Page 3 of Glow of the Everflame

Lily lowered her head. “Blessed Mother Lumnos has chosen you.”

“Then she made a mistake. I can’t be the—will you please stand up?—I can’t be the Queen. I’m only a mortal.”

Growing up in the poor village of Mortal City, I’d spent my life isolated from the luxurious world of the Descended, the offspring of nine sibling gods and goddesses known as the Kindred, who long ago colonized our mortal home. I knew very little of the rules of royalty, but I did know this much: when a monarch died, their throne passed to the most powerful Descended. Only those with the blood of Lumnos flowing in their veins had ever worn her Crown.

Until now.

Lily rose, her face still aglow with reverence. “Perhaps she decided it’s time for a mortal to reign.”

“Has that ever happened before?” I asked.

She shook her head. “None of the nine realms has ever had a mortal Crown. But they say Blessed Mother Lumnos can see what lies in the future. Maybe she believes a change is needed.”

“Or maybe you’re not mortal,” Teller said quietly.

My focus shot to my brother. “How can you say that? Do I look like a Descended to you?”

He ran a hand down the back of his neck and scanned me from head to toe as if seeing me for the very first time. “You’re tall, like they are. You’ve always been strong. I haven’t seen you bleed from a wound since...” He stiffened. “Since your visions started.”

“Of course you have,” I argued, though as my thoughts tumbled through a web of memories, I couldn’t seem to think of one, either.

Only once—weeks ago, at the royal palace, when a Descended guard had nicked my throat with his blade. But that knife had been Fortosian steel, one of the only substances that could pierce Descended flesh. Their nearly impenetrable skin, along with quick healing and the power to wield magic, manifested in Descended children at puberty—the same time my visions began.

My last confrontation with Prince Luther played in my mind, his striking blue-grey eyes watching me through the bloody handprints I’d left across his skin.

I know you feel my power, he’d taunted.Because I can feel yours, too. You’re no more mortal than I am.

No. No, no, no, no.

Ihadto be a mortal. My mother would know if the man who sired me had been Descended, and she would never keep that from me.

Would she?

“What about your eyes?” Lily asked, squinting as she looked closer for the telltale blue that would mark me as a Lumnos Descended, as opposed to the brown of the mortals. “I’ve never noticed before. Are they...?”

“Grey,” I answered. “Not like the mortals or the Descended. But I was born with brown eyes, they changed when I—”

Lily’s gasp cut me off. “Grey? Your eyes aregrey?”

“Why? Does that mean something?”

“Show me,” she insisted.

My shoulders tensed. I had long ago learned to be wary of the attention my unusual eye color attracted. Children of mixed mortal-Descended heritage were forbidden by law, and any blue-eyed child who couldn’t prove pure-blooded lineage was condemned to execution if they were found.

A strong reason for your mother to lie about what you are,my conscience reminded me.

Lily let out a strangled cry as she took in my smoky irises. She staggered back, then turned as if to flee. “I have to go. I have to tell Luther about this. He’s been—”

“No!” I ran forward and clutched her shoulders. “Lily, you cannot tell your brother. You have to promise me you won’t say a word.”

“You don’t understand, Luther can help you. He saw—”

“I don’t want his help,” I snapped, a little too harshly. I regretted the hurt that flickered across her face, but this was one area where Lily and I would never see eye to eye.

Her brother had been the King’s heir apparent, groomed to take the throne from a young age. His magic was so infamously strong, no one had even been considered a close second. Luther’s name had been all but engraved on the Crown.

And considering that only hours ago, I’d sliced a blade into his throat as we’d threatened each other’s lives—amongotherdeeply unsettling exchanges—I wasn’t in any rush to tell him it now belonged to me.

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