Page 69 of Spark of the Everflame

My body quivered with flourishing fury, now so deeply woven into my devastation and guilt, I couldn’t tell where one emotion began and the others ended.

“He shouldn’t have to live like that,” I yelled. “He didn’t choose to be born to that vile monster. These laws are wrong, they are evil and wrong andthat gods-damned King—”

The man shushed me and glanced nervously over his shoulder, though the crowd had already grown bored and dispersed. Dead bodies were hardly an unusual sight in these parts.

“Hold your tongue, woman. No sense getting yourself killed over a stranger.”

“Why not?” I shot back. “This boy was one of ours, too. Shouldn’t we protect him? Shouldn’t we fight back and make them pay?”

These were dangerous words—deadly words. This man could make a pretty penny turning me in for treason. In a city of poverty, I might as well have signed my own death warrant.

But with the child’s corpse still warm in my arms, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Self-preservation had given way to smoldering, infinite wrath, breaking the dam that held back all my words.

“They’re the ones that diluted their own power, all so they could populateourcities and fillourschools. Why should children pay the price while they shun us and shore their magic back up again? Why should any of us bend for their Flaming w—”

The man jerked to his feet and shook his head. “You go get yourself killed, then. I want no part of this.”

He turned, and my hand flew out and grasped his ankle. “Wait—please. I... I need your help.”

* * *

It wasa blessing I knew this path so well I could follow it blind, because my mind was a thousand miles away.

I’d somehow talked the grey-bearded man into helping me carry the bodies to the forest to give the mother and her son a proper burial. He’d eyed me warily the whole time, and by the lack of questions about my eye color, I suspected he knew who I was, or at least knew enough to find me if he wanted to.

Whether he would turn me in for my traitorous outburst, only time would tell.

Without a shovel, I’d only managed to claw out a shallow grave in the root-thickened soil. I’d laid out their bodies together in a gentle embrace, the boy cradled in his mother’s arms for all eternity. I prayed they found the serene safety in the Everflame’s warmth that the gods never allowed them in life.

It was hard not to think of my own mother at the sight—to wonder whether she might be waiting for them, or me, on the other side. To wonder whether someone had foundherbody, and whether they’d bothered to bury her in an unmarked grave, too.

Despite the arrival of a blustery rainstorm that seemed determined to linger over my head, I’d gone back to Paradise Row to find anyone who might have known them. In the six months since the fateful day my mother vanished, I’d honed my memory on other details, leaving my brief encounter with this woman lost to the murky edges.

I wandered the alleys all evening, hoping some forgotten detail might trigger a recollection. After several hours I was soaked, freezing, and miserably hopeless.

And angry. So very, very angry.

Earlier my rage had been molten metal, red-hot and flowing in a river of destruction. Now it had cooled and solidified into something steelier. Something sharp and unforgiving.

My fury went far beyond the murderer himself. I hated him, of course—my mind swarmed with visions of what I might do if I ever saw him again, and thevoiceinside hummed at each progressively darker and more violent scenario.

But the real focus of my wrath was the Descended and the cursed King that put these progeny laws into place.

Seeing the child die had cracked something fundamental inside me. How could I be so useless? How could I watch a murder and not be able to stop it?

Healing now seemed like an absurdly frivolous pursuit. Healing was reactionary. Passive. Being a healer meant sitting idly by and waiting for someone to get hurt.

I was sick of waiting.

The time had come to fight. And I was ready.

My eyes zeroed in on my destination.Please be at home,I thought.Before I lose my nerve.

Through the glossy, candlelit windows of the post office, I spotted Henri’s father at work. He was alone, whistling as he sorted packages for the following day’s deliveries.

I crept around to the back, eyeing the nondescript door that led to the attached living quarters. With my ear to the wood, I caught the muffled sounds of footsteps and a baritone voice muttering to himself. Any other day I might have cracked a smile or plotted how I might tease him, but today...

My fist slammed against the door, a heavy drumbeat echoed by my heart. Inside, I heard the footsteps still.

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