Page 36 of Spark of the Everflame

I couldn’t seem to choke the words out that looking was useless. I’d destroyed my only supply, and with my mother gone, I had no way of ever replenishing it.

Henri stoked the fire so the light of the flames spilled across the campsite, then returned to my side. He gently turned over my belongings as he searched, but his eyes lingered on me. “I thought you decided to stop taking it?”

Some haunted reaction must have commandeered my face. He immediately stilled.

“Diem, tell me what happened.”

“I had a hallucination. Like... like before. Like when I was young.”

He set down the items in his hands and leaned back on his heels. “What did you see?”

“There was... I saw an animal. Attacking me. I thought it was going to kill me. And then I—my hands... there was this light, and I—”

“What kind of animal?” His head was angled slightly, like he was trying to puzzle something out.

Why does that matter, I wanted to scream.I’m losing my mind, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“A wolf,” I gritted out. “It lunged at me, and then I—”

“Diem.” The word struck me like a command, demanding my silence. His shoulders dropped. “That wasn’t a hallucination.”

My head was still shaking, though I wasn’t sure if it was from shock or denial. “No. No, it couldn’t have been real. My hands—”

“I saw it, too. Well, I didn’tseeit, but I heard it growling. The sound of it woke me up.”

Everything paused.

“You did?” My voice came out strangled. “You’re sure?”

He laughed, the sound clearly born of nervous relief rather than amusement. He reached over and took my hands. “Yes, I’m sure. You didn’t imagine it.”

So the wolf had been real. But if the wolf was real, then the rest of it had to be real, too. And what I’d done to the wolf...

“But, Henri... it lunged at me, and then—then it was just... gone. I think I... it almost felt like I’d—”

“You must have scared it off. You know how skittish wild animals can be around humans.”

I stared at him, jaw hanging open. “But... if it was real—”

“By the Flames, Diem, you scared the life out of me.” He laughed again, scrubbing at his face. He rose to his feet and pulled me up to join him. One arm snaked around me and tucked me in tight against his waist, his other hand stroking my hair. “This is exactly why I wanted you to come on this trip. You’ve been under so much pressure lately. I knew eventually you were going to snap under the weight of it all.”

I nodded weakly and looked down to hide the scarlet flush on my cheeks.

Maybe he was right—maybe there’d been no strange sensation, no glow, no cloud of ash, no body burned out of existence. Maybe I’d simply been so rattled by the events of the past few days that the old fears of my youth had stirred from years of hibernation.

Henri squeezed me reassuringly before pulling back. “Come on, let’s get some sleep. Dawn is still hours away.”

As he turned, the glimmering embers of the campfire illuminated his muscled back. In his sleep-dazed rush to get to me, he’d left his shirt behind. My eyes caught on a patch of black ink on his shoulder.

A gnarled tree, with leaves of flame, inset in a circlet of vines—the sacred Everflame, the Tree of Life and Death.

According to the old mortal religion, all life began as sparks from the Everflame that fell to the earth as glowing seeds. At death, those found worthy by the Old Gods would be placed among its burning branches, where their earthly bodies would turn to ash but their souls would remain forever warmed by the Undying Fire. Those found unworthy were doomed to an eternity in a cold hell encased in ice, far from the Everflame’s redeeming heat.

Though some mortals still clung in secret to the ancient faith, all references to the Everflame and the Old Gods were now outlawed across the nine realms. I’d only ever seen them in the old mortal books my mother collected—the one law she’d always been happy to flagrantly disobey.

My hand rose to Henri’s back, fingertips tracing the dark lines etched into his skin. “When did you get this?”

He tensed and recoiled from my touch. “A few months ago.”

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