Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
E verything was fire.
The glowing destruction was an infinite expanse. My skin, my clothes, my breath, my vision, my heart—all of it transformed into a searing, oppressive blaze that flooded the world in orange and red. The crackle of the flames turned deafening as I spun in search of a way out, finding only more fire, more fire, more fire .
It was as much inside me as on me and around me. My soul was smoldering, my spirit scorched. There was no “burning” and “not burning.” There was only the fire.
Everywhere, the fire.
And the strangest part was that it felt incredible .
There was no pain, no welts or blisters—only the most exquisite sensation of release. The flames burned away the tension in my muscles and melted the fear clutching my heart. I felt lightweight, liberated, unleashed from some long dormant cage. It was a carnal kind of pleasure that had me laughing, then gasping, then moaning.
I was a creature of the embers, fire incarnate, a living flame. If this was what it meant to burn, I wanted to burn forever.
Maybe I would. This was how I’d always envisioned eternity in the Everflame of the mortal religions. Perhaps I had died on that beach—a surprise attack by the Ignios King, thrusting me into the afterlife without warning. Perhaps the great sacred tree had found my soul worthy and was welcoming me into the warmth of the Undying Fire.
Perhaps my father would be here. He would wrap me into one of his loving hugs and tell me he had been watching me. That he was proud of me. Dying wouldn’t be so bad then. I missed him so much. So very, very much.
But when I walked deeper into the flames and gazed into my forever, a different man’s face stared back. One look at those blue-grey eyes, so aglow with concern, and I knew it was not my time.
Not yet.
He called out my name, the sound of it resonating deep inside me. He was so close...
Too close.
“I’ll burn you,” I protested. I backed away and moved deeper into the sea. The rolling tide rose to my chest, the flames gurgling beneath the water.
Luther didn’t relent, slowly following me into the waves, though his features twisted in pain.
“Go back,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It’s not—” He locked up, his body shuddering.
“Luther, please , stop, the flames are burning you!”
“They’re not. They won’t.” His voice was unwavering despite the discomfort written all over his face. He stretched out his hand. “Let me touch you.”
He was so confident, so staunchly certain. And he had never led me astray before.
Tentative, terrified, I walked toward him.
My fingers trembled as they curled around his. I scoured his reaction for any sign of pain, but my touch seemed to have the opposite effect. The tightness in his jaw, the strain in his muscles—it melted away the moment he folded me into his arms.
“Deep breaths,” he urged. “I’ve got you.”
I realized I was gasping with panic, heaving for air. I slumped against him and forced my lungs to slow until each breath matched the soft, steady rise of his chest.
“You’re mastering it so quickly,” he murmured into my hair, his tone full of pride. “Our clothes aren’t even burning.”
I glanced down. The fabric enrobing both our bodies was intact, soaked beneath the water but dry where it touched the flames.
“I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. “I shouldn’t be able to do this. I can’t be doing this.”
A vicious tremor rolled down my back. Luther slipped a hand behind my legs and lifted me, cradling me in his arms. I clung to his shoulders, head buried in his neck.
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.
He hesitated, then turned toward the beach. “We’ll find answers later. Right now, let’s go home.”
The Ignios guards had indeed seen us, but they had not run to confront us. Instead, they were waiting, watching—and casting a column of fire into the sky.
The flames reignited across my body as we emerged from the sea. The water had tempered the fire’s effects, but on dry land, it threatened to devour me whole.
I closed my eyes and wrestled against the urge to give in to its decadent release as Alixe and Taran joined us, their voices swirling in a flurry.
“What happened?”
“Is she being attacked? Is she hurt?”
“How is it not burning her? And why isn’t it burning you?”
“Her magic’s returning. She could be shielding.”
“Why aren’t the guards coming?”
“I don’t like the look of that fire pillar.”
“Neither do I.”
“We need to get to the border. Fast.”
“I’ll get her bag—you three go ahead.”
“I can walk,” I tried to protest, but it came out all flames.
I didn’t actually know if I could walk—or talk, or breathe, or do anything but burn .
Luther clutched me to his chest as they hurried down the beach. His muscles twitched beneath my touch, small grunts of effort catching in his throat.
“I can walk,” I said again, louder. I poured my focus into willing the combustion to subside, and the flames dimmed to a flickering halo.
Luther’s grip on me tightened. “Not yet,” he whispered into my ear. His throat bobbed. “I’m not ready to let you go.”
Shouting struck up in the distance behind us, then bootsteps, loud and steady. But not running—more like a march. Left, right, left, right. Growing louder and louder, nearer and nearer.
Thump, thump, thump .
No—not bootsteps.
Wings.
“Put me down,” I shouted. “ Put me down! ”
Luther set me on my feet, though his hands stayed fixed on my hips. I twisted in his arms to face Alixe.
“Go,” I yelled at her. “You have to go!”
Her eyes went wide. She looked up, scanning the sky, and I lunged forward to grab her arm. She flinched, then relaxed as my flames licked harmlessly around her.
“Remember what I said, Alixe. This is a battlefield, and I gave you a command.” My tone went hoarse and desperate. “Obey your Queen.”
She sagged, her expression tortured.
“What’s going on?” Luther demanded. His eyes darted between us. “What command?”
Taran caught up to us carrying my bag and my weapons. I turned to him with a fierce stare.
“The King is coming, but Alixe and I have a plan. I need you to trust me and go with her, Taran. She’ll tell you what to do when you’re there.”
He frowned but nodded, handing off my broadsword. Alixe gave me a hard look, then jerked her head toward the border, and the two of them took off running.
“Diem—” Luther started.
I faced him and curved a palm beneath his jaw. “Go with them. Please, Luther. Do this for me, I’m begging you.”
“Do what? Where are they going?”
“To Umbros. I ordered Alixe to save herself and Taran.” Fury tore across his features. I pressed a finger to his lips before he could protest. “They’ll only die if they stay. They can’t help me without magic, and neither can you. Luther, please, let the King take me—”
“Never,” he snarled, clutching my hand. “ Never .”
I knew my pleas were futile. As long as he drew breath, Luther would fight the gods themselves to stay at my side.
It didn’t matter—our time was up.
The King of Ignios had arrived.
The Ignios gryvern’s massive shadow passed over us as it flew low across the beach, the flames engulfing me fluttering in its wake. I gritted my teeth and pushed against the strange fiery urges, managing to win my body back and contain them in a circle at my feet.
Luther pulled his scimitar as we watched the King’s descent. Four guards sat behind him on the gryvern’s back, while the three from the watchpoint ran to join them.
Dismal odds. Deadly odds.
The gryvern slammed onto the beach with a spray of sand and seafoam. It whipped its dark-scaled head toward the sky, sending the golden chain at its neck jangling before it released an ear-splitting howl.
Its yellow eyes cut to me. The glow of dragonfyre built in its throat, smoke unfurling between its fangs as a rumble rolled from its chest.
It was a terrifying display—and a warning.
That it would defend its King. That it had to defend its King. Whether it wanted to or not.
And that was... curious.
The King leapt off the gryvern’s back, followed by his guards. Luther and I raised our blades.
“I’ve been looking for you,” the King drawled. “Many people have been looking for you.”
“I was captured by the Guardians during the attack on the island,” I called out. “I escaped, and they chased me into your realm. I assure you, I’m not here by choice.”
“What a dreadful story. How lucky that you escaped .” There was a serpentine edge to his voice, like poison given sound. “Why did you not ask for my assistance?”
“Under normal circumstances, a visit from another Crown would be unwelcome.”
“Indeed. But these are not normal circumstances.” His gaze lowered to the flames at my feet. “And you’re not just another Crown, are you?”
I swallowed.
He stroked a hand along his dark beard. “Why don’t you return with me to my palace, and we can discuss this further?”
Luther moved closer, his shoulder edging just slightly in front of mine.
“I need to get home,” I said. “My family must be worried.”
“Ah, yes... a mortal brother, isn’t that right? And a mortal mother who is now sitting in a Fortos prison for having planned that attack.”
I swallowed again.
“I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding. My mother would never... that is, once I’m home in Lumnos, I can—”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Luther moved further in front of me. “You don’t give her orders. This may be your realm, but she is still a Queen.”
The King’s eyes narrowed. “A Queen who is wanted for questioning by the Crowns of Emarion. An edict has been issued for her capture until those questions have been answered.”
Oh, that was bad .
My fiery corona flared in tandem with my apprehension. The King’s gaze snapped to me.
“I have questions of my own,” he said. “Beginning with how you’re wielding my flames.”
“She isn’t,” Luther answered. I looked at him in surprise. “One of your people is attacking her. She’s merely shielding herself in defense.”
The King cocked his head. “Oh? Is she shielding you, too?”
His hand whipped forward and launched a churning knot of flame at Luther’s chest. We both raised our palms in reflex, but only my shield appeared, shimmering in front of him a heartbeat before impact.
The King looked amused, his growing smile sending a prickle down the back of my neck.
“Luther, get behind me,” I warned.
He ignored my pleas, steeling his shoulders at the King. “You’re wasting your time, Ignios. You cannot defeat her. Your magic is a glimmer—hers is the sun.”
Normally Luther’s faith in me would send my heart careening, but the flameroot had only just begun to wear off. It could be hours, even days, before my magic grew to its full strength.
More concerningly, it wasn’t growing at all. Something was draining it at the source, shrinking it as quickly as it swelled. If this came down to a true firefight, I’d be extinguished in seconds. Even the quick burst of my shield had left me feeling unnervingly spent.
Perhaps the King saw the doubt on my face, because he advanced a few more steps and settled his gaze on me. “Come with me peacefully, and I’ll let your friend here live.”
I laid a hand on Luther’s back.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growled.
“He won’t kill me—I think,” I said quietly. “You can find me again with the compass. Come back with more soldiers.”
“There’s not enough time. I don’t...” His jaw ticked. “I’m not leaving you. Not until you’re safe.”
His fingers clenched around the hilt of his blade as he lifted it higher. “She’s not going anywhere,” he yelled across the beach. “And neither am I.”
“Very well.” Dark flames danced in the King’s orange-hued eyes. He waved a dismissive hand at his guards. “Take her. Kill him.”
My shouts of protest were lost in the arsenal that ensued. Spears, bolts, blades, balls—all of them forged in fire and tearing toward us without mercy. My shield flew up with a grunt of effort that pushed me back a step.
The attacks kept coming, round after round. Black curls of smoke wafted up as each volley dissolved, though fissures were already appearing in my glimmering dome.
“ Harder ,” the King demanded. “It’s seven of you against one half-breed. This should be done already.”
His guards intensified their efforts, their attacks turning shapeless and raw. Their aim moved up and down, left and right, a deadly dance of flame that forced me to build my shield wider, then taller, then thicker. Every change required more effort, more magic, that I simply didn’t have. The godhood thrashed inside me, desperate to escape the flameroot’s suffocating red haze.
I let out a cry as my chest began to hollow out. Luther pressed his forehead to my temple. “Dig deeper,” he said fiercely. “You’re more powerful than you know.”
The flames at my feet sputtered like a candle fighting a breeze. I clung to him as a web of cracks splintered across my shield. “It’s still too weak. I—I can’t...”
Luther’s fingers dug into my skin. “Haven’t I given enough?” he roared up at the sky, muscles trembling. “At least return my magic. Let me save her .”
The Ignios guards changed their attack, hammering their efforts on a single point in my shield. Their grueling assault felt as if it were burrowing past my defenses and worming beneath my very skin.
I had a minute—seconds, maybe.
There was one hope left. A lark, a prayer, a shot in the dark, an insane instinct that could be the final one I ever had.
I gazed up at Luther. My fingers trailed the white ridges of the scar from his temple, down his sculpted cheeks, across his lips. If this was where it all ended, I wanted him to be my final memory.
“Do you trust me?” I asked softly.
“With everything I am,” he vowed.
I gripped him by the shoulders and twisted until my back was to the guards. Luther’s eyes went round in dissent, but a squeeze of my hand stopped him still. I held his stare, and with a sigh, my shield crumpled and collapsed.
Luther’s face illuminated in a kaleidoscope of red and orange as the guards’ lethal attacks found their target. The flickering glow of the Ignios fire played along his furrowed brows, gleamed in his icy eyes, cast dancing shadows in the curve of his throat. It was terrifying, and yet more beautiful than words could honor. It burned the air from my lungs and left me gasping and breathless.
Tingling spread across my back. Scorch and snow, heat and hoarfrost, inferno and ice. It was neither painful nor pleasurable, yet both all at once—and somehow invigorating. Reenergizing.
My magic sparked back to life, burning brighter with every blow. As I turned, careful to keep Luther behind me, I no longer bothered to raise my shield. Though the guards’ strikes were still coming, they absorbed harmlessly into my skin.
The King looked deeply unsettled.
With a swing of his hand, a tidal wave of fire rose and crested a head above me. I threw out my arms and accepted its crushing fall with a smile.
He tried again with a cannon of flame shot directly into my chest. I laughed.
I laughed .
“What kind of shield is that?” he spat.
Honestly, his guess was as good as mine. It didn’t even feel like I was using my magic at all.
I had no idea how this was possible, but that had become my baseline state these days. My eyes, my body, my magic—none of it conformed to the Descended’s neat little rules. All I knew was that it was my best hope of getting us out alive.
“It’s the kind of shield you can’t destroy,” I crowed. “Let us leave, Ignios—while you still can.”
His lip curled back over his teeth. “You’re not leaving my realm, half-breed. If you refuse to fight like a Descended, then we’ll kill you like a mortal.”
A chorus of metal sang across the beach as weapons unleashed from the guards’ restraints.
I lifted my broadsword. “Ready, my Prince?”
Luther shifted to my side. “Always, my Queen.”
First came the long blades.
Though my father had trained me for all manner of battles, a sword was my weapon of choice. I preferred the distance it gave me from my opponent—the space to study their moves and read their tells. In a duel of long blades, the real adversary was my opponent’s mind. No matter their size or strength, if I could outwit them, I could outwin them.
We fought well together, Luther and I. He also favored a sword, and unlike me, he was used to fighting in a scrum. He adeptly swerved and side-stepped each attack, then cut them off as they tried to surround us. Through all of it, he never strayed far from my side, his watchful eyes always guarding my back.
But I was doing just fine. The fighting exhilarated me, galvanized me. It mended the cracks in my broken spirit. Were our lives not on the line, I dare say I might have been having fun .
Then came the short blades.
Here, the stakes were higher. Short blades required speed, dexterity, clever footwork, familiarity on the terrain—all areas where Luther and I were at a disadvantage in our worn-down state.
The Ignios guards were mostly women. Small and lithe, quick on their feet. They darted across the sand with ease while we staggered and slowed.
They began to land small blows. A cut here, a slice there. Nothing grave enough to bring us down, but enough to leave us bleeding and off-kilter.
They were coordinated, well-trained, efficient.
We were exhausted, injured, outnumbered.
But we had one thing in our favor. We wanted to live —and we fought like it, every swing of our swords fueled by a desperate will to survive.
And as it turned out, they wanted to live, too. They took few risks, retreated too quickly. I saw it in the annoyed glances they cast at their King, who lounged at his gryvern’s side, far from the melee. Whatever squabble he had with us, it was clear his guards did not deem it worth their deaths.
I needed some way to end this. The trickle of my returning magic had built to a shallow pool. If I used it wisely...
A break in the fighting dawned. I fell to my knees and slammed my palms to the sand, casting a barrier of blinding, silvery light.
Without saying a word, Luther understood my plan. He grabbed my hand, and we sprinted for the border.
“I’m almost drained,” I panted in warning. “I can’t hold them back much long—”
A shocked cry choked off my words as a wall of flame shot up at our feet. Though I felt only a tingle, Luther swore as the fire singed his sleeve, leaving a long red welt running up his arm.
The gryvern launched into the air behind us and flew overhead, setting down a few wingbeats later on the opposite end of the fire. The King sat tall on its back, smirking.
“Go,” Luther barked at me. “His magic can’t stop you, and he’s too much of a coward to fight you by hand. If you run, you can make it.”
My grip tightened on him. “I’m not leaving you.”
He looked at me, a dark defeat already carved into his features. “It’s too late for me. You have a world to lead, Diem. You have to go.” He pulled me in and pressed a hard, lingering kiss to my lips.
A kiss that felt a lot like a goodbye.
I shoved him off. “Not without you,” I hissed. “Together until the end, remember?”
His expression turned anguished, provoking a heavy knot of disquiet in my gut. “I believe in you, Diem. Don’t ever forget that.”
I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. “No, Luther, we can still fight—”
“Let me do this one last thing for you.” He caressed my cheek. “Go, my Queen. Live .”
“What’s the matter, Lumnos?” the King yelled mockingly. “Can’t your shield protect you?”
His smile curved wider and crueler, his eyes gleaming with the excitement of someone who had just unlocked a tricky riddle.
“Or is the problem—” He paused and raised a finger toward me as I braced for another assault. “—that it can’t protect him? ”
His finger twitched toward Luther, and a spear of flame lurched for my Prince’s heart.
“No,” I cried, throwing myself in its path. I gasped in relief as icy heat spread throughout my shoulder.
“I see,” the King chuckled. “Don’t bother with her. Set your blades on him.”
I tried to raise another flare of light to blind them. My magic guttered and went dark—along with the mysterious flames coating my body.
The King’s wall of fire began rolling forward. It licked at Luther’s back, forcing him closer to the guards. He was surrounded—and there was nothing I could do to help.
Luther looked at me, a farewell in his eyes. “I will always be with you, Diem. I—”
A blur of grey flashed in front of his face. We both froze—then another blur flew at his thigh and struck.
Luther grunted and clutched at his leg. A dark red stain bloomed around the handle of a throwing knife jutting from his flesh.
“Stop!” I yelled at the King. “I’ll give myself up. Spare him and take me!”
“Don’t you dare,” Luther snarled. He staggered toward me and shoved me hard just as another blade tore through his arm.
I careened through the King’s flames, the disorienting cold-hot sensation flushing through me as I fell to the sand. When my vision steadied, the King’s gryvern had arched its neck toward me. It watched me, blinking slowly.
Something stirred in my chest. A forgotten intuition, a memory you know exists but can’t quite recall. In the depths of the creature’s dark golden eyes, there was... not a message, exactly. Almost an emotion, as if—
Lightning splintered down from the darkening clouds, followed by a booming crack of thunder. Rain began to patter as the storm made landfall.
The sound of Luther’s pained growls stole my attention. The King’s fiery wall blocked him from my view, but the trail of blood in the sand told me enough.
“Call the guards off,” I pleaded with the King. “Let him pass safely into Umbros, and I’ll answer your questions.”
The King calmly surveyed Luther from his spot high atop the gryvern. “He’s fighting very hard for you. I don’t think he’s going to let you go without a fight.”
“Don’t do this. I’ll surrender, I’ll do anyth—”
“And even if I did, what’s to stop him from returning to save you? He’ll bring more of his friends to cause trouble in my realm.”
“Please, please , I’m begging you—”
“As long as he lives, he’s going to be a thorn in my side.” He gave a drawn-out sigh that dripped with feigned sympathy. “This is better, in the end. A nice, quick death, so you and I can talk undisturbed.”
He raised a palm toward Luther. I launched off the sand, hurling myself through the fire and praying I wasn’t too late.
The flames blinded me for a moment—then Luther was there, his head turning toward me as I screamed his name.
He had no time to notice the Fortosian steel dagger spearing straight for his heart.