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

Chapter 61

Chapter

Sixty-One

To my heir,

If you are reading this, you now bear my Crown. Blessed Mother Montios has spoken to me of our fates, and I am at peace with the sacrifice I must make. I pray you find the same peace with yours.

I leave you this note for two reasons. First, a plea: guard our people well—for they are now yours as surely as they have been mine. Teach them as much as you learn from them. What you give, they will return in kind.

Second, a message from the Blessed Mother. I know not what it means, only that it is essential you heed these lines:

Eleven must fall for one to rise.

Share the gift to pay the cost.

A dying star will rekindle the spark.

What is forgotten is not lost.

Remember my sister’s words.

Beware my brother’s wrath.

Good luck, Daughter of the Forgotten. May you strive to seek virtue in all things.

M y jaw clenched as the words tumbled over in my mind. I crumpled the letter and handed it to Luther.

“What does it say?” my mother asked.

“More riddles I don’t understand,” I muttered. “Why can’t anyone ever speak plainly?”

Luther’s eyes narrowed as they roamed the page. “These last two lines... ‘ Remember my sister’s words. Beware my brother’s wrath. ’ Fortos said the same thing. If this is from Montios, that must refer to the other Kindred.”

“Just what I need—the wrath of a Kindred on my head.”

“The sister must be Blessed Mother Lumnos. She’s the only other Kindred who has spoken to you, isn’t she?”

“As far as I know. I suppose Umbros must be the brother. He and his Queen have plenty of reason to be angry with me now.”

Luther’s eyes turned stormy. Ever since I’d told him about the Umbros attack, his mood had soured. I wished I could ease the blame I knew he placed on his shoulders, but how could I, when I carried it, too?

“I still don’t like this plan,” he said. “We should have sent to Lumnos for reinforcements before we left Montios City for the Forgotten Lands. It’s not too late. Sorae can bring Taran and Alixe.”

I groaned. “We went over this all day yesterday. Alixe is where she needs to be, keeping an eye on your father, and she’ll need Taran’s help. And I tried calling Sorae here already. Remis chained her up the second she got back to Lumnos. I had to call off my command before she choked herself half to death trying to get free.”

His hands clenched angrily around his horse’s reins. “We should at least wait until our magic is restored.”

“We’ve waited too long already. I’m not going to risk another attack happening while I rest. The Montios Descended gave me as much magic as they could spare.”

“And it still wasn’t enough to replenish you,” he grumbled, though a touch of awe lay in his tone.

Nearly every Descended in Montios City had exhausted their power into me in exchange for my reluctant agreement to stay for an extra day in case an attack occurred while they recovered.

Frustrated as I was, it was a lesson I’d needed to learn. Being new to magic made me inefficient and sloppy, too quickly burning through my reserves. Luther assured me that I could eventually train to pace myself and make my magic last longer. Until then, I’d have to choose my battles with more care.

“All the more reason we don’t need reinforcements,” I said. “If I have the power of all those people, surely we can handle one Descended man.”

“I think we both know this is not as simple as one Descended man .”

I shifted restlessly in my saddle. We hadn’t even reached the Forgotten Lands, and I could already sense the man’s potent aura. If it was this strong already, he was more powerful than any Descended I’d met before.

Luther looked up from the letter. “‘ What’s Forgotten is not lost .’ If you’re the Daughter of the Forgotten, perhaps that confirms your birth father is alive.”

I glanced at my mother. “Anything to add?”

Her eyes briefly touched on Luther as her expression turned hard. “Not here.”

I sighed wearily. “Mother, say what you have to say. I trust Luther to hear it.”

“Well I do not,” she clipped. “I have known him far longer than you, and trust me, your openness is not reciprocated. The Prince keeps many secrets.”

“Not from my Queen,” Luther snapped.

“Oh? So you’ve told her that you—”

“ Yes. Whatever you’re about to say, the answer is yes, but considering who lurks in these woods, I’d prefer you not shout it aloud. Diem knows everything you know and much more you don’t.” His voice dropped to an irritated murmur. “And she knows because I told her willingly, not because she betrayed my trust and spied on me.”

I held my tongue, awkwardly riding between their volley of hostile glares.

My mother turned her focus to the road. “Your birth father is dead, Diem. Whoever told you otherwise was mistaken.”

“What if you’re wrong? If he’s out there and he knows something about why all of this is happening to me—”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Mother, if there’s any chance—”

“There isn’t.”

“But the Orb said—”

“He’s dead , Diem.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I killed him myself.”

I pulled hard on my reins. “You... what? ”

She stopped as well, struggling to meet my eyes. “He was unwell. Lost to mad delusions. The day you were born, he tried to stab you. There was a struggle, and...” She didn’t finish, her expression grim.

I stared down at my hands as my head began to spin. Though I’d insisted I didn’t need him, a tiny part of me had hoped he really was looking for me, wanting to know me.

It shouldn’t have hurt so badly to lose something I’d never had.

She drew her horse close and took my hand. “I never wanted you to know this, my darling girl. I knew it would only bring you pain.”

A lump built in my throat. “He was a Descended. He might have healed. Survived. The Orb of Answering said he was alive.”

She shook her head with a heartbroken grimace. “It was a godstone dagger to the heart, Diem. No one survives that, mortal or Descended.”

I jerked my hand back and prodded my horse into a trot, increasing my pace each time she tried to follow, until finally she relented and fell back with Luther, leaving me alone with my turbulent thoughts.

I blinked back tears, hating myself for their existence. I already had a father in Andrei—wasn’t it a betrayal of him to mourn a sire I didn’t even know?

But if my sire was unwell, what might he have become if he’d gotten help instead of death? What might we have become to each other?

A dark cloud settled over me like a cloak. As we passed into the Forgotten Lands, the landscape seemed to shift to meet my mood. The warped, knobby trees arched above us, hovering with clawed tendrils like predators poised to strike. Their barren branches knotted together in such a thick canopy, we might as well have been riding at dusk rather than noon. The soil turned black and spongy, and though I was grateful for the way it silenced our movement, it would do the same for anyone hunting us.

My heart felt buried under a painful weight, compounded by the three Crowns on my head and the oppressive pressure of the man’s aura growing thicker in the air. I was being crushed from within and without by the force of everything hanging over me. Lives and fates, secrets and questions.

My eyes rose to the sky. Why had the Kindred chosen me? Was Luther right—had they seen something in me to make me worthy? Or was I just the reckless idiot they could count on to run into battle when every sane mind would walk away?

I despised being a pawn in their game. It made everything bad in my life feel inescapable and everything good feel unearned. I itched with a desperate need to make a choice that was mine, wholly mine —even if it led me to ruin.

I tensed at movement from the corner of my vision, then eased at the familiar scent of cedar and musk. I waited for Luther to speak as his horse fell in line beside mine, but he said nothing, merely lending me strength through his quiet presence the way he so often did.

“Let’s run away,” I said softly, my eyes still fixed on the clouds. “Let’s get on a ship and sail as far as the wind takes us. Forget the war, forget the Crowns. Let’s have our own adventure, just the two of us.”

“Alright.”

My gaze cut to him. “Alright?”

He was looking up too, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Where should we go?”

“ Anywhere else,” I breathed.

He nodded solemnly. “Keeping it to ourselves will be difficult. Taran’s been wanting to do this for years. He’ll find our ship and hide as a stowaway.”

“If we bring him, we’ll have to bring Zalaric.”

A smile twitched. “I think you might be right.”

“I suppose Teller and Lily will want to join us. And Eleanor. And if my brother comes, my mother will, too.”

“We’re going to need a larger boat,” he said flatly. I laughed, surprising us both. “We could find a boring little village somewhere. Build a cottage on the sea with an apple tree for Sorae. And a goat.”

“ A goat? ”

“I’ve always liked goats.”

I groaned. “My father had one once. It was very cute—and an absolute menace.”

“That’s what I like about them.” He shot me a sidelong look. “I seem to have a weakness for very cute troublemakers.”

A grin cracked through. “Imagine that. The terrifying Prince of Lumnos and his fugitive Queen, tending goats and apples by the sea.”

“Ah, but we wouldn’t be the Prince and the Queen anymore. We would just be Luther and Diem.”

My smile faded at the deep ache in my heart to make those words come true. “Would you really do that for me? Leave everything behind?”

“I would do anything for you. As long as I can do it with you.”

A silent, abiding love glowed in his eyes. My mother’s presence a few yards back was the only thing keeping me from launching myself at him and showing my appreciation in every way I knew how.

I had considered leaving her behind in Montios. I yearned for time alone with him, but Hepta and the others knew well who and what she was. Merely having her with me was a crack in their fragile trust. Frankly, I couldn’t blame them.

There was also the issue of the mortals. I had come to kill this Descended man, but I prayed the Guardians who joined him could be persuaded to change their course. If I had any hope of that, I’d need their leader at my side.

I frowned at a speckle of movement in the clouds, barely visible through the web of blackened limbs. “Is that a bird?”

He squinted. “If so, it’s the biggest bird I’ve ever seen.” He pulled our horses to a stop. “Are you sure Sorae is still in Lumnos?”

I reached out across the bond and winced at the frantic helplessness that pulsed back in return. I could feel the chains around Sorae’s body, leashing her to the ground, and the muzzle clamped down on her jaws to keep her dragonfyre contained. I was as furious at Remis as I was at myself for not calling her back the second the army soldiers had left.

“I’m sure,” I sighed.

My mother’s horse joined ours. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a gryvern,” Luther said. “It isn’t going anywhere. It’s just flying in a circle.”

“Maybe the Crowns realized the man leading the attacks is here,” I said. “They could be looking for him like we are.”

He frowned deeply. “Or they’re looking for you. Either way, let’s stay out of sight. We don’t need the Crowns thinking you’re connected to him.”

My hand rose to my throat, where the ten-pointed star still glowed beneath my skin. I’d tried healing it away, but the more I pushed my magic toward it, the brighter it grew.

I caught my mother staring at it, her features pinched. “I’ve seen that symbol before, but I can’t remember where.”

“Were the Guardians working with him before you went to Coeur?le?” I asked.

She shook her head firmly. “No. I would never have allowed the kind of attacks you described.”

“You had no problem planning the attack that killed the Montios King,” Luther mumbled.

“That death was never supposed to happen,” she snapped at him. “The bombs were only meant to make the Crowns flee so the Guardians could take the Temple.”

She looked so genuinely regretful, I was tempted to believe her, but every time I looked at her, I pictured her driving a blade into my sire’s heart. When it came to what she was capable of, I didn’t know what to think.

“Intentional or not, that death did happen,” Luther said. “Many died, and Diem was hurt. And you made me an accomplice for helping you.”

Her remorse twisted into a scowl. “You had no problem being an accomplice all the times King Ulther shed a mortal’s blood.”

His jaw ticked. “I saved as many as I could. Which you well know—you helped me do it.”

“Please stop,” I murmured.

She jabbed a finger at him. “You still stood at Ulther’s side knowing what he’d done.”

His eyes flashed with his unraveling temper. “I was the only voice in his ear holding him back. Would you rather I had walked away?”

“You could have stopped him permanently and taken his Crown.”

“ Diem would have taken the Crown, and if she’d done so while you were still poisoning her with flameroot, she might not have survived the Ch—”

“ Stop! ” I shouted.

They both stiffened.

“I have enough to deal with without you two at each other’s throats. Whatever issues you have with each other, it’s time to let them go. We’re on the same side now, remember?”

My mother huffed. Luther shut down, retreating behind his blank facade.

“Seeing the two most important people in my life hate each other hurts me more than you can imagine.” I shot them both hard looks as I grabbed my reins. “If that’s not enough to make you work things out, then go back to Montios. I’ve got a war to fight, and I’d rather do it alone than like this.”

I prodded my horse forward before they could respond. I was one snide comment away from breaking, and galloping into a battlefield of murderous rebels and a crazed Descended was looking more appealing than one more minute here.

I set a direct course for the tendrils of smoke rising into the air. Even without that beacon to guide me, I’d know where to find him—his powerful aura was a shiny, dangerous lure.

“We’re going the wrong way,” my mother called out. “The camp is near the border to the east. We’re headed north.”

“Then he’s not at the Guardian camp,” Luther answered. “Diem’s going the right way.”

I didn’t look back, but I heard the apprehension in his tone. He could feel it, too—how the man’s energy crackled through the air. It wasn’t protective, like Luther’s, or refined and guarded, like Zalaric’s. This man’s aura was violence incarnate, pure apex predator, the kind accustomed to never losing a fight.

Distant voices rang out through the trees. I froze and darted a glance at Luther, his grave nod confirming he’d heard the same. My mother jerked her head toward a steep hill not far away, and we made our way to its base and dismounted our horses.

The second my feet hit the ground, a rush of energy surged into my body. My godhood went wild with an eager fervor. For some reason, it liked this bleak, gloomy place.

Claim me, Daughter of the Forgotten , its voice demanded.

Luther knelt beside his horse, clutching his chest and looking pained. “What is that? It feels like it’s sucking out my magic right into the soil.”

I frowned. My godhood was growing , getting stronger and bolder, seeming to feed off the land itself.

Luther’s aura sputtered as if the Forging spell was fighting to bring it back within its grasp. I reached inward toward it, and my breath hitched.

Every time I’d dipped into the Forging magic, its energy had been abuzz with life. But this place... it felt abandoned, decayed, like unpicked fruit rotting on its vine. Though it was within Montios borders, it seemed angrily disconnected, as if rejecting the realm’s embrace and aching to rip itself free.

I could see why the Montios Descended had avoided it. If this land could speak, it would snarl of long-held grudges and festering, bleeding wounds. Something bad had happened here once, and, despite its name, the land had not forgotten. It remembered—and it was waiting to claim its due.

The healer in me prickled. A visceral urge rose to cure the damage and find a way to make the realm whole. But when I tugged at the fabric of the Forging spell, it didn’t gather in my hand as it had before. It snagged, caught on some force I couldn’t see.

It didn’t like Luther—that was very clear. It was attacking him like a virus, leeching his energy in a bid to force him out or strike him dead. I yanked again, harder, demanding the Forging magic bend to my will.

The symbol at my throat burned hot. The land resisted, but after a moment, it finally ebbed and released Luther from its grasp. A low, distant chuckle echoed faintly in my ear.

I rushed to Luther’s side. “Are you hurt?”

“No, but whatever that was, it drained a good deal of my magic. And I wasn’t full to begin with.”

His glum expression said everything he wasn’t saying aloud. We were woefully unprepared and almost certainly outmatched. The battle we’d come to fight had gone from a risk to a folly.

But I couldn’t walk away now. We’d come too far, and the stakes were too great.

I crept to the top of the hill to survey from a higher vantage, Luther and my mother following behind. In a large clearing within the trees lay a small village, though it wasn’t like any I’d ever seen. There were no roads leading in or out, and though it was populated by simplistic stone buildings, it was set up more like a camp, with a bonfire at its heart, a single pen for livestock, and a shared line of cooking pits.

“Look,” Luther said, pointing at a cramped patch of crops. “Potatoes, wheat, lemons. How is that possible in the dead of winter?”

“It’s not. This far north, those plants should be dormant.”

“Maybe he’s an Arboros Descended,” my mother said. “Their kind have been friendly to the Guardians in the past.”

“Those days are over now,” I mumbled, absently itching the star at my throat. “The Guardians captured their Queen. I saw her chained up at the camp where they took me.”

She didn’t respond, but her face took on an expression I knew too well. Lips pursed, brows arched, eyes anywhere but on me.

I glared. “Mother, what do you know?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with.”

Her answer was a knife screeching against porcelain. I’d heard those words a hundred times growing up, and not once had she ever given in.

“The time for secrets is over,” I growled. “If you know something about the Arboros Queen—”

“I recognize some of those mortals. They’re Guardians, but not particularly high-ranking ones.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Leave it be, Diem.” Her features were carved in a gentle scold, her tone maternal but firm.

“I could take the answer from your mind myself.”

She had the nerve to shrug. “You won’t. I know you better than that.”

I ground my teeth, knowing and hating that she was right.

“If he is from Arboros, his magic shouldn’t work here,” Luther cut in. “And those buildings look made from Montios magic.”

“He’s not a Montios Descended.” The words fell from my lips without thinking, like that was some fact I’d innately known.

“Maybe he’s not the only Descended here,” my mother said.

Luther and I exchanged a look. In our current state, fighting one powerful Descended would be hard enough. If there were more...

“Is that Vance? ” she gasped. My focus snapped to see my old foe gathering the mortals into a crowd. “What happened to his arm?”

“I did,” I said, ignoring her appalled stare. “I should have known he’d be here.”

“He’s got my sword,” Luther grumbled. Sure enough, a familiar jeweled hilt glittered on a scabbard at Vance’s hip.

“That thieving ass.” I launched forward. “I’m stealing it back.”

“ No ,” Luther and my mother said in unison, both of them reaching for my arms.

“Let him have it,” Luther said. “That sword means nothing to me now. Besides, you teased me ruthlessly for it. What did you call it? A ‘ garish piece of tin ’?”

A sudden laugh burst from my mother, and I smirked. Luther shot us both an unamused look.

“It must have meant something if my teasing bothered you so much,” I said.

“What bothered me was you thinking I was a spoiled royal who didn’t know how to fight.” He leaned in closer, his voice going dark and rough. “Hopefully I’ve proven by now that whatever sword I’m working with, I can get the job done.”

My eyes briefly dropped below his waist. “Not yet, you haven’t.”

His nostrils flared.

“Besides, I’m Diem Corbois now.” I shrugged. “That’s my family heirloom, and I want it back.”

My mother’s back snapped so straight I worried she might have cracked a bone. “What do you mean you’re Diem Corbois? ”

“I made a deal to claim House Corbois. In exchange, Remis promised no Corbois would rise against me at the Challenging.” I snorted. “So much for that.”

“Remis Challenged you?”

“No, Luther did.”

She whipped to him. “You tried to kill my daughter for the Crown?”

“It’s not what it sounds like,” I interrupted. I winced and rubbed my throat, which had begun to ache. “It’s a long story—one we don’t have time for.”

Vance’s voice carried to us as he addressed the crowd of mortals with an impassioned monologue. I caught enough to recognize it as his standard drivel— all Descended are bad, all Descended must die, Guardians must be willing to die for the cause, blah blah blah .

I threw my mother a sour look. “Is this what you believe? Is this what the Guardians stand for?”

Her lips pressed, though she gave no response.

“He wants me dead, Mother,” I pushed. “He wants Luther dead. Those half-mortal children you got out of Lumnos? He wants them all dead, too.”

Her caramel eyes narrowed as she watched Vance whip the mortals into a cheering frenzy with his calls for vengeance and bloodshed. “He and I have not always seen eye to eye. I try to avoid violence when I can. Vance prefers a more... aggressive approach.”

“And yet you left him in charge when you went to the island.”

“He’s been a Guardian as long as I have, and his loyalty to the mortals is absolute. I needed someone I could trust.”

“You gave me your word there would be no attacks,” Luther said. “The man you trusted did not keep that bargain. Innocent people paid the price.”

Her frown cut deeper. “I’m sorry. That should not have happened.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Your daughter is the one who put herself at risk to stop him—even before she became Queen.”

Her heavy stare turned to me, painted with admiration mixed with hues of regret. I looked away.

“You said you recognize those mortals?” I asked.

She nodded. “They’re Guardians, but they’re from different realms. The only common factor I can think of is that many have been critical of me over the years for being too weak.”

“So it’s a mutiny,” Luther said.

“Henri mentioned the cells have fractured since you’ve been gone,” I said. “You need to unite them again and put a stop to all this.”

She lit up. “You discussed this with Henri?”

Luther pretended not to notice, though he went marble still.

A raucous cheer split through the air, drawing our focus and sparing me from the wide, hopeful look in her eyes—and the curiosity in his.

I nearly gasped aloud at the brightly glowing figure emerging in the clearing. If his ethereal appearance hadn’t given him away, the sudden spike in his aura would have. Merely breathing was a struggle with his magic saturating the air.

My hand shot out and clamped on Luther’s arm. “It’s really him.”

He nodded grimly. “He’s not shielding. My magic can’t reach that far, but yours can. You have a clean shot from here, if you want to take it.”

A strange kind of coldness took me over as I crafted a bow and arrow of shadow magic. It wasn’t the callous numb I’d felt in Fortos, but something perhaps even more bizarre. If I wasn’t certain this path was the right one, I might have thought it was anticipatory regret—like some part of me was already grieving this choice and its consequences.

But I was certain. This man had killed hundreds with no regard for guilt or innocence. Gods only knew what he’d done with those missing children. He was a risk not only to my realms, but to the peace I was fighting so hard to achieve.

I nocked my arrow, raising the bow to my eyeline and aligning its lethal path. The man’s back was to me as he spoke to the mortals in a voice too quiet for me to hear.

My hands trembled.

One good shot , I thought. One shot, and I save countless lives .

“Aim for the heart or the spine at his nape,” Luther urged. “It’s the only way to ensure he dies instantly.” I swallowed, and he set a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have a shield ready. Just in case.”

I nodded stiffly. My fingers tightened on the arrow as I drew it back.

My godhood stirred unexpectedly, and I nearly let the arrow slip. It thumped alongside my heart and swirled in my arms, keenly interested in what I was about to do. Not supportive, nor judgmental—more like a held breath, waiting to see if I would prove my mettle once and for all.

The man turned his head, the line of his profile just barely visible.

“Now,” Luther said. “Before he sees us.”

My hands were frozen, too terrified to fire, too defiant to give up.

My mother’s face had gone moon-white, her lips popped ajar. She was staring at the camp, murmuring something I couldn’t make out.

I clenched my jaw and drew the arrow back as far as the bowstring would stretch. This was my moment. My chance to end more slaughter before it started.

But it would make me a murderer in an inescapable, inexcusable way. There was no chaos of battle this time, no self-defense, no imminent harm to force my hand. This was a calculated killing. No good intention could ever change that.

War is death and misery and sacrifice. War is making choices that will haunt you for the rest of your days.

“Now, Diem,” Luther urged.

I took a deep breath, and offered up a silent prayer for forgiveness.

“No,” my mother whispered.

Too late.

My fingers relaxed, and the arrow flew.

It sliced through the air with a whistle, carried by my will and a fierce burst of my power. My heart and my godhood squeezed each other close as we awaited my victim’s demise.

The magic struck true. Its shadowy point speared into the soft, vulnerable flesh at the base of his neck.

Then... it disappeared.

It didn’t cut clean through or fly off course. It didn’t fall to the ground or bounce off a last-minute shield. It simply disappeared .

Absorbed right into his skin.

The man’s supernatural glow flared bright, his aura pulsing with new strength. Goosebumps prickled across my skin.

Luther swore and threw up his shield, then grabbed my arm. “We can’t fight him. We need to run . ”

But I couldn’t move. My mind fumbled for some explanation other than what my heart already knew to be true.

“Impossible,” my mother breathed. “It’s impossible. He can’t be...”

The man slowly turned on his heel. His smokey eyes—so like my own—found me in an instant.

“He’s seen us,” Luther hissed. “We have to run.”

A panicked cry cracked out of my mother. “Diem... that man... he’s—”

“Hello, Auralie,” the man crooned.

His voice carried as if he were standing right at our side, his tone smooth and rich with power. His silvery skin glittered as his lips curled into a malicious smile.

His eyes slid back to me. “Hello, daughter. At last, we finally meet.”