Page 30 of Glow of the Everflame

“What?” I gasped.

Aemonn tutted softly. “He must have killed dozens of them over the years. Those poor creatures. Most were infants who couldn’t understand what was happening, but some of them...” He clutched at his chest and dipped his chin, his voice falling to a whisper. “How terrified the older children must have been as Luther’s sword cut through their necks.”

My vision went red.

Murderer.

That evil, soulless, irredeemablemurderer.

No wonder he’d been so unmoved when Henri had seen him trample that child to death. What was another slain mortal child to a killer like him?

My rage awakened with an explosion, filling my chest with white-hot fire.

Fight.

For once, that gods-damnedvoiceand I were in complete agreement.

“I need to go.” I spun away from Aemonn and stormed toward the palace.

Above me, Sorae let loose a shrill cry, the flowers in the garden quivering under the downdraft of her beating wings. As I broke away from the manicured pathways, she slammed down on the grass ahead of me with an inferno in her eyes. Her heavy breathing tracked my own, her smoke-tinged breath ruffling my hair.

Tell me who to kill, she seemed to be saying.Unleash me upon them, and I’ll make them pay.

And she would do it, I realized. She would tear Luther into ribbons of flesh if I asked—perhaps even if I didn’t, given my fury.

Had Luther usedherto kill those children? I felt sick at the thought. So many Crowns had commanded Sorae before I had—there was no telling how much mortal blood she’d spilled at their request.

That was the problem with blind loyalty. It could be wielded by evil just as easily as good.

My eyes fell to the gilded chain on her neck. It wasn’t really loyalty that drove her. Her obedience was slavery, and nothing more.

Did she ever grieve her orders? Were her dreams plagued by the screams of innocents as they begged for a mercy she was powerless to give?

I gazed into her golden eyes, but Sorae didn’t answer. When I reached out to her across our bond, I felt only her deep and unconditional desire to destroy whoever had caused me such distress.

“Leave him be,” I commanded as I routed around her.

She snapped her jaws in frustration.

“Sorry, girl,” I muttered. “If anyone’s going to kill Luther Corbois, it’s going to be me.”

ChapterEight

When I returned to the palace, Luther wasn’t on the terrace, nor was he in any of the common rooms Eleanor had pointed out to me earlier.

This turned out to be a good thing, because over the course of the hour that I searched for him, my temper chilled—slightly—and I remembered with no small amount of frustration that I couldn’t kill him.

Yet.

At the very least, I still needed answers about my mother. And killing the Regent’s son would probably not bode well for getting through the Period of Challenging with my head intact.

The realization had done little to soothe thevoice. After I’d surrendered to its call the night I received the Crown, I thought it might be gone, but the events of that night had only emboldened it. Whatever strange force it represented had taken to punctuating every breath with the same word:Fight. Fight. Fight.The chant was a steady metronome, keeping the tempo of my racing thoughts, and I felt my patience grinding to an edge with every stroke. I was anger embodied, and I was in no state to be around anyone, let alone a palace full of people I didn’t care for to begin with.

I was still stalking up and down the halls, having blown off a number of Corbois kinsmen who tried to corner me“just to chat,” when Lily popped her head around a corner.

“Your Maj—I mean, um, Diem,” she whispered. She beckoned me closer as her eyes darted around. “Your brot—uh, the thing you asked me to get. It’s here. Well, nothere, but—”

“Where is he?” I asked bluntly.

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