Page 45 of Spark of the Everflame

In retrospect, solitude might not have been such a good idea.

After only a few minutes, I’d scrubbed hastily at my skin and hair before scurrying back to the room and collapsing into the scratchy cotton sheets, grateful to succumb to the refuge of sleep.

But now I was wide awake, and the empty expanse of bed beside me was cold and still neatly made. Henri had not yet come back.

A peek through the window at the moon hanging low in the sky told me dawn was nearing. Worry crept up the nape of my neck, forcing me out of bed and back into my clothing and blades.

As I wandered through the dim hallway and down the stairs to the tavern, worn hardwood planks creaked under my footsteps, slicing through the heavy silence. The air was thick with the scent of stale ale and damp wood, but there was no lively chatter from the patrons, no clink of glasses and dishware. Like the mottled brass sconces lining the walls, the vibrant signs of life that had illuminated the room hours before had all been extinguished for the night.

A hiss of whispers lured me deeper into the dining room. Around the corner, a group of eight men crowded around a wobbly, rough-hewn table, a single candle at the center casting ghoulish shadows that waltzed along the oak-paneled walls. Their shoulders hunched forward, expressions excited but earnest, as they murmured in low voices.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted the dimpled jawline and disheveled hair of Henri’s profile seated beside Brecke. The grin that had earlier seemed permanently stamped on Brecke’s face was gone, replaced by knitted brows and a hand rubbing unhappily at his beard.

One of the men slammed his fist into the table, and I flattened against the wall. As emotions and voices grew hot, fleeting words and stunted phrases made their way through the room.

“...we cannot allow....”

“...send word to the others...”

“...gathering forces...”

“...almost time...”

“...war...”

The last word struck like a viper, fangs sinking into my skin.

War.

What war? Emarion had been at peace for my lifetime. If there were threats from abroad, surely my father would have mentioned something.

Or perhaps, with Mother missing, he would have kept any troubling news to himself to spare us from further worry. Just as Teller and I had been keeping our problems from him—and each other.

Anxiety tightened around my neck. As a mortal, Teller was now considered an adult by law. If there was a war, he would be drafted to fight.

And so would Henri.

And so, too, might my father. Despite his retirement, his expertise would be invaluable, and the loyalty he commanded among the mortal forces was unmatched.

And I would be left behind. Alone—unless I abandoned Lumnos to join the army, too. Unless I traded in my life as a healer to pick up a weapon andfight.

Fight, thevoiceinside me echoed.

A tingling sensation coated my skin, and the world around me went dark as a hazy image shimmered in my mind’s eye.

I was standing on a battlefield aflame with silvery fire, clad in armor of deepest black that concealed mud and gore, the speckled evidence of war. My bloodied hands bore a great gold-handled broadsword whose onyx blade was veined with scrollwork that seemed almost illuminated from within. I swung the blade around me in slow, menacing circles that dared my enemy to approach. A shadowed figure stood nearby, and lifeless bodies—Descended and mortal—lay in a broad ring at my feet, as if they’d been thrown back by the force of a massive explosion. My face was grim, undaunted. Sad, I think—but strong.Unbreakablystrong.

I cursed myself again for destroying my flameroot supply and leaving myself vulnerable to these delusions, but something about this vision was... different. Unlike the vivid hallucinations of my childhood, which had felt lucid and entirely real, this seemed more like a glimpse into something vague, something possible. Not a reality that was, but a fate that could be.

The vision faded as quickly as it came, leaving behind an energy humming in my blood. Though I was once again empty-handed in a dark tavern, I could still feel the glossy metal of the sword in my grip, still smell the rotten scent of death wafting on an imagined breeze. That sensation of power—no, ofbeingpowerful—was intoxicating in a way that left me as intrigued as I was unsettled.

My cheeks flushed as reality settled back in. I had no place on a battlefield—I was a healer, not a soldier. And even if I was equally as adept with blade or bow, my father had taught me better than to romanticize bloodshed.

War is no game, he’d once scolded after spying me giggling as I waged mock warfare against Teller with rocks and wooden sticks.War is death and misery and sacrifice. War is making choices that will haunt you for the rest of your days.You fight to protect, or to survive, but never for the joy of killing, no matter how brutal your enemy.

If war truly was coming, there would be no glory in it. Not for Teller, or Henri, or my father, and certainly not for me.

I was about to return to the inn when my eye snagged on one of the men. He had propped his arm on the table, his dirt-mottled sleeve pushed to his elbow. There, on his forearm, in stark lines engraved on pale skin, was a vine-encircled flaming tree. The Everflame—the same tattoo I’d seen on Henri’s shoulder.

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