Heat of the Everflame (The Kindred’s Curse Saga #3)

Chapter 6

Chapter

Six

I was drowning again.

Just like before, I was pinned in place, my arms and legs trapped at my side. Liquid splashed across my face, then my nose pinched shut and a hand clamped across my lips to keep them closed.

“Swallow,” a familiar voice commanded.

My eyes flew open. I instinctively jerked against my restraints as every thought washed from my mind except the fight-or-flight of looming death. As I strained to get free, I heard the jangle of chains and felt the cold bite of metal against my wrists.

“We’ve been through this before,” the voice said. “Stop fighting and swallow.”

My eyes darted to its owner. A few inches away, Cordellia watched with impassive resolve.

“You need the liquids, Diem,” she said bluntly. “If you don’t drink, you’re going to pass out again, and next time, you might not wake up.”

Perhaps knowing her words were too close to the truth, my throat involuntary forced the bitter, flameroot-tainted liquid down. The thrum of magic in my chest sputtered and disappeared, leaving me hollow once more.

Cordellia nodded, and the hands covering my face released me.

“Was that really necessary?” I rasped in between gasps for air to relieve my aching lungs.

“Yes,” she snapped, giving me a hard look that challenged me to deny it. “Are you going to take the next drink willingly, or do we need to go for round two?”

I laid in silence for a moment, panting and giving my overwhelmed mind a moment to recognize that I was not, in fact, drowning to death at the bottom of the Sacred Sea.

Last I could remember, I was in the clearing, fighting Vance as he tried to steal my blood. Then Sorae had arrived with Luther and fighting had broken out, and then...

The ballista .

My heart began to pound in my ears.

“Did you kill them?” I whispered. “My gryvern and my...” I trailed off, still unable to find the words to describe what Luther had become to me.

“Eight of my people died. Another twenty have serious burns.” Disdain dripped from Cordellia’s voice. “I should keep the answer from you and let you suffer the way their families are suffering.”

“I begged you to stop that attack. And when you refused, I called off my gryvern and sent away the deadliest Descended in Emarion before he cut you all to shreds.” I rolled my head toward her with a harsh, bitter laugh. “Your people aren’t dead because of me, Cordellia. They’re dead because of you .”

One of her men rammed a foot into my ribs, knocking me off the log I was sprawled on and sending me tumbling face-first into the ground.

I groaned and clutched my side, sharp pain rocketing through me with every inhale. None of the Guardians made any effort to help me. Even Cordellia remained still as she watched me writhe in pain on the forest floor, arms crossed over her chest.

I flopped onto my back, hacking and wincing. “White asterberry,” I croaked out.

Cordellia cocked her head. “What?”

“Grind the stems into a paste and spread it on the burns.” I coughed again and swore at the burst of pain, then forced the rest out through clenched teeth. “Speeds healing and wards off infection. It’s a five-petaled flower with a purplish center. Usually grows on riverbanks.”

She said nothing at first, watching me with an unreadable look while I scowled back. Finally, she glanced at a clump of three Guardians and jerked her chin. “Go, but don’t give it to the wounded until I test it on myself first.”

They nodded and scurried off.

I looked her over. “You were burned in the attack?”

“No.” I arched a brow at her response, and she narrowed her eyes. “I’ll give myself a burn on the campfire and test it.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “You really distrust me that much?”

She didn’t answer.

With considerable effort and several grunts of pain, I pushed myself upright and gingerly leaned back against the log. Cordellia crouched at my side and held out a large flask. “Drink.”

I stared down at her hand, then glared back up at her, locking my jaw.

Cordellia sighed. “I guess we’ll do this the hard way.” She gestured for her people to grab me.

“No—stop,” I shouted, snatching the flask from her hands. “Fine. I’ll drink it.”

“All of it,” she ordered. “Spill even a drop, and I’ll have you held down again so fast your head will spin.”

I bit back a slew of snide comments and started to raise the flask to my lips, but my hands were shaking uncontrollably from a combination of my pitiful physical condition and my terror over Sorae and Luther’s fates. I genuinely wasn’t sure I could drink without making a mess of myself, and I wasn’t willing to bet that her threat had been an empty one.

I squeezed my fingers around the flask and willed them to steady, desperately trying to conceal just how weak I had become. The effort was futile—my head lolled, and my vision began to blur and darken as I fought to stay conscious.

The sounds of movement followed, and I felt the warmth of a body sit beside me. Cordellia plucked the flask from my quivering hands and raised it to my lips.

I was too mortified to look her in the eyes as I tilted my head back and took a long drink. She looked amused as my face twisted at the acrid taste. Even after ten years of daily doses, I had never quite grown used to the flameroot’s flavor, like drinking liquid ash.

She brought the flask up again, and I pressed my lips shut. She shot me a hard look. “Diem...”

“Did you kill them?”

Her expression gave away nothing, her face cold and unmoved.

My eyes began to burn with the spring of fresh tears, and I blinked furiously to fight them back. I could not allow these people the satisfaction of seeing me break.

“Did you kill them?” I hissed.

“No,” she admitted. “Our bolt missed, and they both got away.”

My head fell back against the log, relief overwhelming my senses. I still couldn’t be certain Luther was safe. I’d watched two arrows pierce his flesh—if either of them were godstone, he could be dead already.

But there was hope. And hope was worth cherishing until the very last breath.

“Drink, Diem.”

My hands steadied with a bit of renewed strength, and I took the flask and began to drink.

As I did, I stole a few glances at my new surroundings. There were tents in every direction and a ring of stones that I presumed to be a sparring circle. A large campfire burned nearby, and a row of firepits held bubbling pots and skewers of small game roasting on spits. The air was full of voices talking, weapons clanking, and the general sounds of life. A handful of Guardians stood around me, but countless more milled about in the background, their brown eyes casting furtive, hate-filled glances my way as they passed.

Mercifully, I was no longer naked, now dressed in plain mortal garb. The simple leather breeches and linen tunic were so similar to the clothes I’d worn every day before becoming Queen. The familiarity of it was unexpectedly comforting—a reminder of who I was and what I was fighting for.

They had moved me deeper into the forest, the meadow nowhere in sight. The vegetation was far denser and overgrown, shrouded from any spying gryverns that might fly overhead and likely far enough from any road so we wouldn’t be stumbled on by hunters or passing travelers.

The perfect location for a rebel settlement.

When I’d emptied the flask, Cordellia clasped her hands together and leaned forward, forearms resting on her knees. “You used your magic. That wasn’t supposed to be possible.”

“I’m full of unexpected surprises,” I said dryly.

Like still being alive , I thought to myself.

“We found several days’ worth of food buried in holes at the tree you were chained to.” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m guessing that soil has been watered with a few mugs of flameroot tea, as well?”

I glared at her in response.

She chuckled softly. “You’re definitely Auralie’s daughter.”

The comment flooded me with a jumble of pride, anger, resentment, and worry, a reflection of the complicated feelings I’d developed toward my mother during her long absence.

Cordellia waved over a woman who stood nearby with a large burlap pouch.

The woman held the satchel to her chest in obvious reluctance to turn it over. “With all due respect Mother Dell, she wasted food our people needed. Our stocks are hard enough to maintain. If she wants to starve herself, we should let her.”

The others murmured their agreement.

Cordellia gave me a heavy stare that said she wasn’t entirely opposed, then shook her head and looked up at the mortals. “This woman assisted with the attack on the island, and a mission she helped with in Lumnos is the reason many of you have fine Descended weapons right now.”

I flinched at her description. I didn’t want credit for either attack, and had I known the whole truth, I wouldn’t have gone along with any of it—but I supposed now wasn’t the time for semantics.

“She’s also a Descended Queen who can give Guardians safe harbor in her realm,” Cordellia continued. “Shall we let her die for spite, or shall we remember our mission and do everything we can to save the lives of our people?”

The woman’s face flushed. “Yes, of course, Mother Dell. Anything for our people.” She shot me a fleeting scowl and chucked the sack at my feet, then spun on her heel and walked off.

“Thanks so much, Sister,” I called out to her with exaggerated sweetness. The woman responded with a middle finger raised over her shoulder that had me unexpectedly smirking. “I like her.”

“I don’t think the feeling is mutual,” Cordellia muttered.

I grabbed the pouch and opened it to find a loaf of hard bread along with several strips of dried meat. It was cold, simple fare, but after nearly a week without eating, even a plate of boot leather would have had my mouth watering. I raised the pouch to my nose, pleased to find no trace of the flameroot’s distinctive odor. My stomach growled its approval, and I tore into the food with a fervor that was borderline embarrassing.

“No more drugged food?” I asked between bites.

“No. But from now on, I’m going to sit and personally watch while you drink each dose. You’re a little old to need a nursemaid, but apparently, I have no choice.”

“Looking forward to it. Feel free to take up my bad manners with my mother when you see her.”

Her mouth tightened at my sarcastic bite. “Am I right to assume from the way that man looked like he was ready to cut down the gods themselves that he and the gryvern will be back very soon?”

“The gryvern won’t. I commanded her to stay away. The man...” My appetite faltered, and my hands lowered to my lap. “He will.”

“And I suppose he won’t come alone next time, will he?”

I debated my answer. Perhaps in her mind, she envisioned him returning with the entire Emarion Army at his back. That wasn’t Luther’s style, and I had to hope he would know me well enough not to bring the wrath of the Fortos King down on a group of mortals for my benefit. But I also feared the trap she might set if she expected him to return alone.

“He’ll do whatever it takes to free me,” I said carefully. Let her take from that what she would.

She gave a weary sigh and looked up at the remaining Guardians. “We’ll need to move the camp. Start spreading the word, and have everyone begin packing things up.” They nodded and dispersed.

We sat alone together in silence for several minutes while I devoured the rest of the food. When I finished, Cordellia secured a second set of chains through the shackles at my wrists and wrapped them tightly around the fallen log.

“You’ll have to find a new place to tie me up so you can lure in the people I care about and murder them,” I said bitterly.

She took a seat on the grass in front of me. “You’ve only just been coronated, and you already care that deeply about a Descended man and the Crown’s gryvern?”

The snap of disapproval in her voice suggested she couldn’t imagine ever caring for anyone from the Descended world. I’d felt that way myself not that long ago—and likely still would, had a Crown not appeared from thin air above my head.

“You’re the leader here,” I said. “Do you have people who are loyal to you beyond all reason? Who believe in you so much they would take on certain death merely because you asked?”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I do.”

“Then how would you feel if I chained you up, waited until they came to save you, then butchered them while making you watch?”

She shifted her weight, visibly uncomfortable at my insinuation. “That gryvern is a beast, not a person.”

“ That gryvern has more humanity in her heart than most humans I’ve met, including some Guardians. Which reminds me—” I smirked. “—how is Vance?”

A strange expression flickered across her face, there and gone too quickly for me to decipher. “He’s recovering. His arm is in bad shape. I’m not sure how much use he’ll have of it when it heals.”

I expected to feel some righteous justice at that news. After all, Vance had hardly bat an eye at slicing me open and watching me bleed.

But I was Descended—I would heal, while Vance would carry the scars of this wound for the rest of his life. I could not bring myself to find happiness at a mortal’s suffering. Even his.

“I can examine him,” I offered. “I’m a healer. My mother trained me herself. I’ll tend to him and the other wounded, if you’d like.”

She looked startled at the offer. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Diem. It’s going to be hard enough as it is to keep my people from trying to take their revenge on you. If any of them die under your care, even if it’s beyond your control, I fear there will be a mob even I cannot stop.”

I bristled. “Revenge on me? I didn’t wound them. I sent my gryvern away.”

“Be that as it may, you’re the only Descended in this camp, and my people were killed by a Descended beast. They want their pound of flesh, and they’ve no one else to take it from.”

I drooped back against the log. I’d agreed to cooperate in the hopes that I might earn the mortals’ trust. Instead, I’d made enemies of them simply by existing.

“What happened between you and Vance back in Lumnos?” she asked. “I can tell there’s no love lost there.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He told me his side.” She tilted her head. “I want to hear yours.”

I studied her for a long moment, weighing the wisdom of giving her the full truth. After watching her lead the siege against Luther and Sorae, I had a hard time believing I could trust her, as Brecke had urged me to do. Then again, she was a friend of my mother. That had to count for something , and there was an earnestness in her expression that gave me a flicker of hope.

So I told her—about the murder of the boy and his mother that had driven me to join the Guardians, about my missions for Vance, and about my reservations about his merciless methods that treated everyone, even children, as expendable sacrifices. I told her how I’d fled from him the night of the armory attack, and how it had earned me his ire before I took my Crown—and how I’d cemented that hatred when I’d thwarted his attack at the Ascension Ball by sending the mortals home without bloodshed.

“But even before I joined the Guardians,” I said once I’d finished, “Vance and his men were suspicious of me. I think he never trusted me because of who my father was.”

“More likely because of who your mother is,” she mumbled, almost too quietly to hear.

“My mother?” I frowned. “I thought she and Vance were friends.”

There it was again—that fleeting, curious look on Cordellia’s face.

She schooled her features back to disinterest. “They worked very closely. He’s been a member of the Guardians nearly as long as she has, and his loyalty to the cause is beyond question. It’s why she chose him as her second. They were... are ... dedicated colleagues.”

She stopped abruptly, and it seemed as if there was more she wanted to say. Perhaps out of wariness of me or loyalty to my mother, she held her tongue, and I decided not to push further. I knew well the burden of carrying my mother’s secrets. I could not fault her for staying silent when I still guarded so many of them myself.

“Diem,” she said after a moment, “do you still consider yourself a Guardian?”

I shrugged. “It hardly matters. We both know the Guardians will never welcome me now.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she said curtly. “I heard you call yourself a Sister when you first arrived. Did you mean that?”

I looked down, chewing on my lip. Though I wanted to answer her honestly, the truth was a complex thing.

“I agree with the Guardians’ mission—helping the mortals, ending the injustices,” I began slowly, choosing my words with care. “I’d happily shatter this Crown, if it meant the end of Descended rule. Whatever good intentions the Kindred might have had in giving control of the continent to their children, their experiment did not work. Power has corrupted them.”

She nodded approvingly. I took a deep breath before rushing through my next words.

“But I don’t agree that we should imitate the Descended to defeat them. We shouldn’t slaughter innocents or punish people because of their blood. The truly guilty must pay, of course, but...” I paused and looked back up at her. “I expected the Descended to be soulless and incapable of kindness, because that’s what I was taught. I never imagined I would discover good people. Compassionate people. People who disagree with the mortals’ treatment. As I got to know them, some have become my friends, my advisors...”

I choked on my words as I thought of what Luther, Taran, Alixe, Eleanor, Lily, and even Perthe had come to mean to me. The loyalty they had shown, even when I’d returned it with distrust. The faith they had in my vision for a new, better world.

“It’s easy to condemn injustice when you’re safe behind palace walls,” Cordellia clipped. “Without action, their compassion might as well be indifference. Good intentions don’t save lives.”

“They should have done more,” I agreed. “And we are right to demand they do more now. But is that a crime worthy of death? Some Guardians will never be satisfied until every last Descended is in a grave. I refuse to accept that as our solution.”

Cordellia ran a hand over the long, thin braids cascading over her shoulders, her expression turning thoughtful. “I admit, I have seen potential for our kind to make peace. You’re not the first Descended that has helped us. There are... others . Some in surprisingly high positions.”

“Higher than a Queen?” I teased.

She didn’t respond, staring off into the forest, lost in her thoughts.

Eventually she rose to leave. I reached out a hand to stop her, though my wrist jerked back as my chains came up short. “I need to get back to Lumnos, Cordellia.”

“If you’re seen there, our attempts to trade you for your mother will be ruined.” She shot me a disapproving stare. “I thought you were willing to do whatever it takes to save her?”

“Of course I am. But...” I scrubbed my hands over my face and sighed, feeling suddenly unsure.

“The palace in Lumnos is secured with bloodlocks that can only be opened by the blood of the Crown and their—” I caught myself before the full truth slipped out—that my brother’s blood would have the same effect. “Vance now has my blood, and he wants them all dead. He’ll sneak in and kill them while they sleep.” I scowled. “ You might not take issue with that, but—”

“I am not Vance,” she cut in. “I do not target innocent people.”

“You were happy to target the two who came to save me.”

“That gryvern has murdered countless mortals over the centuries.”

“Not by choice,” I shot back. “The Crowns ordered those deaths.”

She cocked her head. “Was it not her choice to kill my people today—or did you order those deaths yourself?”

The words struck like a blow. Luther had warned me of this once.

Gryverns are loyal to their Crown, but they can act of their own will. If you fear someone, or even dislike them strongly, she might take their life in an effort to please you.

Despite the blame I’d hung on Cordellia’s shoulders earlier, Sorae had killed those mortals for me—to protect me, to avenge me, to please me. All of them would be alive now, if not for me.

More blood to repay, more corpses to bury.

I clenched my jaw as frustration rose. “And what of the Descended man who came for me? Was he not innocent?”

“You mean Prince Luther?” Cordellia’s expression soured. “Oh yes, I know who he is. The late King’s favorite disciple, the man responsible for executing the half-mortal children. His apparent fondness for you does not erase his many crimes.”

I started to defend him, then my lips snapped shut. Luther’s secrets were his to share, not mine, and if my mother had not seen fit to tell Cordellia that she and Luther were working together to protect those children, perhaps there was a reason.

“ The point ,” I growled, “is that the royals may be spoiled, but most of them are no killers. There are only a few who deserve Vance’s brand of justice.”

In truth, I wasn’t sure any of them did. Though I despised Garath and Remis for good reason, they’d known of my desires to protect the mortals, and they’d stood by me—begrudgingly, and out of self-interest, but they’d done it. I had not yet witnessed them turn their savagery on anyone but me, and I was not so petty that I was ready to see them butchered in their sleep for it. Not yet, anyway.

And Aemonn... I had seen both kindness and cruelty in him. His appointment by Remis as Keeper of the Laws put him at a crossroads between the hatefulness of his father and the good I believed him capable of. I couldn’t be certain which path he was going to choose.

There were certainly Descended whose deaths would lose me no sleep—namely, the leaders of House Hanoverre—but among House Corbois, I could not fairly condemn any of them to execution at Vance’s hand.

I raised my chin higher. “I am the Queen of Lumnos. The Guardians may think me a fake queen on an unearned throne, but I take my duty to protect my people seriously. I have to get back before anyone is slaughtered—mortal or Descended.”

Cordellia gave me a sober look. “Even if doing so costs your mother her life?”

My shoulders sagged. I had no answer. I could only pray I wouldn’t be forced to make that choice.

Her eyes roved over me in solemn silence, and then she turned to walk away. “I’ll think on it.”

“Cordellia, please—”

“I said I’ll think on it,” she called out without stopping. “Vance is still recovering here, so for now, your people are safe. I only wish I could say the same for mine.”