Chapter 10
LUTHER
Ahigh-pitched ringing filled my ears. The room darkened to a moonless, starless night. Distantly, I heard the urgent wail of a gryvern’s cry, but I thought only of the spinning compass in my hand. Spinning and spinning, with no stop in sight.
Not because the compass couldn’t find her.
Because there was nothing left to find.
“Ignios, no,” Arboros breathed. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Blessed Kindred, what have you done?”
Meros gaped at Sophos. “Doriel, is this true?”
Sophos grimaced. “After the ritual, Ignios came to my realm to cure his godstone wound. He was covered in fresh blood.” They swallowed. “He said that he stabbed Diem and watched her die.” They looked to me, then to Auralie, face full of pity. “I’m sorry. This was never my plan.”
I closed my eyes.
With every ounce of my being, I longed to deny it. But I’d seen it, and so had Teller. The figure, robed in white, holding a blade. Diem, collapsing to the ground.
The things I’d hung my faith on—the compass, the dreams, the feeling of her in my chest . . . it had all been a lie. My heart had painted hope where none was left.
My shredded, ruined heart.
If she was gone, then so was I. She was my light, my world, my salvation, my purpose. My everything. Without her, all that was left for me was . . .
Vengeance.
The world blurred, and suddenly the Ignios King’s frail, poisoned body was pinned beneath me. His throne lay in broken pieces around us. My hands wrapped around his neck and squeezed, savoring the weak thump of his pulse as it raced in terror, then slowed to a crawl.
He didn’t have a chance. With no strength left in his limbs, he twitched like a beached trout gasping for air. The stench of festering wounds—his—and burnt flesh—mine—filled my nose as his flames scorched my hands in an effort to fight me off.
I didn’t bother to shield. The pain of my blistering skin was nothing compared to the agony of her loss.
My godhood roared to be unleashed, but I held it back.
It would kill him with a single blow, and I wanted him to suffer.
I wanted him to bleed until not a drop was left in his veins.
I wanted to torture him in the cruelest, most horrific ways, then wait for him to heal so I could do it all over again.
His death would come for what he’d done to her. I swore it as an oath to her memory.
His suffering was for what he’d done to me.
A blast of wind slammed into my side and threw me off him.
The Crowns had circled around me, and nearly every Descended in the room had raised their palms in my direction.
Only Alixe and Eleanor held back, the latter weeping and holding the hand of a shell-shocked Auralie as Alixe frantically herded the mortal women toward the door.
I had broken the cease-fire.
I had ruined any chance of a truce.
I’d signed my own death warrant.
And I didn’t fucking care.
My shield glimmered into a dome over myself and the Ignios King. As I stood back over him, a barrage of magic pummeled its walls. Against this many powerful Descended, it wouldn’t hold for long.
Find her, my godhood bellowed.
“She’s gone,” I mumbled.
Find her, it said again, more insistent. Free her. Save her. Touch her.
“Too late,” I gritted out.
I put my foot on Ignios’s chest and dug my heel deep into his ribs, his gasps sweet music to my ears. I pulled the Sword of Corbois and lowered the tip of its blade to his neck.
The palace trembled as something massive smashed against the exterior walls. The roar of a gryvern boomed through the air, and the King’s eyes grew wide with hope.
I shook my head. “Tybold can’t save you this time.”
Seconds later, we heard another gryvern’s shriek, this one higher pitched, and the fleshy thud of two enormous bodies colliding. Somewhere inside the churning ball of rage I’d become, I felt a stab of shame at knowing I’d set Sorae against her long-lost love.
Diem wouldn’t want this.
Not for Sorae, and not for me.
The thought momentarily stilled my hand.
Diem was compassionate above all else. Where the world wanted to wound, she wanted to heal.
Even for the worst of us—Ophiucae and Vance, Taran’s selfish brother Aemonn and their abusive father Garath, practically every member of House Hanoverre—Diem had found it in her heart to spare them the brutal consequences they had earned. She believed they could be better.
Because she was better.
Better than any of us deserved—including me.
The sword’s point dug in further, drawing a pool of blackish blood into the hollow of his throat. The palace shuddered with another blow, and cracks splintered across my shield as it threatened to give way.
Around me, voices rang in chaos. More howls resonated through the walls as the other gryverns felt their Crowns’ panic. The metallic hiss of weapons unsheathing joined the cadence of bootsteps flooding through the halls.
The room had become a tinderbox, and I held the match.
“My Queen would command me to spare you,” I seethed between clenched teeth.
He screamed as his ribs snapped beneath my boot. The flames biting at my calves flickered, then guttered to smoke.
“Luther,” Alixe yelled.
“Perhaps I should,” I rumbled on. “I would take great joy out of watching your poison run its course.”
Alixe shouted my name again. Somewhere, trumpets began to blare. The assaults on my shield stopped.
“But I am not my Queen. She is”—I flinched—“was good to a fault. All my goodness died with her.”
Sizzling light seeped from my hands and imbued the sword with a pale blue corona. Sparks skittered over his body like spiders, searching for patches of flesh the godstone had not yet devoured and using them as a doorway to burrow inside him.
I lifted my boot just enough to let him shriek for mercy. A futile effort, but a pleasure to hear.
I raised the blade over his heart. “As Keeper of the Laws to Her Majesty Diem Bellator, I hereby condemn you to death.” My eyes narrowed. “When you see the Kindred, tell them I’m coming for them next.”
“Luther!”
This time, it was Auralie’s voice. She was standing beside me, one palm on my arm. Strangely, my magic had let her pass through my shield.
“He’s here,” she said, her voice shaky.
I looked around. The room had emptied. Only the mortals and my cousins remained.
“Who?” I asked.
“Ophiucae. Lumnos is under attack.”