Page 119 of Spark of the Everflame

Because of me.

“If you want, I can try to find a smaller guard to go with you,” the woman offered, perhaps sensing my courage had suddenly taken flight.

I waved her off. “There’s no time. I’ll be fine.”

She nodded. “Get them as close to the exit as you can. When you’ve got them all, we’ll raise the beams and help pull them out.”

I had to admit, I was impressed by her singular focus. She didn’t try to talk me out of it, nor did she treat me like my mortal blood made me too weak or too ignorant to understand the risks I was taking on. Unwise as my choice might be, she was determined to respect it.

I unlatched my weapons belt from my hips and passed it off to her, knowing I would need to be as streamlined as possible to squeeze my way through. “If I don’t come back, tell that Prince of yours...”

I looked over my shoulder for Luther, but he had already disappeared from sight.

A twinge of hurt tugged at my chest, leaving me feeling embarrassed and naive. Of course my certain death wasn’t entertaining enough to hold his attention. Why should I have expected anything different?

“Never mind,” I said quickly. I tucked my hair into the back of my tunic, dropped to my knees and took a long, final breath. “Time to find out if Grandma Lumnos likes me after all.”

* * *

Hotwasa piss-poor way to describe what the inside of the armory felt like. The word was so mild, so wholly inadequate.

A cookpot of sizzling, steaming oil.

Red-hot iron liquefied over a blacksmith’s forge.

The Flaming surface of the gods-damned sun.

The armory’s walls and floor were made of stone—likely the only reason any part of the building still remained upright—but the tall wooden rafters had become one giant, billowing cloud of fire. The heat of it pressed down with near-physical force, the air so impossibly thick any movement felt like wading through liquid warmth.

The ground ahead was mostly clear, albeit dotted with fallen chunks of flaming wood, but high above, the remaining beams crackled like a winter fireplace. A sound that had once brought me such nostalgic comfort now served as a warning of what could come crashing down on my head at any moment.

I crawled along the floor as quickly as I could, the collar of my tunic pulled over my mouth to filter the blackened air.

“Hello?” I screamed, my voice already hoarse from the effects of the smoke. “Can anyone hear me? Call out if you can hear my voice.”

Silence.

It was a struggle to keep my eyes open, even harder to see more than an arm’s length ahead.

“Is anyone out there?” I yelled. “I can help you.”

Silence.

On hands and knees, I dragged myself down the path the woman had described, feeling along the walls of the main corridor. At the entrance to a massive storeroom, a golden plaque engraved with the wordBladeshad fallen to the floor. The roof had partially given way, allowing the night air to flush out some of the blinding smog. The shelves lining the walls were strangely bare, and several wooden crates sat overturned and empty on the ground. A handful of knives lay scattered on the floor, the pale gemstones in their dark wood handles glimmering in the dancing firelight.

My eyes snagged on a pair of boots sticking out from behind a crate. I rushed toward the body that lay hunched on its side, heart racing, my silent prayers on a ceaseless loop.

I grabbed at his shoulder and tugged him over to his back—then lurched away with a startled cry. His blue eyes were bulging and vacant, mouth stuck open in an unanswered plea for mercy. Blood coated his chest, his throat slit with a gash that ran nearly to the bone.

Not burned, not suffocated from smoke.

Murdered.

My thoughts flashed back to the Guardians I’d met on the road and the two carts they had been pulling. I looked again at the vacant shelves and overturned crates, piecing it all together.

What did you think would happen,my conscience scolded me.That the Guardians would knock on the door and ask nicely?

I crawled around the room, my search for survivors turning up only corpses—two more guards, one beheaded and the other blown apart by an explosion.

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