Page 163 of Glow of the Everflame

Eleanor nodded. “There’s no Crown I’d rather serve.”

One by one, the four of them placed a fist to their chests and bowed their heads. The tiniest sliver of my misery fell away.

“I’m going to make enemies,” I warned, swallowing thickly. “House Hanoverre is only the beginning.”

“We’ll continue training to prepare for a Challenge,” Alixe said. “Once you learn to control it, you’ll be unbeatable.”

My focus cut to Luther. He gazed at me with one of his heavy, burning looks, his eyes glowing with enough devotion to steal the breath from my lungs.

He dipped his chin. “You already know how I feel.”

I quickly looked away.

I tried to find the right words to express how much their support meant to me, but when I reached down to pull them to my lips, too many other words tried to fight their way to the top. Desperate, heartbroken words, angry words, words that would crack me wide open and leave me in pieces on the floor.

I couldn’t have been more grateful for Eleanor’s keen talent at reading a room as she nudged Taran and Alixe toward the door. “I know you’re not ready to talk yet. Whenever you are, just say the word, and we’ll be there.”

As they said their goodbyes, I found myself in the one situation I had been dreading even more than facing House Hanoverre—being alone with Luther.

I had spent so much of the last four days thinking about the man who stood before me. In those dark moments when I couldn’t take one more second of picturing my father’s mutilated corpse or my brother’s devastated reaction, I had turned my thoughts to Luther.

At first, he had been my refuge. I’d soothed myself with memories of how he had looked at me as the armory roof began to collapse, the words he’d whispered as we danced at the ball, how he’d held me while I burned—all the times he’d made me feel cherished in a way no one else ever had.

But in its fractured state, my anger over my father’s murder spilled over into my feelings toward the Prince. I’d fixated on the secrets he kept and the questions he still refused to answer, his role in my mother’s disappearance, the seeds of doubt Aemonn had planted.

And his promises—one broken promise in particular.

“We’ll find a solution,” Luther said, shattering the silence. “There must be something House Hanoverre cares about more than the mortals. A prime parcel of land perhaps, or an appointment to the Crown Council.”

“Were you not listening?” I snapped. Luther’s brows drew inward at my severe tone. “I’m not going to sell off the realm piece by piece. My life is not worth so great a price.”

His lips parted, the muscles along his throat tensing as if he badly wanted to dispute that statement.

I moved to leave, and he reached out and clutched my hand. “Iwillfind his killer,” he swore. “I will not stop until they are brought to justice. I promise.”

“Like you promised me you would keep him safe?”

Luther did not flinch. He didn’t even react.

He didn’t have to.

The shame, the regret—it was already on his face. It had been there from the moment I’d found him standing at the door of my family home, bloody and shaking. There was no blame I could aim at Luther that he had not already turned on himself.

“You can’t keep my family safe. You can’t keep me from dying in the Challenging. You can’t guarantee my mother will return home. In fact, the only promise you’ve kept is the one you made to her to keep secrets fromme.” I snatched my hand from his grasp. “And that’s only because she knows your secrets, too.”

I waited for him to deny it, apologize, beg forgiveness, yell at me, renew his vow—do something,anything. But he just watched me, not saying a word, with that same anguished expression.

And it was that silence that set my mace swinging.

“I’m sick of begging you for answers, Luther. I’m done with your secrets, and I’m done giving you my trust. Your promises meannothingto me. And neither do you.”

We stared at each other in silence, his heart breaking in his eyes, mine shredding in my chest. I couldn’t take one more second of looking at the despair on his face, because it was far too much like a mirror of my own.

I pushed past him, my shoulder slamming into his and finding little resistance as he dipped his chin and yielded a step.

Something—some small spark of feeling, buried deep under a mountain of hurt—stopped me at the door.

“You make so many promises, but the only thing I ever really wanted was honesty. And it’s the one thing you still refuse to give.”

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