Chapter 59
DIEM
“Blessed drinks for the Blessed mates!”
A cheer rang out through the post-ceremony reception in the palace gardens, wine-filled glasses dancing high above heads.
The tinkling of their toasting rims was joined by scattershot explosions in the clouds, the result of Guardian bombs that had been modified to burst into colorful embers.
With each one that peppered the sky with glowing sparks, the dazzled spectators cheered louder, until I was certain that all of Lumnos heard our mirth.
Their mirth.
“We can’t let a bunch of lawless rebel rats outdo us, can we?” Luther said loudly. A swirling cloud of magic formed in his palm, and he hurled it over his head. A few seconds later, the sky became a glittering sea of Lumnos light.
From any other Descended, the words would have ignited a brawl, but the Guardians in the crowd let out a laugh.
Luther had made himself one of them, as much as any Descended could ever be.
He’d lived with them, trained them, fought alongside them, ensured they wanted for nothing, be it food or medicine or an ear to hear their rage.
He’d worked closely with my mother, deferring to her command as loyally as he did with mine, and word of how he’d stood up to the Twenty Houses had spread throughout camp.
Though he wasn’t as easy to love as Taran had been, the slow and serious way Luther earned the mortals’ respect had made it all the more powerful.
“Can you do better than that?” he said to the two Guardians firing off the mortars, baiting them with a wink.
They grinned and dug through their pile to snatch their largest bomb, then loaded it into a catapult and lit its fuse before launching it high.
The explosion was massive, sending loosened pebbles rattling down the palace’s stone walls.
Rainbow light speckled their upturned faces as the crowd roared its approval.
“What do you think?” Luther called out to a group of Unhoused Descended standing nearby. “Shall we outdo them?”
He’d been making inroads with them as well, and the “we” was brilliantly strategic.
The Unhoused had never been welcome in Lumnos City or Mortal City, let alone invited guests of the royals.
To have a prince—the Prince—so publicly claim them as allies in front of the Twenty Houses and mortals alike, even in a silly duel of light, sent a strong message.
Luther had handed them a chance to shine, and they weren’t going to waste it. Their hands shot up and set the sky awash with shimmering plumes and twinkling orbs, earning a gasp from the delighted guests.
“Brothers and Sisters,” my mother barked, a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes, “it’s time to show everyone what the Guardians of the Everflame can do.” Fuse after fuse was lit, and bomb after bomb was launched, turning the evening sky into a sparkling battleground.
“Don’t just sit there,” Luther shouted to Eleanor and Lily. “Defend the Corbois name!”
They giggled and added their magic to the fray.
Other Descended joined in, and soon the evening stars vanished behind a curtain of sparks that stretched as far as the eye could see.
At the center of the crowd, a newly mated Taran held Zalaric against his chest, heads tipped together, watching the world glow for their love.
Luther nudged my side. “I don’t think all our guests are enjoying the show,” he said, glancing toward the palace, where a small group watched with disapproving scowls.
“That’s why they shouldn’t be guests,” I muttered.
When Luther made a last-minute suggestion to invite everyone living in the palace to the reception, the proposition had not been popular, especially with me.
I trusted the Corbois not to cause trouble, for fear of me if nothing else.
I couldn’t say the same for the other Descended who’d moved in after losing their homes in Ophiucae’s attack—especially the Hanoverres.
They were always scheming for a fight, and the mating of a half-mortal son they’d thrown away was a tempting lure.
If Luther’s conspirator had been anyone but Zalaric, I would have refused it, but tensions with his paternal family had been brewing, and I sensed he was ready to face them at last.
“Marthe looks particularly irate, don’t you think?” Luther teased. She’d vehemently refused to attend, though her narrowed, blazing blue eyes were a permanent fixture in a palace window.
“I wonder why,” I said dryly. I tossed a pointed look at the cascade of roses flowing over the garden walls and forming a fluffy river that wove throughout the golden mirrored floor.
There must have been thousands of them, each one perfectly half white and half red in a nod to Zalaric’s Hanoverre lineage and mortal blood.
If he was trying to provoke them, there was no bolder way to do it.
“Enness made the roses himself,” Luther said. “Drained his magic every day for a week.” His fingers grazed up and down my spine, lingering in the places where my skin could be felt beneath the bodice’s sheer mesh. “He did it for you, you know.”
“It’s not my reception.”
“He knows how close you are with them. He wanted to show his gratitude for freeing him from prison. Zalaric insisted on paying him—out of the royal coffers, of course.”
I surveyed the extravagant event: the overflowing tables of food, the full orchestra of musicians, the custom pavilion made of ice-crystal pillars and draped with miles of gossamer chiffon.
Sculptures of Ignios fire danced in time with the music atop scattered marble pedestals, while platters of bubbling wine and colorful liqueurs floated on currents of Meros wind.
The fragrant roses perfumed the air, along with crisp neroli and rich, smoky sandalwood.
Painted in gold onto every plate, table, and chair was the heart-and-dagger symbol of the mating mark.
My chest was aflame in recognition.
“Did I pay for all of this?” I asked.
“Only the services provided by people in your army. Zalaric paid for the rest, though he haggled them down to coppers. You, on the other hand, were very generous. Especially with the mortals.”
Clever, I thought. A just redistribution of unjust wealth, masquerading as a royal indulgence that no Descended would give a second thought.
“I don’t remember approving that,” I joked.
“I’m certain you wrote the grant of funds.” Luther leaned in, setting a kiss beneath my ear. “Pay no attention if your handwriting looks a great deal like mine.”
A laugh threatened to break free but couldn’t quite surface, smothered beneath the revelation dominating my thoughts and its consequences—who to tell, how to explain it, and what to do next. What he might do next.
Luther tensed at my silence. “Does that upset you? I thought—”
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m glad. I trust you.”
And I did. Though his formal title was ambiguous at best, he’d become the most influential of my advisors.
He was the first person everyone turned to with grievances, and his orders were treated with the same weight as mine.
I might have resisted it, were he anyone else, but he acted with such careful restraint, only when he was certain our decisions would align.
With him, sharing power felt so natural.
Given his recent election as Chief of Council, it was fairly his power to share. I’d delegated my control to the governing council, knowing my reign might be short. Tonight, that seemed more prudent than ever.
“If this is what Enness did for Zalaric and Taran,” Luther said, “I fear what he might do when—if—the day comes for our—your wedding.” He grimaced.
The last time he’d brought up the prospect of our marriage, it had ended in my cruel rejection, and he was trying so very hard to avoid crossing a line.
“I told him serving in your army was more than enough to repay you. I don’t think it worked.
Descended can be stubborn when it comes to a life debt. ”
“Enness doesn’t owe me a life debt.”
“My Queen, everyone in this garden owes you a life debt.”
My gaze roamed over the eclectic collection of guests.
There were longtime Bellator family friends like Henri’s father and Maura, who was cowering behind her wife and looking like she wasn’t sure whether to be more terrified of the Guardians’ bombs or the Descended’s magic.
There were recent allies like Runa and Enness and their group of freed prisoners, and the female warriors of Ignios, who’d joined the fun by crafting a giant, fiery phoenix soaring through the sky.
Though I wasn’t sure I could yet call them my allies, the Embers that Eleanor had recruited mingled amicably with their mortal peers.
Even those who weren’t invited—like Doriel and Obaneryn, who I’d granted asylum—had wandered over from their tented encampments to bask in the warmth of borrowed joy.
The dance floor had been overrun by the children we’d rescued from the Forgotten Lands, chasing each other through a forest of legs and gowns.
Their laughter as they played gave me hope that the trauma they’d endured had not destroyed their hearts forever.
Everywhere I looked, I saw a new familiar face—and virtually all, at one time or another, had looked to me to save them. It should have stoked my pride to see the evidence of my work in living, breathing, dancing flesh.
But I hadn’t saved them. Not yet.
When Yrselle had asked me how far I was willing to go to see my plans through, I’d confidently declared that I would give it all, believing my life was the greatest sacrifice I could make.
Anyone can die, she’d said. Can you kill?
I looked down at my hands, pristine to the eye, dripping in blood that only I could see. When I asked myself that question now, my mind filled with silvery light and a battlefield coated in glittering black.
Can you keep going when everyone you care for is lying in a grave?
Can you be the one who puts them there?