Page 34 of Burn of the Everflame

His lips, grey and cracked with blackish blood, curled high. “The Lumnos bitch is dead. And I’m the one who killed her.”

10

LUTHER

Ahigh-pitched ringing filled my ears. The room darkened to a moonless, starless night. Distantly, I heard the urgent wail of a gryvern’s cry, but I thought only of the spinning compass in my hand. Spinning and spinning, with no stop in sight.

Not because the compass couldn’t find her.

Because there was nothing left to find.

“Ignios, no,” Arboros breathed. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Blessed Kindred, what have you done?”

Meros gaped at Sophos. “Doriel, is this true?”

Sophos grimaced. “After the ritual, Ignios came to my realm to cure his godstone wound. He was covered in fresh blood.” They swallowed. “He said that he stabbed Diem and watched her die.” They looked to me, then to Auralie, face full of pity. “I’m sorry. This was never my plan.”

I closed my eyes.

With every ounce of my being, I longed to deny it. But I’d seen it, and so had Teller. The figure, robed in white, holding a blade. Diem, collapsing to the ground.

The things I’d hung my faith on—the compass, the dreams, the feeling of her in my chest . . . it had all been a lie. My heart had painted hope where none was left.

My shredded, ruined heart.

If she was gone, then so was I. She was my light, my world, my salvation, my purpose. My everything. Without her, all that was left for me was . . .

Vengeance.

The world blurred, and suddenly the Ignios King’s frail, poisoned body was pinned beneath me. His throne lay in broken pieces around us. My hands wrapped around his neck and squeezed, savoring the weak thump of his pulse as it raced in terror, then slowed to a crawl.

He didn’t have a chance. With no strength left in his limbs, he twitched like a beached trout gasping for air. The stench of festering wounds—his—and burnt flesh—mine—filled my nose as his flames scorched my hands in an effort to fight me off.

I didn’t bother to shield. The pain of my blistering skin was nothing compared to the agony of her loss.

My godhood roared to be unleashed, but I held it back. It would kill him with a single blow, and I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to bleed until not a drop was left in his veins. I wanted to torture him in the cruelest, most horrific ways, then wait for him to heal so I could do it all over again.

His death would come for what he’d done to her. I swore it as an oath to her memory.

His suffering was for what he’d done to me.

A blast of wind slammed into my side and threw me off him. The Crowns had circled around me, and nearly every Descended in the room had raised their palms in my direction. Only Alixe and Eleanor held back, the latter weeping and holding the hand of a shell-shocked Auralie as Alixe frantically herded the mortal women toward the door.

I had broken the cease-fire.

I had ruined any chance of a truce.

I’d signed my own death warrant.

And I didn’t fucking care.

My shield glimmered into a dome over myself and the Ignios King. As I stood back over him, a barrage of magic pummeled its walls. Against this many powerful Descended, it wouldn’t hold for long.

Find her, my godhood bellowed.

“She’s gone,” I mumbled.

Find her, it said again, more insistent. Free her. Save her. Touch her.