Page 95 of Heat of the Everflame

The King dismounted and summoned two gauntlets of fire that engulfed his lower arms. “Kill me, and my gryvern kills you.”

“As long as I die knowing my Queen is safe, that’s good enough for me,” Luther snapped.

The King sneered. “I’ll remember that when I’m carving her up over your corpse.”

I’d always known Luther was powerful.

I’d heard the whispered gossip. I’d felt it in his aura, seen it churning behind his gaze. I’d sensed it in the way even the most confident of the Lumnos Descended avoided his notice.

Though I’d only seen him use it in small amounts, I never had to witness the full extent of his power to know it was something extraordinary.

But as I watched him reduce a Crown of Emarion to a sniveling heap in a matter of seconds,extraordinaryseemed far too inadequate a description.

It was unthinkable I beat him out for the throne at all.

A faraway song played in my ears as Luther’s magic consumed the beach. Unlike before, when I’d seen him shape it into objects or weapons, this was an eruption of pure, glittering day and violent, vengeful night. It came in a deluge from every angle, swirling around the King and his gryvern and trapping them within an enormous whorl of liquid dark.

Even the earth couldn’t escape his wrath. The falling rain sizzled to steam as it collided with a crackling swarm of white-hot sparks that flowed from his palms. Granules of sand flew into the air, tossed by the rumbling tremors that rippled with each deadly blast of shadow. I could almost hear the roar of Luther’s godhood in the deafening thunderclaps that trembled in the clouds.

The King’s once-mighty flames looked pathetic in comparison. They glanced off Luther’s magic and vanished, as effective as embers in a snowstorm. The whites of his eyes grew large as he abandoned his attacks and shifted all his effort to his shield, but that, too, was no match for my Prince. A seemingly infinite swarm of obsidian hands clawed razor-sharp nails along the shimmering barrier, and though the battle had barely begun, it fractured and gave way.

The King scrambled to hide beneath his gryvern, whimpering a plea for help, and Luther paused his assault. “Any final words you’d like me to pass on to your successor?”

The gryvern snorted angrily and snapped its wings. It hissed, eyes narrowing on me, and I finally understood what I’d missed before.

“Stop,” I cried out.

Luther’s head whipped to me. His eyes were wild, ablaze with pale blue light. For a moment, I saw nothing of the Prince I knew, his mind lost to the frenzy of his rage.

“Don’t.”

The vortex of crackling starlight spinning around him stilled in mid-air. His expression turned incredulous. “You want tosparehim?”

With my heart slowing and my lungs full of blood, it was far too much to explain that it wasn’t the King’s life I was saving, but his. That the Ignios gryvern, obliged to avenge its King, was offering me a trade—the life of the man it despised for the life of the one I adored.

My head collapsed back onto the sand. “Mercy,” I gasped.

Luther’s shoulders sank. He gave the King one final look that quaked with an enduring promise: someday, somewhere, retribution would come. He turned away and came to kneel at my side.

My gaze met the gryvern’s.Take him,I said in silent request, knowing somehow the beast would understand.I wish I could have saved you instead.

The gryvern loosed a frustrated howl into the sky. It snatched the cowering King into its talons and took flight, disappearing over the dunes.

Luther’s magic dissolved, and the beach turned eerily quiet, save for the soft patter of falling rain. His hands returned to my wound, his fingers threading into mine as he pressed hard on the makeshift bandage. The rage that had overtaken him in battle melted away, replaced with a frantic concern.

“You’re going to heal,” he swore, his voice rough. “You have to.”

My chest burned as I choked for air. I needed some way to make him understand. Suddenly, so many pieces were fallinginto place—but getting him to agree would be damn near impossible.

“Magic,” I mouthed.

His eyes scoured my face. “Mymagic?”

I nodded weakly.

A twinkling blanket of woven light spread from his hands and covered my body, draping me in his warm, protective energy. A feeling of peace settled in my spirit and silenced the excruciating ache scoring through my chest. The pain, the discomfort, the fear—in the caress of his magic, it all faded away.

I felt calm. I felt safe.

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