Page 152 of Burn of the Everflame

He shrugged. “Didn’t do much of it in the army, but the mechanics aren’t that different from a blade.”

“Perfect. Tomorrow, find my High General, Alixe. Tell her I want you to help with our secret project. Tell her I trust you with the truth.”

“You Bellators and your secrets,” he teased, though he preened a little at her trust. “I’m looking forward to it.”

I slid an arm around Diem’s waist, and I didn’t pretend it was anything other than possessive. “Nice to meet you, Brecke. We must go. Her Majesty has an appointment.”

“That wasn’t what you brought me to see?” she asked as I led her away.

“No.” My stomach felt coated with tar. “This is.”

As we approached Henri’s tent, Lana eyed us both, then took Henri’s face in her hands and planted him with a passionate—perhaps also possessive—kiss.

As subtly as I could manage, I watched Diem out of the corner of my eye. She frowned and averted her gaze from the showy display. Though I told myself she was merely being polite, my worst fears jeered that her heart still burned for her former flame.

Lana rose, and so did Henri. “Thank you both for agreeing to this,” I said.

Lana gave a silent nod and a look toward Diem I couldn’t quite interpret. She placed one last kiss on Henri’s cheek, then walked away.

Diem glanced between me and Henri. “What’s going on?”

I squared my shoulders to her and took her hands, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Diem,” I said quietly, “whatever it is you’re keeping inside, it’s eating you alive. You’re fighting some battle I can’t see, and I promised you I’d never let you fight alone.” I squeezed her hands. “He was your closest friend. If you can’t talk to me . . . then talk to him.”

The emotions on her face were beyond what words could label. She seemed to be weighing, deliberating, deciding . . . what? Whether to speak to him, or whether to slap me for going too far?

My aura curled around her and held her in a way my body couldn’t. Her mouth parted as my godhood brushed its invisible touch across her lips.

Henri stepped forward and held out a hand. “Come on, D. Let’s talk. Just you and me.”

A stronger man would have walked away.

Once Diem let go of my hands and took Henri’s instead, a stronger man would have given them the privacy they deserved. After all, if Diem chose to act on any feelings for him she might still have, I had no right to interfere—though it would not stop me from trying.

But when it came to Diem, I wasn’t a stronger man. I skulked into the nearby forest, cloaked myself in shadows, and I watched.

They were awkward at first. Both of them made an effort to keep distance between them. They perched on a fallen log and sat as far apart as they could, teetering on each end. I couldn’t hear their words—that boundary, at least, I wouldn’t cross—but I could tell the conversation was stilted and slow. I feared this plan, like so many before, was doomed to fail.

And then . . . he made her smile. One second, she was anxiously picking at the bark of the trunk, and the next, she was smirking. Chuckling. Rolling her eyes and shooting him amused, knowing looks.

There was an ease between them, the kind of second-nature comfort that could only come from spending years at a person’s side. The kind she and I hadn’t had time to acquire.

Eventually, she began to talk.

And then she began to weep. When Henri shifted down the log and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, my self-restraint almost vanished. It was only when he led her into his tent and closed the flap that I finally walked away.

That night, I lay awake, unable to forget the bloodless, stricken look on Henri’s face at whatever Diem had told him.

36

DIEM

“Ithink we died.”

“What?”

“I think we died on the flight over. We’re in the afterlife, and the Old Gods allowed me to spend the rest of my days in the greatest place I could ever dream of.”

“Teller, when you enter the Undying Fire, I hope the Old Gods send you somewhere a lot better than Umbros.”