Page 76 of Heat of the Everflame

“Where have you been?” Luther thundered.

I didn’t answer at first, too winded from running for my life and scaling the steep dunes with an overloaded rucksack.

“Getting dinner,” I wheezed out, strolling down the village road to where Alixe and Taran stood beside an absolutely apoplectic-looking Luther. My nose wrinkled as I looked up at the pinkish-purple sky. “More like breakfast now.”

I set down my pack and a fish-laden spear, then unlaced the rabbit carcasses I’d hung around my neck.

Luther took the rabbits and glared at them like he might raise them from the dead just to have something to kill. “Where did you get these?”

I leaned forward to rest my hands on my knees and panted to catch my breath. “I went hunting.”

“Where?”

I didn’t answer.

His voice went low and soft. “Diem, tell me you did not go back to Arboros alone.”

“I didn’t go alone.” I straightened and laid a hand over my heart. “Blessed Mother Lumnos was right here with me the entire time.”

Taran edged away from Luther. Alixe sighed and rubbed her temples.

“What were you thinking?” Veins throbbed along Luther’s arms, his eyes simmering. “We’ve been looking everywhere. We thought you’d been captured—or worse.”

“I left a note.”

Taran waved the scrap of paper I’d left folded on my pillow. “Believe it or not, ‘If I’m not back by dawn, go to Umbros without me’ didn’t ease a lot of concerns.”

“And you took the compass,” Luther snapped.

“If I hadn’t, you would have come running across the border after me.”

“You’re fucking right I would have!”

Alixe eyed him with a frown, then looked at me. “How did you get there without being seen?”

“I figured they’d only have a man or two on watch at this hour, and they’d likely be focused on the dunes, so I went to the coast and swam in by sea.” I shrugged. “They never even knew I was there.”

The tiniest little lie. Insignificant, really. A fib too trivial to even be worth correcting.

“Why didn’t you take one of us with you?” she asked. “We could have helped.”

“You were on watch. Taran can’t get in the seawater or it will infect his wounds.” I tipped my head toward Luther. “And he would have said no.”

“Ishould have been the one to go,” he growled. “Alone.”

I leaned over and grabbed my pack to hide my rolling eyes, then brushed past them as I strode toward one of the largerhouses. “I needed some hard-to-find items,” I called out over my shoulder. “It would have been too difficult to explain.”

They followed me in and crowded behind me, watching as I dumped the contents of my bag onto a table and began sorting the food from the herbs.

“Besides, I work faster and quieter in the forest on my own.” I flashed what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Trust me, I was safer going alone.”

“You shouldn’t have gone at all.” He slammed his fist into the table with such force it split a crack up the center of the wood. “It should have been me.”

I jumped at his outburst. His body was quivering, his shoulders high and tight. His features could have sliced bone with how sharply their edges were honed.

I’d known Luther would be upset, but this—this was something more than anger. This was something primal, something desolate. The darkness shadowing his face was unlike anything I’d ever seen in him.

Judging from the apprehensive looks on Taran and Alixe, neither had they.

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