Page 52 of Burn of the Everflame

Then everything changed.

It crashed into me at once. The howl of my writhing godhood, enraged and tearing at my chest to get out. My gryvern bond, overwhelming me with waves of panic and confusion and sadness and fury.

And the mating bond.

I’d never felt its effects uninhibited by the island’s power. What I had felt had been a misery to endure, but I wondered now if that had been my own pathetic loneliness. As the full weight expanded through my chest, it hit me that this . . . gods, this was the bond.

My skin was aflame, crawling with an itch only his touch would soothe. I staggered forward another few steps, pulled by an unexplainable draw toward the Lumnos coast that I knew, in my heart, was a call to him—to my mate, to the man that I loved.

In my stupor, my foot caught on a plank, and I tumbled to my knees. The sword clattered over the side of the dock, splashing into the Sacred Sea’s cerulean depths.

I swore and crawled to the edge—then drew in a sudden breath. In the reflection of the water’s surface, a glowing, nine-peaked Crown hovered over my head. The circlet was woven with dark thorny vines curled around blooming flowers and shards of ice. Flames danced among smoke and crashing waves, while sparks flickered over veins tangled with writhing snakes. All of Emarion’s realms—or at least all its Descended—were represented in its chaotic beauty.

All but one.

My focus shifted to my face. My features were sunken and dark, my sallow skin as stained with dirt as my tattered clothes. Dried blood and grime had turned my matted hair a sickly beige. But my eyes . . .

Beneath their smoke-grey hue, a fire raged.

As if stoked from within, flames engulfed me. I curled a hand around my golden pendant to protect it as my clothes blackened and fell to ash. Water rose from the sea and swept over my body, refreshingly cool, then combed like fingers through my hair. What lingering filth the fire’s cleansing heat had not burned, the salt from the waves scrubbed away.

When my magic subsided, I was fully bare, but I was clean for the first time in weeks.

And I was ready.

I held my hands over the sea. From the dark abyss, my fallen sword floated to the surface, now mysteriously sheathed inside its gleaming golden scabbard. Icy limbs took shape and lifted the blade from the water, carefully placing it in my waiting palms.

I walked to the end of the pier, lifted my chin, and issued my first command as Queen of Emarion.

“Sorae, come.”

15

LUTHER

The red-tipped wings of Ophiucae’s gryvern looked like bloody godstone blades as he came into focus.

“Make way for the Mortals’ Champion,” Vance shouted. To our surprise, the mortals retreated, leaving a wide stretch of open land between their lines and ours.

I caught Alixe’s gaze. Though she hid it well, her worry surfaced in her tense stance and bloodless lips. She had never faced Ophiucae before. She knew I had, and she seemed to be searching my reaction for a clue of our looming fate.

I gave her the respect of an honest answer with my grave, deep-cut frown. Our “victory” in Sophos had been anything but. Without Diem persuading Ophiucae to leave, it would have ended in all our deaths.

And today, even five Crowns, six gryverns, half the Emarion Army, and the entire Lumnos Royal Guard might not be enough to make up for her absence.

The wrought iron gate rattled in my hands as Ophiucae’s gryvern hit the ground, joined soon after by the Sophos, Meros, Arboros, and Faunos Crowns atop their gryverns. Sorae stayed skybound in a menacing circuit around the palace.

I’d forgotten how much they looked alike, Ophiucae and my Diem. His ice-white hair was wavy and wild, like hers, and there was no mistaking him as the source of her dark grey eyes. Even his silvery, glowing silhouette reminded me of the way her warm sienna skin had lit up like the moon when her power unleashed in full at the Challenging.

“If it isn’t my siblings’ favored few,” Ophiucae said. “At last, we all finally meet.”

Siblings?

“We’ve been wanting to speak,” Doriel called out. “We sent messengers to find you.”

He chuckled darkly. “How strange. I’m sure I sent them back.”

“Without their heads,” the Meros King muttered.