Page 204 of Heat of the Everflame

Her dark gaze swept over the seemingly empty sky. “I know you’re up here,” she shouted. “Return to Umbros, and no one will get hurt.”

Sorae slipped back into a glide to hide the sound of her wings, though the air current had shifted, now pressing us lower.

A ball of churning dragonfyre hurtled past and missed us by inches.

“You’re not the only Queen who will do whatever it takes to save her people,” Yrselle called out. “Do not make me force your hand.”

I conjured a flock of shadow-crafted beasts and threw them out in a swarm behind us. With my still-untrained magic, their forms were wispy and grotesque, but they did the job. Yrselle shrieked as they tangled in her hair and the fabric of her dress, and her gryvern bobbled with each smack against its wings.

“Now you’re just pissing me off,” she snarled.

Sorae’s body shuddered beneath me. We exchanged a mutual jolt of panic at the cloud line quickly edging nearer.

I sent another volley, but Yrselle’s gryvern was savvy, and this time it dodged them with ease. Its golden eyes sharpened on the sky just above us as it pinpointed the origin of the attack.

Its jaw yawed open with a plume of onyx fire. We flattened against Sorae’s back to duck the lick of the flames, their blistering heat searing our skin.

And they didn’t stop coming. Again and again, Yrselle’s gryvern renewed its attacks. Sorae zig-zagged in evasive maneuvers, leaving us digging our nails into her skin—and each other’s—in a desperate fight to stay mounted.

“There!” Yrselle shouted, pointing.

I looked down. We’d dropped too low, and Sorae’s talons had carved a revealing groove in the clouds. With a triumphant howl, the Umbros gryvern unleashed its dark inferno.

Fight, my godhood growled.

I spun in place, Luther holding me steady, and thrust my palms forward. A glittering crystal wall slammed into the fire, then vaporized into steam.

Alixe gaped at me. “Was thatice?”

Luther squeezed my hip to snag my attention. “Diem—you’ve been to Meros?”

I frowned briefly at him, then looked back at Yrselle. Her lips had curled upward, like my defense had not bothered butpleasedher.

“Not just the port,” he prodded. “You’ve touched Meros soil? You’re sure?”

I barely had time to nod before twin streams of flame shot for Sorae’s wings, which I hurriedly met with glistening frost.

“The wind,” Luther shouted. “Use thewind.”

I frowned at him, not understanding.

He pulled me closer, his glacial eyes boring into mine. “The day we first met, you healed Lily. That’s Fortos magic. Just now, the ice—Montios magic. The flames in Ignios, and in Umbros—you heard Zalaric’s thoughts, didn’t you? That’s how you knew he betrayed us?”

Old instincts rose in me to deny it, to hide from the hard truths that scared me, even as I stared them right in the face.

“All of it,” Luther murmured. “I knew it. You can wield allthe Kindred’s magic.”

“This isn’t possible,” I said, sounding like I was pleading.Feelinglike I was pleading. Because if this was true, then everything I thought I knew about myself was even more uncertain than I thought. Who even was I?Whatwas I?

Sorae’s wings slumped. She flapped wildly to recover, stirring the clouds and revealing our position. Yrselle’s gryvern yipped and dove to intercept us.

“You can do this, Diem,” Luther yelled over the melee. “Have faith in yourself. This is what you were born to do.”

My body betrayed me, my hands rising even though my head shook in pointless denial. My hair danced over my shoulders in a gust of warm, whirling wind as shimmering magic flowed from my palms. The dark panels of my dress billowed slowly like ribbons in the sea. Air filled Sorae’s wings, relieving the strain on her overtaxed muscles and lifting us forward.

Though the others gawked in confusion and more than a little alarm, Luther beamed, his eyes bright with fiery affection.

He loved me.

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