and the Meros mate she’d told me about when we first met.

I motioned for them to dock, acutely aware of the murmured complaints from the Lumnos guards behind me. The Umbros Descended had a long and storied history as the least trusted people in Emarion. Even the Guardians were a more preferable bedmate—at least when they hurled a bomb your way, you could run. The Centenaries could make you smile while you sliced your sword through your own belly.

“Thank you,” Drusila breathed when I caught their line and tied them off. “You have no idea what we’ve been through, Your Majesty. After the first attack, we thought we understood what we were facing, but this . . .” She lowered the gangway and began to cross it. “It’s so much worse than we⁠—”

I held up a hand to stop her. “Your child can stay here. So can your mate.”

The blood drained from her face, sunburnt and smudged with dirt. Her hair was tangled with wind-blown knots, her scarlet armor soiled and reeking of filth. She gestured urgently for the man holding the baby to come forward.

He shook his head. “We’re not leaving you.”

“It’s the only place she’ll be safe,” she said softly.

The man looked at me without moving. “Diem—that’s your name?”

“Call her Your Majesty,” Drusila insisted.

He held my gaze. “I’m not speaking to you as a subject to a Queen. I’m speaking to you as one mate to another.” His voice lowered. “You’re a stranded mate, isn’t that right? That’s what they saw in your head?”

“That’s none of your business,” I snapped.

“I know,” he said quickly. “I’ve had all my own secrets taken by them, too. They can’t help themselves. They think they’re doing you a favor by setting them free. Drusila told me I’d get used to it.” He gave a hesitant smile. “Never did. Keeping secrets used to make me feel like I had some control over the world, you know? A secret was something no one could take from me until I was ready to let it go. Had to learn the hard way the world can take everything from you, so you might as well give up the secrets and hold on to the people instead.”

He walked to Drusila’s side and swept his fingers over the mating mark on her wrist before threading his fingers with hers. “I hear you know how it feels to be kept apart from your mate. You know what it does to a person.”

I crossed my arms, saying nothing.

“If what I’ve heard is true,” he went on, “I think you also know what it does to a daughter to be separated from her mother.” He passed the swaddled infant to Drusila and came to the edge of the gangway. “I know the Centenaries’ reputation. I also know they’ve earned it. But they don’t deserve to die. If you turn them away, they don’t stand a chance.”

“Take your child and come to land,” I ordered.

“Not without my mate.”

“I’m your Queen,” I reminded him.

“Please, Diem—Your Majesty⁠—”

“If you want my help, then take your child and come to land.”

Drusila rushed forward and pushed the baby against his chest. “Take her. Keep her safe. Nothing matters more than that.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Remember, my love. No tide so deep . . .”

“’Sila,” he whispered.

“Finish it,” she said.

His lip trembled. “No wind so swift.”

“No sea so deadly.” She paused, awaiting his answer, but he hung his head in silence. She kissed the babe atop its head, then placed a hand against his forearm. Beneath his tattered sleeve, a golden glow burned bright. “No sea so deadly,” she repeated, “that it will keep my heart from yours. I’ll find my way to you both. In this life, or the next.”

She gently urged him forward, and he stepped onto the dock. “You’re Queen of Umbros, too, aren’t you?” he said to me. “Isn’t it your duty to protect them?”

“It’s my duty to protect all of my people.” I glanced at Symond. “From every threat.”

Despite the darkness, Symond’s oil-black eyes seemed to shine with hateful light. Whatever reasons he had to despise me, they’d only deepened with time.

“Follow her,” I told the Meros man, pointing at Alixe. “She’ll see that you and your daughter get what you need.”