Page 87 of Spark of the Everflame

She massaged her temples, exasperation wearying her aging features. “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to first. Try to avoid looking the King or the Prince in the eyes—”

“You mustbe joking.”

“—and do not conceal your hands or make any sudden movements.”

“Are we meeting rabid dogs or civilized human beings?”

“Neither. These are the Descended—they’re something else entirely.”

I debated reminding her that the last two times I’d been in the palace, I’d broken every one of these rules, but her long-suffering sigh kept me silent.

Today, I would break rules far more serious than these anyway.

Despite my jokes, I wanted this meeting to go well. This was supposed to be my last visit to the palace accompanied by Maura and my first interaction with the King. Getting the royal family to accept me as my mother’s replacement was the key to all of my plans: protect Teller’s place at the Descended school, succeed on my mission with the Guardians, and find the truth of what happened to my mother.

“Remind me again why they even need mortal healers for the King?”

“Your mother said the Descended healers in Fortos already did everything they could. Whatever illness has taken him, it doesn’t respond to their magic.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Make him as comfortable as we can until he goes. The sickness has weakened his healing abilities, so he’s not much different than any mortal patient nearing their final days.”

Across the treetops, the shimmering towers of the royal palace came into view. From this distance, its walls of dazzling light seemed like a desert mirage, the edges watery and indistinct against the soft pastels of the dawn sky.

“It’s strange, isn’t it, to think that this King who has lived and ruled for generations is now just a helpless, dying old man?” I asked.

Maura hummed thoughtfully. “They may walk very different paths, but at the beginnings and the ends of their lives, they’re as mortal as we are. Perhaps their Kindred did that for a reason.”

“If the plan was to humble them, I don’t think it worked.”

Maura laughed despite her disapproving squint. “The stories say the goddess Lumnos and her siblings wanted the Descended to protect the mortals. Perhaps this was meant to remind them of what it means to be vulnerable and in need of protection.”

“I don’t think that worked, either. The only people they seem to have any interest in protecting are themselves.”

“How quickly you’ve formed your judgments, for someone who is only just now entering their world.”

“Their world, our world, isn’t it the same? Just because they hole up in their lavish cities doesn’t mean we don’t feel the consequences of everything they do. Maybe I haven’t been rubbing elbows with them my whole life, but I’m not blind to all they’ve done. I know what they’ve taken from us.”

She halted and turned to me. “Diem, is treating the King going to be a problem for you? You know we leave our opinions of our patients at the door.”

I couldn’t deny that I was struggling with it. It was one thing to overlook a sordid occupation or personal vices, but having watched that boy and his mother slaughtered in cold blood, knowing it was the result of the King’s policies...

Maura gave me a stern look and a swat on the leg from her cane, and I was instantly taken back to being a mischievous little girl getting a scolding from her elders.

“You’re better than this,” she said. “You’ve always been the healer we could send to our worst, most disagreeable clients.”

“You sent me because I wasn’t scared of them like all the other trainees.”

“No, we sent you because you hadcompassionfor them. Under all your sass, you still treated every patient like a human being who deserved a chance to be saved.”

I looked away, shrinking under her scrutiny. “Yes, well, like you said—they’re not human. They’re something else.”

“They descend from Lumnos’s mortal mate too, don’t they? They’re children of both worlds. They might have forgotten that, but we don’t have to.”

When I didn’t answer, Maura studied my face for a long moment. “This was a mistake. You go on back and let me handle the King.”

“No—that’s not necessary.” I straightened my back and schooled my expression into apathy. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

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