Page 77 of Burn of the Everflame

The cloak of curling shadows I’d been wearing like a shield turned to mist, leaving me exposed. The scabbard I’d leashed to my waist with a length of Arboros vine thumped to the floor. On the pier, I had burned my clothes and washed my body in an attempt to leave behind the me I’d become on the island, but it ran deeper than what was visible on my skin.

I couldn’t run from it. I had to lay myself bare and trust that Luther’s love wouldn’t falter.

I gathered my hair over my shoulder to hide the mating mark. There were things I needed to say before revealing that cherished, most beautiful truth.

Luther’s footsteps returned to the bedroom and stopped. I felt the burn of his gaze as he took in my weakened body and pallid skin. The urge to turn and run to him warred with the sinister creep of old, irrational fears. What if this changes how he sees me? What if I’m too broken to be loved?

His footsteps struck up again, growing louder. The possessive caress of his aura enfolded me, and all my doubts disappeared. This was my Luther. My heart, my champion, my advisor, my lover, my friend, my Prince. He had seen me broken before, and it had only made us stronger.

I saw the futures that did not come to pass, Lumnos had told me. There was not a single one in which he did not love you.

He stopped behind me. His fingers trailed tender paths up my arms, and his lips pressed to my shoulder. My head turned toward him as he softly kissed my neck, then my cheek, then my temple. His left hand splayed against my waist, pulling me against the steady, solid strength of his body. His other hand gently pried Sorrow’s Edge from my grip.

He started to set it aside, then hesitated, holding it up to the firelight. “It’s talking.”

“You can hear the voice?”

He nodded. “But I can’t understand what it’s saying.”

The smoky grey stone embedded in the center of its blade filled with a pale glow. I reached up to touch it, but the second my thumb brushed across its glassy surface, a jolt of searing pain shot through my hand. Luther jerked the sword out of my reach.

“That’s heartstone,” I gasped. Hours ago, I’d felt the same sting from its counterpart on Coeurîle.

My mind began to work. Whenever the Crowns used the heartstone, they shed their blood on it first. Embedding the heartstone into a sword made it the perfect tool to draw the blood needed to invoke its magic—but it was this sword’s wielder, not its intended target, who had planned to cast the spell.

“Did the sword belong to Ophiucae?” Luther asked.

“His mother,” I said absently, distracted by my thoughts. “She was going to use it to kill him.”

“And her daughter used it to kill her instead.” He hummed. “A tragic story.”

“No, Ophiucae was the one who killed their mother.”

Luther raised a brow. “That’s not what he said.”

My Sophos magic prickled as memories rose from earlier that day.

Be careful, Ophiucae had said. Its last owner ended up with its blade through her heart. Put there by her very own daughter.

Her daughter.

A female Kindred: Arboros, Ignios, Meros, Montios, Lumnos.

Lumnos was the only one of us he had any fondness for, so she was tasked with luring him to the island while our mother completed the spell. Mother asked the rest of us to stay away.

According to Sophos, Lumnos was the only other person there when their mother died.

Lumnos, who couldn’t bear to meet my eyes when the other Kindred spoke of their mother’s death.

“She lied,” I whispered. “She told them their brother killed their mother. It was her.”

“Who lied?” Luther asked, but I was miles away.

Why would Lumnos kill her mother? Perhaps to save her brother—but she’d been as adamant as the others that he was a danger. Their mother hadn’t wanted to kill him, either. To save her family, she’d been willing to do anything . . .

My heart stopped.

Heartstone magic requires more than skill.