Page 183 of Burn of the Everflame

“Fuck your favor,” I yelled back. “He’s a murderer.”

“It’s not him I’m trying to save.” He tried to come closer, though the blistering heat held him back. “Look around, Diem. If you do this, more will be lost than his life.”

Thousands of eyes were on me, waiting to see what I did next. Unlike at the Challenging, when the crowd had craved a bloody execution, my army had no taste for death—at least not Henri’s. Maybe they’d forgive me once they learned what he’d done. Or maybe I would forever be the vengeful, murderous Queen who slaughtered her own.

Maybe I didn’t care.

“Don’t let him take more from you than you’ve already lost,” Brecke pleaded.

“I’ll do it,” Teller insisted. “I don’t care what they think of me.”

“Teller, no,” Lily cried. Her sweet face pleaded for his mercy as she comforted a weeping Lana. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Teller’s shoulders sank. He loved Lily more than vengeance. For her, only for her, would he bend.

My eyes turned to Luther. For him, I would bend, too—but unlike Lily, he would speak no word to hold me back. His hand curled like he itched to do the deed himself.

Finally, I looked to my mother. She looked so broken, and so, so small. She’d brought Henri into our lives after his mother’s death, urging me to befriend the angry, grieving little boy. When his father refused to remarry, she became the mother figure Henri never got to have. She’d brought him into the Guardians, too. To Vance.

She didn’t look angry . . . only sad. Deeply, heartrendingly sad.

“Let him go,” Brecke said. “Honor our deal, Diem. Show your people that you keep your word.”

My jaw clenched.

I pulled Henri’s face closer to mine. “If I ever lay eyes on you again, I will kill you. Then you will see how I keep my word.”

I shoved him to the ground, then I turned, and I walked into the flames.

43

LUTHER

“How bad is it?” Diem asked.

The silence was answer enough.

You could have heard the flutter of a moth in the meeting room where Diem’s advisors had gathered. After the events of the night before, Eleanor had gently suggested we meet to “assess.”

The fallout had been devastating. The brawl between the Guardians and the Royal Guards had rekindled old tensions, and Diem’s failure to stop it had not endeared her to either side. Her choice to spare that prick Henri had not been the inspiring act her friend Brecke had hoped for, either. Many now whispered, If she won’t get justice for her own family, how can I trust her to get it for mine?

Then there was the fire. The strange silver flames Diem created had burned out of control, taking out a number of tents across the various camps, destroying the only belongings some people had left. It was salt in a wound that Diem had promised to heal, and some had decided to leave Lumnos for good.

I didn’t fault her for what she’d done. Every nerve in my body throbbed with a vicious desire to find Henri and do much, much worse. But I did fear the consequences last night might bring—on our army, on this war, and for the darkness Diem had been fighting inside her.

“The other camps are blaming us for the fire spreading out of control,” Nidara said. “We did try to stop it, but our magic had no effect.” She paused. “I do not think it was made of Blessed Mother Ignios’s flames.”

“Perhaps it was a blending of Ignios flame and Lumnos light,” Alixe suggested. “If Diem is capable of combining the Kindred’s magic, that could give us a significant advantage.”

Enness—a new addition to Diem’s advisors, along with Runa—frowned. “If she can do it, doesn’t that mean he can do it, too?”

All eyes turned to Diem. Hers slid away.

“I’ll handle it,” I said to Nidara. “I’ll speak with the other camps and ensure they know your people are blameless.”

Eleanor looked at Auralie. “How are things with the Guardians?”

Auralie wasn’t listening. She was watching her daughter—and her son, who sat in the back of the room, his stormy glare never rising from the floor.