Page 79 of Heat of the Everflame

“Oh, I’ll let you live. I’ll just let Sorae nibble off an arm or two.”

“I’d rather you tell her to take another one off that guy Vance.”

“So would I,” Alixe agreed.

“So would I.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the sound of Luther’s low voice. I tried to catch his eye, but he was staring off across the sea, his expression murky.

He’d been avoiding me all day. He had insisted we walk in formation with Alixe taking point, Taran at my side, and himself at the rear. Every time I tried to slow my pace to join him, he fell back even further, determined to maintain our distance.

I pulled at my top, ruffling it to waft a breeze over my skin. “I thought it would be cooler near the water. It’s hotter here than in the dunes.”

Alixe and Taran shot me quizzical stares.

“You’re hot?” Taran rubbed his hands along his arms and shivered. “Queenie, it’s freezing.”

Alixe’s thick cloak flapped loudly in a sudden gust as if to prove his point.

I frowned up at the sky. A quilt of clouds had rolled in, casting a gloomy pallor over the beach. Being so near to the sea brought a constant breeze, but while the others had burrowed deeper into their wools, I felt more like I was roasting in front of a hearth. I’d stripped down hours ago to my thinnest linen layer, though it had done little to stop pearls of sweat from forming like a necklace along my throat.

Taran’s toe caught in the sand, and he stumbled. I jumped forward to catch his arm. “Do you need to sit?”

He swatted me away. “I’m clumsy, not weak.”

“Maybe you should rest anyway.”

“Let’s stop,” Luther cut in. “Just in case.”

Taran threw his head back and whined. “We’ve rested enough. I’m ready to get to Umbros and see what trouble Her Majesty’s going to get us all into this time.”

“Don’t test me today, Taran,” Luther growled.

Taran shot me a look and pointed a thumb behind us. “This is your fault,” he mouthed.

“Sorae’s getting that thumb,” I mouthed back.

We veered off the beach to a cluster of rocks, each of us taking the chance to shake out the windblown sand that had gathered in our clothes.

“Let me see your wounds,” I insisted as I moved to Taran’s side. The urge to check on the poultice had been nagging at me all day, though I was as nervous as I was eager. The herbs I’d collected in Arboros made up the strongest drawing salve I knew. If this didn’t work to stop the godstone’s spread, I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

I cajoled Taran through his gripes about disrobing in the chilly weather and reached for the bandage on his ribs. His flesh felt ice cold under my palms. I convinced myself it was a positive omen—heat meant infection. Infection meant death.

My hands went still as I lifted the gauze.

I felt the weight of Taran’s eyes watching me.

“What is it?” he asked. “Is it... is it bad?”

In the past, each new glimpse had revealed further spread of the poison, more ground lost to the dark invasion beneath his skin. I’d grown used to bracing for it, to throwing on a smile to distract him—and myself—from the slow defeat.

Nothing could have braced me for this.

“Lumnos’s tits,” Taran swore. “Is that...?”

Alixe and Luther rushed to my side, craning their necks to see.

I pulled off the gauze completely and stared at it, dumbstruck. The poultice had turned firm and black, resting like a lump of tar on the white linen.

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