Page 219 of Heat of the Everflame

As I looked closer, I spied a thin line of dark grey metal embedded into the blade’s gilded edge. I pressed the tip of my thumb to its point and smirked as a single bead of scarlet appeared.

A hidden edge sharp enough to draw blood—also like Aemonn.

“You didn’t try to save the child though, did you? You didn’t call for a healer?” I spun the blade in my hand, offering it back to him handle-first. “Did you even dismount from your horse?”

His nostrils flared. “You have no idea what it’s like. The pressure my father puts on me to be perfect, to never show weakness.” His head shook rapidly. “I’m not a bad person.”

“Then prove it.” I gave up waiting on him and tucked the blade into the sash of my dress. “When I first met you, I saw good in you. I believed there was more to you than this shallow, callous person you pretend to be.”

I swiped my bloody thumb across the black metal disc of the bloodlock, sucking in a breath at the soft click that followed.

Me.

Luther had keyed his locks tome.

The reason hit me like a stab to the heart—I was the only other one who knew about his journal recording the exiled children he’d smuggled out. In the wrong hands, that list could be deadly. Some of the Twenty Houses would go to the ends of Emarion to rid half-mortals from their lineage.

Luther had known he might not come home—and he’d trusted me to protect them in his stead.

I stepped in the room and turned to face Aemonn. “Taran got a second chance. I’m giving you one, too. Show me I was right to believe in you. You don’t have to be perfect, Aemonn. Just honorable.”

I began to close the door, then paused, popping my head out into the hall.

“Oh, and if you really want to make amends with your brother, tell your best friend Iléana Hanoverre to keep her House away from Zalaric.”

He frowned. “Who is Zalar—”

I slammed the door shut in his face.

Chapter

Forty-Four

Ileaned back against the door as a wave ofhimhit me. His smell, his presence. It lingered, even after weeks of his absence.

I hated thinking of him as he was now—bed-bound and weakened. The Luther I knew was larger than life, a man from whom even Crowns trembled and shrank. Though he was quiet, an ocean of intensity surged beneath his skin. It seemed unthinkable that this modest room could have ever contained him.

He’d clearly left in a hurry. Pieces of him were scattered across the main parlor. Drawers hung ajar with clothes flung haphazardly to the floor, and weapons and empty sheaths cluttered a table.

The mess was so unlike him, and yet so perfectly apropos. I smiled, imagining the moment when he realized the compass would lead him to me—the ferocious resolve it would have provoked, the struggle poor Taran and Alixe must have had to force him to wait long enough just to pack a bag.

I walked into his bedchamber and sat on the edge of his perfectly made bed, running a hand along the cool fabric of his pillow where I’d woken up the morning after the armory attack.

He finally let his guard down with me that day. He showed me his smile, his laugh, his doubts, his trust. I hadn’t realized it then—and I would have fervently denied it for weeks that followed—but that was the moment the spark between us became a flame, the beginnings of our inevitable blaze.

I’d left here that day questioning everything. Despite all the time that had passed and all that had changed, I wasn’t any closer to knowing who I was.

But I finally knew what I wanted—with all of my heart.

I sighed and wandered back into the main parlor, my attention falling on the place where Luther had shown me his journal, entrusting me with the most vulnerable part of him. I’d hated him then, or at least I’d beentryingto hate him, making him the scapegoat for everything I despised about the Descended.

But he never gave up on me. Never stopped fighting—for my vision of Emarion or for my heart.

I glanced at the bust of the goddess Lumnos that sat in a niche along one wall. Gathered at its base was a pile of dried flowers, glossy stones, and blown-out candles. I glared at her for a long moment, hating the calm serenity sculpted on her face as the world she left behind suffered for her mistakes. I rolled my eyes and stalked over, then conjured a single flame of Ignios fire at my finger to light each of the candles. Whatever my own feelings, Lutherwould want that.

“Whyhim?” I shouted at the bust. “He’s done everything you’ve asked of him, and this is how you repay him?”

The bust of Lumnos stared back at me silently, her glossy marble eyes half-lidded and still.

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