Page 164 of Glow of the Everflame

ChapterThirty-Two

Maura clutched my hand as I pressed my dagger into the freshly turned soil beside the matching blade Teller had set down moments ago. We stepped back, and two of my father’s friends began to shovel dirt onto the knives.

With no body to bury and none of his possessions surviving my blast of magic, the only piece of my father I had left were the twin daggers I’d stolen from him as a young girl. So, in a makeshift grave where our home had once stood, we’d yielded the blades to the earth in his memory.

A formidable man and an extraordinary legacy, reduced to two dull, scratched-up hunks of metal and wood.

I had carried the daggers every day of my life until the night I arrived at the palace as Queen, when I’d cast them aside for being useless against the Descended. Burying them now felt poignant in all the worst ways.

I slipped my free hand into Teller’s while Maura murmured the Rite of Endings. Old instincts flared with warning as she read the sacred words of the Old Gods, forbidden under the late King’s laws, in earshot of the small cluster of Descended that had joined us. It took me a moment to remember—first, that these Descended were loyal to me, and second, that as the Crown, I was exempt from Ulther’s decrees.

And third—that I no longer gave a damn about anyone else’s rules but my own.

Teller and I had arranged the funeral to give ourselves some measure of closure and the chance to say goodbye. Maura and the healers had come, as well as a few of my father’s army friends. Henri’s father was there, though Henri was not—an absence I didn’t have the nerve to question.

The usual Corbois had come, too—Luther, Eleanor, Taran, Alixe, and Lily—as well as a few of the younger cousins Teller had befriended. Eleanor had assured me they would take Teller in as one of their own, but to see it happening in earnest, especially with the Challenging only two weeks away, filled me with grateful relief.

They kept their distance, standing across the clearing, just inside the now-flattened tree line of the surrounding forest. I hadn’t asked them to do so, but I guessed they’d been taught to keep themselves segregated from mortals, and I didn’t have the emotional strength today to shepherd them through a cultural revolution.

Luther watched me, as always. He wore his usual indifferent expression, though I saw the agony bleeding through it, and I wondered if I might look the same to him—dying, drop by drop, as my crimson grief stained all my flimsy attempts to pretend that I was healing.

The mortal guests and I took turns sharing stories of my father. Teller and I spoke of the wise lessons he had passed on. Maura offered sweet recollections of our mother and father growing into their roles as newlyweds and young parents. My father’s friends alternated between hilarious stories of a young soldier bumbling through missions to prove himself and tales of glory of the great mortal Commander and his renowned leadership.

There was hardly a dry eye to be found... except mine.

My tears had dried up. These days, my grief was numb or it was angry—any other emotion had been stomped on and flattened.

“Hard to believe the great Andrei Bellator was taken down by a house fire,” one of my father’s friends said. He shot a dubious glance at the blackened crater nearby. “Must have been some fire.”

Teller and I exchanged a look. Though the search for his killer continued, we’d agreed to publicly declare our father’s death as an accident—a forgotten candle, tragically fallen over while he slept. Teller hadn’t liked it, but I was barely keeping the war off our doorstep as it was. If the Guardians discovered the Descended had murdered an innocent mortal in his own home, their retaliation would be swift—and deadly.

“We heard about the attack in Lumnos City,” the man went on. “If you need the army’s help, Your Majesty, we’d be honored to serve you.”

I swallowed down my disgust. I didn’t want the army anywhere near my realm. More soldiers, more weapons—it could only end in blood.

“It’s getting bad everywhere,” another man said. “The rebels have destroyed damn near half the ports in Meros.”

“They’re ruining things for everyone,” another spat. “I hear Meros might close its borders to mortals. Soon, there won’t be any place left for us at all.”

Several nodded, while others watched me curiously, awaiting my response.

When I offered nothing, one of the older men—Gavert, a mortal who still served as an army officer, looked down at the grave with a heavy exhale. “We could have used Andrei’s wisdom. He had a talent for setting aside his emotion and striking right at the heart of the issue.”

“Indeed,” I murmured.

I was haunted by my last interaction with my father. At the time, his advice had felt like an insult, so much like a blow.

I’d give everything to be wounded by him like that again. I would bleed at his hand forever, if it meant he was still at my side.

“Maybe we should talk this genius brother of yours into enlisting,” Gavert said, jerking his chin at Teller. “When the war heats up, we’ll need smart men like him in the rank and file.”

I shot Teller a look that saiddon’t even think about it, but I already knew he wouldn’t be tempted. Though he could fight as well as I could, he’d always seen our training as a chore. His dreams of greatness lay in books, not in battle.

“You really think war is coming?” Teller asked him.

“It’s already here,” I said. A few of the men confirmed my words with solemn nods.

With the stories and tears both dried up, I thanked everyone for coming and brought the funeral to a close. The guests fell into idle conversation, and Maura came around to my side.

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