Chapter 66
LUTHER
Iawoke to the presence of an aura.
Though I could only have been asleep for an hour or two at most, my mind was instantly alert. In my chest, the pounding of my heartbeat matched the echo of my mate’s, both beats fast and anxious. My fingers curled, reaching for her warmth but finding a cold, empty space.
“Diem?” I called out.
I conjured an orb of light to illuminate my bedroom. The clothes I’d ripped off her the night before were no longer scattered over my floor, and she was nowhere in sight, though I sensed she wasn’t far.
I rose and quickly dressed. The day before had been a long one.
I’d canvassed the streets of Lumnos City with my father and Eleanor, using every secret in their arsenals and every threat in mine to convince the Houses to fight.
Then, I’d recruited Aemonn to ransack the palace for the weapons his father had stolen.
Things between us were still tense, but Aemonn had set his mind to be less like his father, and I had set my mind to be more like my mate.
She believed that everyone could be redeemed. I didn’t, but for her, I would try.
When Diem returned with her family that evening—our family, I thought, the reminder drawing a smile to my face—I’d stolen her away to my bedroom and ravaged her late into the night, knowing it might be our last chance to be alone for a while.
My smile faded at that thought.
As I approached the royal suite, I growled to myself at the empty hallway outside. I followed the pull of the mating bond into the foyer and through her bedroom, muscles relaxing at the sight of her standing on the terrace.
“I see you excused your guards,” I said. “Again.”
Her long white curls swayed silently in the evening breeze.
“If you’re thinking about what to get me for a Forging Day gift, I have an idea,” I said, striding toward her. “You could care about your own safety for one year. Or even one week. One night. I’ll take anything I can get.”
She didn’t look at me when I reached her side.
Her face was turned south, and her hand was tightly clutched around the handle of her sword.
She was already dressed in leathers—a new version of what she’d worn at the Challenging, with the sigils of all nine realms embroidered in rings around her wrists and a letter B stitched over her heart, pierced by twin daggers and topped by a nine-peaked Crown.
I recognized the art as Eleanor’s hand, and the design was so strategically crafted for fighting that Alixe must have played a part, as well.
It was the perfect image for a Queen leading her people into battle. A suit fit for war.
I wanted to take it off her and burn it.
I wanted to live in a world where she never had to wear it at all.
“Diem,” I said again, softer. “You should be asleep. And your guards should be at their post. You’re vulnerable without your magic.”
I slid a hand around the back of her neck, the only bare skin of hers I could find, and her eyes fluttered closed. The hand on her sword eased its grip as she leaned into my touch.
“Do you feel it?” she whispered.
“It’s faint. If it’s him, he’s still far away.”
“It’s him.”
“The former Crowns have strong magic, too. Perhaps Mireille or Ailani got your message and came—”
“It’s him, Luther. I can’t explain it. I just know.”
I gave her a gentle squeeze, fighting a primal urge to drag her somewhere safe and lock her away. “At least our plans won’t be for nothing. We’ll march south, have our battle, defeat him, and then we can get back to the rest of our lives.”
Her eyes opened, then rose to the space above my head. “I wish I had my magic so I could give you some kind of crown as King.”
“The only Crown that matters is yours. The Kindred chose you.”
“Was it a choice if they had no other option? If Ophiucae had other children, they could have picked someone better.” She looked away. “Someone who doesn’t hesitate to kill when she’s given a chance.”
I took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the camp so she could see the patchwork of groups who had arrived over the weeks and the way the lines had blurred between them, the discrete factions slowly becoming one.
“The kind of person who doesn’t hesitate to kill could not have made this happen. ”
I pointed toward Runa and Enness’s group.
“Killing Ophiucae would not have freed them from the Fortos prisons.” My finger swung to the Ignios camp.
“Killing would not have convinced them to live with mortals.” I pointed at the Guardians.
“I was there when your mother asked them to join you. They were angry at her for even suggesting it. Then I told them what you did in Sophos—how you could have killed Vance and his men, but you let them go, because you couldn’t stand to kill a mortal unless you had no other choice.
That’s what convinced them, Diem. If you hadn’t hesitated to kill then, they would still be in hiding, still fugitives, still voiceless.
The mortals would not have a vote on the council for anyone but you.
Half-mortals are home because of you. You’re right, Diem.
You were the only choice. Ophiucae could have had a thousand heirs to pick from, and you would still have been the only choice. ”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her back against me, needing the respite, however fleeting, of knowing she was safe in my arms. “The same way you know that aura is Ophiucae’s because you’re connected to him, I’m connected to Blessed Lumnos.
I know why she gave you her Crown. It wasn’t to make you an assassin. It was to make you a Queen.”
“I envy your faith in her,” Diem said. “I want to believe there’s some greater force who intends to see me alive when all this ends.”
Something flickered in the air—a flash of heat, or the surge of an aura. Diem shivered.
“What was that?” I asked.
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You felt it, too?”
Voices rang out from the parlor, surprising us both given that dawn was hours away. A mid-argument group of Zalaric, Taran, and my sister abruptly barreled onto the terrace.
“There you are!” Lily exclaimed.
“You all should be asleep,” I said sternly.
“Tell that to him,” Taran muttered, jerking a thumb at Zalaric. He yawned and shuffled to Diem’s room, flopping on her bed face-first.
“I woke up and felt . . . something,” Zalaric said. “We ran into Lily while searching for you.”
His eyebrows rose, his question unspoken but acutely understood: Is it him?
I carefully restrained any answer from my face. “Why are you awake?” I asked Lily instead.
She grabbed one of my hands and one of Diem’s and tugged us toward the door. “You have to come see. It’s Teller—”
Diem tensed. “Is he hurt?”
Lily shook her head. “He couldn’t sleep last night.
He wanted to make more of the flameroot paste in case you needed it to stop Ophiucae, so I stayed up to help him, but then he got an idea, and he—well, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
” She yanked impatiently at our arms, then huffed and let us go.
“Come on,” she yelled, running for the door. “This could change everything!”
Diem left to join her, and Zalaric caught me by the arm. “The aura,” he said quietly. “It’s Ophiucae, isn’t it? She was right. He’s coming for us.”
“Go back to sleep,” I said. “Get rest while you can. We leave at dawn.” I started to go, but when I spotted Taran curled up in a ball on Diem’s bed, hugging her pillow and snoring, I turned back to Zalaric.
“Taran is a good man to have beside you in battle. He’ll risk anything to keep you out of harm’s way.
For a long time, I thought he believed he was invincible.
Then I realized he just thinks everyone else’s life is worth more than his.
” I frowned. “I know I don’t have to tell you to watch his back, but . . .”
“Luther, may I be blunt?” Zalaric asked.
“I was one of the most successful ring fighters in the Umbros markets. I can keep myself safe. If I can keep Taran with me, I can keep him safe, too. But if he sees you or Diem in danger . . .” He shook his head.
“If you want Taran to survive, the best thing you can do is take care of your mate and stay far away from mine.”
“Understood,” I said.
“Good. You people are far too willing to die for each other. What the people you love want is for you to live.”
He sauntered toward Taran and tried to nudge him awake. Taran mumbled, nuzzling his face deeper into the bedsheets. Zalaric picked up a carafe of water from Diem’s bedside table, then emptied it over Taran’s face.
“Hello?” Taran sputtered.
“Luther, hurry up,” Lily shouted from the corridor. I walked out to see her practically dragging Diem down the hall. “Don’t get too excited yet—we’re not sure it works. Well, Teller and Alixe aren’t sure. I’m sure. If Teller made it, it’ll work.”
“What will work?” I called out.
Lily picked up speed, and I gave up on getting answers, jogging behind them through the hallways to the palace armory.
I was surprised to see the expansive room packed with people at such a late hour, each of them caked with a crust of sweat and glittering black dust. Anvils and hammers lay scattered with half-finished armor, some still glowing red from the forge.
They’d all been abandoned, thanks to something at the center of the room that had attracted a crowd.
“I found them,” Lily yelled, tugging Diem through the circle of people. One glare from me had the crowd parting to let us through to the center, where Teller was smearing a black paste over Alixe’s forehead.
“Diem,” Teller said, looking up. “We need a Centenary. You have to make them help us.”
“Why are you all awake?” I demanded. “Your Queen gave you orders to rest.”
“She gave us orders to fight,” a man said from the crowd. Beneath the grime, I recognized him as an old friend of Diem’s—Brecke, she’d called him. “This is how we do it.”
“When I told Brecke our plans for tomorrow, he gathered everyone with smithing experience,” Alixe explained. “They’ve been working through the night to finish as much godstone armor as they can before we leave.”
“She said you wanted us to make helmets,” Brecke said to Diem.
He grimaced. “Thing is, helmets are the worst kind of armor. If they don’t fit just right, they’re as likely to get you killed as save you.
They take time and precision, and we don’t have either.
” He grabbed an object from a nearby table—a thick, uneven plate of godstone threaded with leather straps.
“This may not look like much, but it’ll keep a blade out of your heart and out of your belly.
We could spend all night and make ten helmets, or I could make a hundred of these. I made the call I thought was right.”
“Of course,” Diem said, though I could feel the disappointment she wouldn’t let show. “Thank you, Brecke.” She looked at her brother. “I still don’t understand why you’re here. And why do you need a Centenary?”
Teller grinned as Lily squirmed beside him, biting her lip and looking ready to burst. “I was making more of the flameroot paste for our archers to put on their arrows, and I started thinking about my time in Sophos. I overheard a professor tell his students that the best way to test an invention is to ask yourself, ‘What can I change?’ So I started to wonder what might happen if I replaced the flameroot with godstone.”
“The godstone toxin doesn’t work fast enough to be useful in battle,” I said.
“Not as a weapon. But it could work as a shield.” He dipped his hand in a bowl of black sludge, then held out his palm to Lily. “Show them.”
Lily conjured a spear of pale blue light and thrust it toward Teller. Diem gasped, her palms jerking up to raise a shield around her brother. Though she had no magic to protect him, the glowing bolt snuffed out with a hiss when it hit Teller’s blackened palm.
Suddenly, I felt it again—that warm, inexplicable flicker of energy in the air.
“See?” Teller said. “It blocks magic. It won’t do much to stop a weapon. You’ll need Brecke’s armor for that. But if it’s put on a person’s head—”
“—it might stop thought magic,” Diem finished breathlessly. “Teller, you’re a genius.”
“Save your compliments until we know it works,” he said, though he beamed with pride.
“If it does, it’ll be a hell of a lot better than helmets,” Brecke said. “We’ve got seven barrels of raw godstone left. Should only take five to make enough of this mixture for everyone in your army.”
Diem nodded at Brecke. “Keep making the armor for now, but don’t touch those last five barrels. Alixe and Teller, come with us.” She leveled me with a pointed stare. “I have a feeling we’re going to need your shield.”