Page 48 of Spark of the Everflame

We were several hours into our painfully withdrawn trip when I gave in and breached the silence.

“You were right.”

His attention jerked to me, looking like he had never been more relieved to hear a sound in his life.

“I wasn’t,” he said quickly. “What I said was out of line.”

“No, you weren’t. You were right. Iambroken.” My voice faltered on the last word, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Or breaking, at least.”

His leg nudged mine as he brought his horse closer.

“It’s not the worst thing to break a little every now and then. It builds character.” Even without seeing him, I heard the teasing in his voice, his gentle peace offering.

So I offered one in return. “You’re starting to sound like the Commander again.”

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.” When I opened my eyes, he was smiling. A monstrous weight lifted from my chest—not gone forever, but enough that I felt a flush of old familiar joy bloom through my blood.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

“So am I.” And I knew he meant it, too. “I know you too well to try forcing you to talk about your feelings, but you know I’ll be here if you need me, right? Always. No matter what.”

My heart squeezed. It was all I could manage to smile and nod.

We continued without speaking for many long minutes, both of us quietly unspooling as the hours of tension eased away. This time, it was Henri who broke the silence.

“About a year ago, I watched one of the Descended kill a mortal boy.”

My eyes shot to his, but his gaze stayed fixed ahead, his expression grim.

“I was making a delivery in Lumnos City. The boy was delivering pears from a farm out west. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, right out of school. He was crossing the road, but his arms were loaded with crates, and he couldn’t see...” He pulled in a shaky breath. “One ofthemwas riding a giant horse—the biggest horse I’ve ever seen. I’ll never forget it. White as snow, with a patch of black between its eyes, and as tall as a house. Gold ribbon in its mane. And it was going so fast. Too fast for a busy road like that.”

He shuddered, and my stomach lurched.

“It was an accident. I know that. Just an accident. But the Descended...” His eyes blazed with remembered anger. “He barely even stopped. Gods, he wasswearingat the boy for getting mud on his pretty jeweled saddle. When I told him the boy was dead, he sat there in his gold and finery and he looked at that boy’s corpse like it wasnothing. He just brushed the dust off his horse and rode away.”

Henri’s fingers clenched around his pommel. His fingernails dug tiny half-moons into the leather with enough fury to suggest he was envisioning squeezing something else between his hands.

“I carried the boy’s body to three different villages, but no one knew who he was. I buried him on our family’s land so I can at least return his bones to his kin, if I ever find them.”

A chill rattled through me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because then I would have had to tell you what I did next.”

He clenched his jaw, still avoiding my gaze.

“I was so angry, Diem. It snapped something in me. Our whole lives they’ve trampled all over us, just like he did to that boy, and they don’t care. They leave us in the dirt, as if our lives are worthless.” His voice was rising, growing louder and more fervent. “So I decided if they could take a life from us, I could take one from them. I put on every weapon I could carry, and I went back to that street and waited. Every day for a week, I waited for the man to come back down that road, and I knew that when he did, I was going to kill him. I didn’t even care if I died in the process. I wanted them toseeus, even if that was the only way to get them to look.”

“Henri,” I breathed sadly.

I’d almost lost him, and I hadn’t even known it. I’d been off somewhere teasing Teller, or perhaps working at the center, and all the while, Henri had been a few miles away, resigning himself to certain death.

I fumbled for the right words to comfort him, to convince him I could never judge him for it. I, of all people, knew what it was to be so consumed with anger that everything else was cast aside and forgotten. But that would require admitting a secret of my own.

He winced and continued. “A man found me—a mortal man. He took one look at me, and somehow he knew what I was there to do. He said I could die a meaningless death on one act of vengeance, or I could channel it into something bigger. Something that mattered. Something that would make a lot more of them pay than just that one man.” He finally turned his gaze to me. His features had shifted to a serene, almost reverent expression. “When I said the tattoo was to honor the Old Gods, I meant it. They were watching over me that day.”

“Who was the man?” I asked.

He briefly scanned the road for prying ears and eyes. “I can’t tell you his name. It’s one of the rules: never reveal the identity of any member, even to those we trust completely. It’s a group for mortals who refuse to accept the Descended as the rulers of Emarion. We fight back in whatever ways we can. We call ourselves the Guardians of the Everflame.”

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