Chapter 43
Chapter
Forty-Three
L ate afternoon gloomed into evening, and evening sulked into night.
Luther’s condition remained unchanged.
After I promised to send for them if there was any news, Alixe, Taran, and Zalaric left to have a bath and a hot meal. When I refused to do the same, Eleanor scurried off to have food sent up, while Perthe resumed his post at my door. Remis insisted on staying, though he kept his distance, only occasionally walking to Luther’s side and watching him in silence.
To keep myself busy, I alternated between tending Luther’s wound, which was now bleeding through his gauze at an hourly rate, and curling up on the bed beside him to scour my mother’s notes. It took only ten minutes to read all she’d written on godstone, and even less to realize it was nothing I didn’t already know.
Still I persisted, flipping page after page, in obstinate search of some key to his salvation.
There was one note that nibbled at my heel and refused to let go. An offhand comment scrawled and circled in the margins:
Diem—Coeur?le
godstone=death
life=?
It was strange enough seeing my name in the notes I’d been forbidden from reading, but the placement was especially intriguing—just beside her section on possible remedies.
My leg jiggled restlessly as I chewed on my lip. Could I break her out of prison in Fortos? Could I do it before Luther’s time ran out?
“I’d know that look anywhere,” Teller said, sitting beside me. “You’re planning something. Something bad.”
I didn’t bother to deny it.
“Look.” I handed him the journal and pointed to the curious note. “Any idea what it means?”
He frowned and looked closer. I tried to stop myself from hoping, but when he finally shook his head, my stomach sank even lower.
“Maybe she thinks there’s a cure on the island,” he suggested. “If she knew you were Descended, she could have been worried you would need it one day.”
“The flameroot?” I asked. “It only grows on Coeur?le.”
He shrugged. “Do you think it might help?”
I sighed and rubbed my face. I was willing to try anything, but some gut instinct told me this was a dead end. It was the same reason I hadn’t yet sent Taran to Ignios, the same reason I was here rather than on gryvernback heading to Fortos.
Luther had urged me to trust my hunches. So far, that advice had served me well. But sitting here doing nothing as he lay dying was tearing me apart.
I glanced down at his wound, fresh blood already staining the new gauze. I could feel there was something I was missing, some clue glaring at me right in plain sight.
I closed the notebook and set it aside. “I guess you’ve heard the news about Mother.”
“I have.” He leaned his forearms on his knees and stared down at his hands. “They said she was arrested on Coeur?le. Did you see her there?”
“Only for a second, before the attack.” I nudged him with my arm. “She looked healthy. Unhurt.”
His head hung lower. “They’re going to execute her, D. I didn’t think anything could be worse than not knowing what happened to her, but now...” He rubbed his eyes. “Is it horrible that I wish she’d just stayed gone?”
“I’m not going to let them kill her,” I vowed. “I’m going to get her out of that prison.”
He looked up. “You’re going to prove to the Crowns she’s innocent?” He jumped to his feet, suddenly excited, and grabbed my hands, pulling me up to join him. “I don’t believe what they’re saying—that she was the leader of the Guardians. The kids at school say she was using me to get information on the Descended for the rebels. But she would never do that, right?” His eyes filled with hope. “We can do this, we can prove the accusations are wron—”
He froze at the look on my face.
“What?” he asked quietly.
“The accusations aren’t wrong, Tel. She was— is —their leader.”
His expression fell. “You knew?”
“No—I had no idea, I swear. I found out from the Guardians who captured me after the attack. I thought it was some man named Vance.”
A selfish part of me wanted to leave it at that, but he deserved the full truth, and I’d been withholding it for too long.
I shot a quick glance at Remis, Avana, and Lily and lowered my voice to keep them out of earshot.
“But I did know Mother was alive,” I admitted, grimacing. “I didn’t know where she was, only that she was likely safe.”
He blinked, then drew back. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was worried she’d never come home. I didn’t want to give you false hope.”
“False hope?” he shot back, yanking his hands from mine. “Like the kind you’re giving everyone here about Luther?”
I flinched.
His voice began to rise. “Did you know the whole time? Was all that searching we did for her just pretend?”
“No! Gods, no. I didn’t know for months. Luther only told me after I became Queen.”
“Luther?” he shouted. The others started looking our way. “How in the Flames did he know?”
“He’s the one who took her to the island. They were... working together, in a way.”
“ Working together? Was he a Guardian, too? Wait...” He staggered back a step. “You said you thought their leader was named Vance. How could you possibly know that, unless you...?”
I didn’t dare admit it aloud, but the answer was plain on my face. My silent plea for forgiveness was met with a glare of betrayal.
“I stood by you the entire time, Diem. I did whatever you asked of me. I was grieving Mother and Father, my life was falling apart, but I put it aside—to help you . And the one thing you could have done to help me, you didn’t.”
His words hit like a punch to the gut. I reached for him, and he jerked back.
“You’re just like her,” he snapped. “Keeping secrets. Lying. Using me. You’ve been so angry at Mother all this time, but you’re just as bad as she is.”
“Tel, I’m so sorry. I know I was wrong. I should have told you. I was only trying to—”
He stormed for the door. Lily popped to her feet, her gaze darting between us. He breezed past her into the parlor and she ran after him, calling his name. Moments later, I flinched as a door slammed on the other side of the suite.
Shame and guilt towered high over my head. So many mistakes, so many rash choices, and the people who had paid the price were the ones I loved most. I buried my face in my hands as dark, vicious thoughts hissed in my ear.
Blood on your hands, corpses at your feet.
You’re going to get everyone killed.
You’re a selfish, reckless fool.
You don’t deserve to be Queen.
No one believes in you. The only one who did is about to die—all because of you.
A pair of arms timidly wrapped around my waist. I stiffened and dropped my hands to see Lily embracing me, her head resting on my arm.
“He’ll forgive you,” she said, her voice soft but confident. “Whatever happened, Teller loves you, and he thinks the world of you. You’re his hero.”
“I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” I whispered.
“Is there anything Teller could ever do to make you stop loving him , or make you think less of him?”
“No,” I conceded. “But I kept secrets from him. Big, important ones. Ones he deserved to know.”
She shrugged. “Luther does that to me all the time. He thinks I don’t know, but I pay attention. I know what he’s up to.”
My eyebrows slowly rose. “You do?”
“I’m his little sister, it’s my job to spy on him and find all the things he doesn’t want me to know. At first it hurt my feelings because I thought he didn’t trust me. Then I realized it makes him think he’s protecting me, so now I play dumb to make him feel better.” She gave me a coy smile and lowered her voice. “He told you, though, didn’t he? About his real mother? The mortal one? I bet he told you about the half-mortals he saves, too.”
My mouth dropped open.
“Don’t worry about Teller. I’ll talk to him for you. It’s the least I can do.” She looked over at Luther, her smile holding strong, though it was painted with hues of grief. “Luther’s always doing things for me and for all the cousins. For Father and Uncle Garath, too. Even for strangers. Oh, and Blessed Mother Lumnos, of course. But I’ve never seen him want anything for himself. Not until you. And Blessed Kindred , did he want you.” She laughed between sniffles. “Ever since I was little, he has snuck into my room to hide from all the people who want something from him. Usually he just sits on my bed and listens while I ramble, but after he met you, he was the one rambling. My brother! Luther! Can you imagine?”
I shook my head, unable to speak. Words seemed like a complex, foreign concept that only Lily had mastered.
“I used to play a game where I would change the subject and see how long it took him to bring you up. It never took more than three sentences. He had it bad .” She sighed. “And then you got mad at him, and he was so sad. The kind of sad you can only get from being in love, you know? The kind where you think you’ll never feel happy again? But then you kissed him at the Challenging, and that whole night, he couldn’t stop smiling. For the first time in my entire life, I saw my brother really, truly happy. Not just for you, but for himself, too.”
She threw her arms around me again and crushed me against her. “I will love you forever for that. And even if—” Her voice wobbled. “—even if he doesn’t make it, he’ll die knowing what it means to be happy. That’s what he deserves.”
The earth began to give way beneath me.
“I... I’m going to... get some things from his room,” I stammered, gently prying Lily off. “Will you stay with him... until I come back?”
She swiped at her tears and nodded. “Of course.”
“I just need to get some, um...” I wandered away midsentence. Perthe moved to follow me, and I waved him off with an order to stay with Luther.
I barely made it to the parlor before my knees gave in. My hands clamped across my mouth to muffle the sound as sorrow tore out of me in great, heaving sobs. Not for me, but for the man in my bed, from whom so much had been taken and so little given in return. A man for whom something as simple as happiness had been a rare, fleeting gift.
A gift the gods hadn’t even let him keep for more than a day.
I screamed internally at the Kindred and their fickle favor. My godhood thrashed, my vision went red, and my self-control frayed to a tenuous string. I started to feel the way I had after my father’s death—unhinged and unsteady, an emotional bomb rolling toward an open flame.
Sorae felt it, too. She paced outside on the balcony, whipping her tail and arching her neck to the sky in piercing wails that rattled the furniture.
My skin began to illuminate with a silvery light. I needed to get out of here before I self-destructed and took half the palace with me.
I clambered to my feet and lurched across the parlor. When I placed my hand on the door, the wood charred black beneath my fingers. I swore and jerked away, the smell of burning wood filling the room.
Sorae howled again, and the door to my chambers creaked open. “Your Majesty?” Perthe called out. “Is everything—”
“Fine,” I yelled. I called on the Montios magic and summoned a layer of frost to cool my skin. It bubbled and dissipated almost instantly into steam.
I threw the door open and flew out, rushing past the guards in the hallway before they could get too close a look. “Stay there,” I barked as two of them moved to follow me. “That’s an order.”
Their footsteps stalled, and I broke into a run, my eyes locked on Luther’s door at the end of the hall. I forced air into my lungs, forced my heart to steady, forced the magic churning in me to—
“Diem?”
Fuck.
“Aemonn,” I gritted out, turning slowly.
He strolled down the corridor, hands in his pockets. He looked prim and polished as usual, his blonde hair swept perfectly over his brow and his handsome face set in a charming smirk. He wore a colorful, gold-trimmed abomination that, as he came closer, I recognized as an extravagantly customized version of the Royal Guard armor.
“I just heard that you returned,” he said. “I’m glad to see that you’re unharmed.”
“Are you?” I clipped.
He studied me warily, his eyes lingering on my faintly glowing skin. “I heard what happened to Luther. I’m sorry. I know you two were close.”
“Are close. Are , not were. Save your celebrations, he isn’t dead yet.”
Aemonn frowned. He pulled his hands from his pockets and straightened his back. “You and I have some things to discuss.”
I crossed my arms. “Are you going to threaten me like you did the last time we spoke? If I remember correctly, that didn’t end too well for you.”
His fingers flexed at the reminder of how I’d nearly taken his arm off when he demanded to speak with me and refused to take no for an answer. “I was only trying to help you. If you had talked to me then instead of attacking me, I could have warned you—”
“If you truly wanted to help me, you never would have taken Luther’s titles and threatened to send all my allies to the other side of the realm.”
“I admit, sending Alixe away would have been a mistake. The guards respect her, as do I. But my brother... you’d be better off without him here. He will only let you down.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “ I can be your ally, Diem. Tell me your plans. Let me show you I can help.”
“My plans?” I huffed out a harsh laugh, my temper still roaring. “My plan is to save Luther, break my mother out of prison, take on the Crowns and probably the entire Emarion Army while I’m at it, and fight a war all by myself. Still want to be my ally?”
He balked. “Your mother—the rebel leader? You’re going to free her after all the violence the Guardians are responsible for?”
“And how much violence is your father responsible for?” I snapped.
Aemonn’s confidence wavered, a flicker of the scared little boy he once must have been, the defenseless victim of his father’s vicious rage. My anger slipped at the sight, losing its jagged edge.
“You of all people should understand, Aemonn.” I turned to walk away, muttering under my breath. “The great man you could be, if only your loyalty wasn’t so one-sided.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he called out.
I almost kept going. Almost abandoned Aemonn there, standing alone in the corridor. I was on the sheerest of emotional cliffs, my most malicious vices jeering in my ear. My temper had always been my downfall, and at the moment, I was more than ready to give myself over and embrace its destruction.
But I thought of my brother and how deeply I’d hurt him. I thought of what might become of us, if we left that wound untended. How it might fester with bitterness, infect with resentment, how it might spread and deepen and scar. How it might eat away at us, bit by tiny bit, and leave us permanently ravaged, unable to heal.
Perhaps I might never save Luther from the godstone. But this was a poison I could fight.
“It could have been Taran in there dying, you know.” I managed to reel my temper back, and my magic with it, then turned around to face him. “When the Guardians attacked us, Taran was stabbed with godstone, too—twice. He should have died. I still don’t know how he didn’t.” I cocked my head. “What if your brother had never come home—is that really what you want, for him to be out of your way forever?”
Aemonn’s throat bobbed, his expression indecipherable.
“All this hate the two of you are holding—you’re directing it at the wrong person. I’m sure Taran has made his share of mistakes, but I don’t think he’s the one you’re really angry with, is he?” I glanced at my chambers, my heart and mind still trapped in that room at Luther’s side. “Life is too short to hold these grudges, Aemonn. Even for the Descended.”
He stared at the stone wall, saying nothing, his features uncharacteristically dull. All his suave charm had fallen away, leaving a bitter, rotting core.
Again I walked away, ignoring the sound of footsteps following close behind. When I reached Luther’s chambers, I paused in front of it and frowned. Since I’d been gone, he’d added a bloodlock. I could take a few drops from his wound, but bloodlocks required willingly given blood.
Aemonn leaned a shoulder against the wall at my side. “I haven’t been enforcing the progeny laws, you know. It hasn’t been popular, but I insisted on delaying executions until you returned.”
“Really?” I threw him a brief, surprised glance before returning my focus to the door.
“I’m not a man who murders innocent children, Diem. Despite what your allies tell you, I’m not a monster.”
“Tell that to the mortal boy you killed in Lumnos City,” I said bitterly. I ran a finger over the bloodlock as a question sprouted in my mind.
A crease formed on his brow. “What mortal boy?”
“The one you trampled with your horse and left to die on the street.” I turned to face him. “Do you have any blades on you?”
Aemonn pushed off the wall, his face going pale. “That was an accident. How did you—”
“Henri saw it happen. He was going to kill you for it before I stopped him.”
My eyes grazed over him and paused on a hilt at his hip. I grabbed the handle and plucked it free over his scoff of protest, then nearly groaned. The entire weapon was cast from pure gold—too soft a metal to cut through Descended skin.
A shiny, useless distraction. Just like Aemonn’s reign as High General.
“That boy—h-he was running in the street. I didn’t see him. I... I didn’t mean for him to get hurt.”
As I looked closer, I spied a thin line of dark grey metal embedded into the blade’s gilded edge. I pressed the tip of my thumb to its point and smirked as a single bead of scarlet appeared.
A hidden edge sharp enough to draw blood—also like Aemonn.
“You didn’t try to save the child though, did you? You didn’t call for a healer?” I spun the blade in my hand, offering it back to him handle-first. “Did you even dismount from your horse?”
His nostrils flared. “You have no idea what it’s like. The pressure my father puts on me to be perfect, to never show weakness.” His head shook rapidly. “I’m not a bad person.”
“Then prove it.” I gave up waiting on him and tucked the blade into the sash of my dress. “When I first met you, I saw good in you. I believed there was more to you than this shallow, callous person you pretend to be.”
I swiped my bloody thumb across the black metal disc of the bloodlock, sucking in a breath at the soft click that followed.
Me.
Luther had keyed his locks to me .
The reason hit me like a stab to the heart—I was the only other one who knew about his journal recording the exiled children he’d smuggled out. In the wrong hands, that list could be deadly. Some of the Twenty Houses would go to the ends of Emarion to rid half-mortals from their lineage.
Luther had known he might not come home—and he’d trusted me to protect them in his stead.
I stepped in the room and turned to face Aemonn. “Taran got a second chance. I’m giving you one, too. Show me I was right to believe in you. You don’t have to be perfect, Aemonn. Just honorable.”
I began to close the door, then paused, popping my head out into the hall.
“Oh, and if you really want to make amends with your brother, tell your best friend Iléana Hanoverre to keep her House away from Zalaric.”
He frowned. “Who is Zalar—”
I slammed the door shut in his face.