Page 81 of Burn of the Everflame

I seized his jaw. “None of that. We’ve got hours until the guards change shifts. I intend to make the most of every second.”

A gleam of lucid terror cut through his foggy gaze.

“I’m impressed,” I said. “You’ve done the impossible with my Queen. You took a heart that could see good even in the worst of men, and you made her feel . . .”

I trailed off. I wasn’t sure what Diem felt anymore. Her actions were nothing like the Diem I knew.

And when it came to us, I was . . . confused. One moment, she looked as if she wanted me to scoop her up and carry her away, and the next, I seemed to repel her. The walls I thought we’d overcome in Sophos were back in place, but they were riddled with holes that gave me glimpses at the wounded woman inside.

Seeing what the island did to Diem’s body had left me enraged, but the effects on her soul hit me in a darker way. My protective instincts had grown into a snarling, monstrous beast. A beast that wanted blood.

I pulled the Sword of Corbois from its sheath, then dug the tip of its blade into his chin. “For the crimes you have committed, Her Majesty the Queen of Emarion has condemned you to death. I suggest you say your final prayers.”

Hissing barbs of light skittered over his body, pausing beneath his fingernails, in his groin, in the curves of his ears—all the places a small wound might go unnoticed on a corpse. With his body so ravaged by the poison, I didn’t know how much more pain he could feel.

But I was eager to find out.

“Let my Queen’s justice begin.”

22

DIEM

The one thing I’d had in abundance on the island was solitude, so the sound of voices passing by my tent hauled me from sleep with a panicked jolt.

Morning light filtered through the canvas and illuminated the corners I hadn’t seen in the evening’s shadows. Two feet from the patch of ground I’d claimed as my bed lay a thick bedroll and a pile of warm blankets.

I groaned, rubbing my chest. It wasn’t just the early risers that had forced me awake—my mating mark was on fire. It throbbed as if it knew the choice I’d made and was screaming at me to change my mind. Though it had only been hours since I last felt Luther’s touch, the urge to lay my skin on his was almost impossible to resist.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I threw the flap open to see him slumped against my tent with eyes closed and Sorrow’s Edge tucked beneath his arm.

Even in sleep, he looked concerned. His handsome face was engraved with furrowed creases and a deep-set frown. His mortal clothes had been replaced with the armored uniform of the Royal Guard, though he’d removed all evidence of title and rank. He’d even removed the sigil of House Corbois, leaving only the crest of the Lumnos Crown stitched above his heart. His skin had been scrubbed clean and his hair trimmed, the loose strands brushing his jaw, where he’d kept his beard.

He looked every inch the powerful, intimidating Prince he was, but darker. Rougher.

I grabbed a blanket from the tent and draped it over his shoulders, careful not to wake him. A glint of gold in his hand caught my eye—the Meros compass, likely what he’d used to find me. The awareness that I was still the thing his heart desired most was the sweetest anguish.

The heaviness of my new reality weighed me down as I shuffled through the tents. Mortals tended the morning fires while others patrolled the shimmering barrier that enclosed the camp. With no food in sight, I rubbed my eyes and turned for the palace to raid their supplies on the mortals’ behalf.

“Whoa there!”

I jerked back a split second before crashing into a man carrying two steaming mugs.

“Sorry, my fault,” I mumbled. “I wasn’t looking⁠—”

My thoughts vanished as I met the golden-brown eyes, messy hair, crooked nose, and lips that once greeted me every day with a fond, lopsided smile.

Lips that, today, instantly dropped into a frown.

“Diem,” he said.

“Henri,” I breathed.

“I heard you were back. And I heard . . .” He glanced at my Crown, subtly mouthing the numbers as he counted the nine peaks. “Fuck . . . it’s true. You have them all.”

Not all. I touched my throat, where the ten-pointed star no longer branded my skin, though I kept the secret of its meaning to myself. I regretted that the trust between us had become so damaged, but his hatred of the Descended was a rift we might never cross.

“I thought you’d be with Vance,” I said.