Page 95 of Spark of the Everflame

“I found my satchel, and then I came back.” I cringed at the tremble in my voice.

“Where?”

“It fell off my shoulder in the hallway.”

“Why didn’t the guards see you?”

“I got lost.”

At his side, magic began to flow from the heart of his palms. Sparks of light and wisps of shadow wove between his fingers and up his wrists to form a living glove.

The slumberingvoiceinside me opened a single, curious eye.

Luther’s glare shot to the guards. “I told you not to engage her.”

The man who’d shoved me stepped forward. “We were just holding her until you arrived, Your Highness. We started to search her things, and she attacked us.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Really? That’s the story you’re going with?”

“Silence!”

Everyone stilled at the roar of Luther’s thunderous voice. His fury hung so thick in the air I could almost taste its smoky tang. My gaze met his as the echoes of his command reverberated down the hall.

Don’t end up like your mother...

His eyes narrowed on me. “You—”

“Your Highness, please.” Maura stumbled forward, and though she cried out as guards reached to block her path, her face had a grave resolve to it I had rarely seen. “I can’t excuse what Diem did. She was...” She paused and stared at me. “Reckless. And immature.”

I flinched.

“But I’ve known this girl since she was a baby, and she doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. She didn’t mean any harm by it. I’d swear it on my own life.”

Nausea churned in my stomach.If she only knew.

I’d never wanted so badly to sink into the shadows and disappear.

Luther’s boots crunched over the slivers of glass scattered across the floor as he stalked closer, holding my gaze until I gave in and allowed my eyes to break away. Let him win his staring contest, if it got me out of there alive.

From the corner of my vision, I watched his focus drop to my neck. He shook away the magic twining around one arm, then reached for me. I braced in anticipation of being seized by the throat, but what he did unsettled me far more.

His touch was strikingly gentle as he examined the wound. I didn’t even feel pain, only the slow, careful stroke of his thumb beneath my jaw and down the curve of my neck, pausing at an old scar on my collarbone. A shiver rolled through me.

His hand stilled. He pulled it back and stared at the dark crimson blood now coating his fingers.

“Rigorn. Yannick.”

Two of the guards stepped forward. One I recognized as the man who had pushed me against the wall. The other clenched a bloody knife in his fist.

Luther held out his other hand, still wrapped in curls of writhing darkness. “Your weapon.”

As the guard laid the handle in his outstretched palm, Luther’s shadow magic encircled it, infecting the blade with a grim, throbbing energy. The guard’s hand loitered for a moment, like he didn’t want to let it go, and I realized he was shaking.

Fast as a rattlesnake, Luther struck—one moment the knife was in his hand, and the next it was lodged low in the guard’s stomach, thorny black vines stretching out to pierce the skin around the wound.

The healer in me felt a dark admiration at the placement. There was nogoodplace to get stabbed, but if it had to happen... fewer veins, no vital organs. It would hurt like hell, but with his Descended healing, he’d easily survive it.

Almost as if Luther had become an expert at this kind of thing.

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