Page 126 of Spark of the Everflame

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Light.

My eyes cracked open to a brightness so blinding my head immediately began to spin. My body lost its sense of direction and dropped into a feeling of freefall. I clutched at the bedsheets as the world tilted and tumbled in a wild, disorienting churn.

My fingers brushed against skin. The realness of it centered me, slowed my descent until I stopped falling and the room came into view.

I heard breathing, slow and deep. And a fireplace.

My throat tightened at the first snap of a burning log. For a second, I was back inside that armory, my lungs and nose choked with putrid smoke, watching helplessly as the inferno closed in around me. I stretched my fingers again until skin grazed skin, and the panic subsided.

I blinked a few times to clear my vision.

I was in a bed. Large and exceptionally cozy, but unfamiliar. The silken sheets caressed me like a lover’s touch, nothing like the old, rough-worn linen of my bedding at home. Downy blankets piled atop me, my head cushioned by a mountain of pillows.

My eyes roamed over the room. Spacious, yet homely, appointed with simple but elegant furnishings—the kind that worked so hard to seem unassuming, but you knew just by looking at them, they cost a small fortune. The stone ceiling, vaulted high above, held a tiered chandelier of dimly glowing orbs, but the light that had so blinded me a moment ago had come from my left.

My head swiveled slowly in that direction, the movement straining my stiff, tender muscles. Along a row of arched windows, cascading swaths of burgundy silk had been drawn back to reveal sunrise over a fog-draped garden. The sky was splashed with creamy pink and hazy lilac, but it was the vivid orange glow of the dawn sun that bathed the room in its brilliant glory.

Rimmed in a corona of morning light, a man slumped against a high-backed armchair, head lolled to the side. Eyes closed, lips parted slightly, chest rising in the rhythm of slumber. Loose strands of ebony hair framed a face that had somehow become even more handsome in sleep, all its sharp edges sheathed for the night. Only a wrinkle between his dark brows hinted at a ripple beneath the still calm.

His chair had been pulled close to the bed. One arm draped across the blankets, his fingers grazing mine. His palm was open and upturned, as if awaiting my hand, just as it had been in those final moments in the armory.

Luther.

His eyes opened, our gazes already matched. For a heartbeat, his expression didn’t change, and I marveled at the softness of it. I’d never seen him like that. I’d seen him angry, annoyed—even terrified, I remembered with a shiver—but never quite so... peaceful.

“You’re awake.” He sat up abruptly. I waited for the frosty indifference I was so used to receiving from him, but he only frowned. “How do you feel?”

I pushed myself up and shook my head to clear my thoughts, but my brain was still mired in a fog. “What happened? Where am I?”

“The armory collapsed, and you were...” He paused. “...knocked unconscious. I brought you back to the palace to recover.”

My thoughts flashed with terrifying snippets of jumbled memories. The explosions, the Guardians on the road, the dead guards, the flaming building, Perthe—

“Perthe,” I rasped. “Is he alright? Did they make it out? And the other, is he—”

“They’re both going to be fine. Perthe was sent to Fortos to see an army healer. The other is already recovering at home.”

I released a deep exhale, one I thought I might have been holding in for the entire night. I sank back against the pillows, closing my eyes as relief burned the burst of panic away. “They made it,” I murmured.

“Yes. Because of you.”

Because of me. Guilt wrapped a talon around my chest and squeezed, its sharp claws sinking into my flesh.

“The others—the ones that were laying outside. Are they...?”

“A few were sent to Fortos for treatment, but most were able to return home to heal on their own. Except...”

The woman.

I nodded in silent understanding. Her battered, gruesome body was a sight I would never forget—would never allow myself to forget.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “For those who didn’t make it.”

He wouldn’t understand,couldn’t, how deeply I meant those words. How heavy their lives would weigh on me for the rest of my days.

Or maybe he did. I remembered the doubt etched on his face when I first arrived last night. Did he know? Did he suspect?

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