Page 164 of Heat of the Everflame

“Wait,” I called out.

She paused and looked back, eyebrows high.

“Thank you for this offer. I would love nothing more, really, but...” I sighed. “I need to get back to my friends.”

“Oh, they aren’t here.” She made a face. “They were disgustingly unkempt. I sent them to a bathhouse in the city to be cleaned up and fitted for appropriate clothing. They’ll be back for dinner.”

My shoulders sank.

“Happy reading, dear,” she chirped, strolling away. “And don’t forget why they banned these books for mortals in the first place.”

“Why is that?”

“Because an education is the most powerful weapon of them all.”

Chapter

Thirty-Five

The next few hours were some of the most enjoyable I’d ever had. I lost all sense of time as I dove head-first into the depthless well of knowledge the Queen’s library contained.

I rifled through the books at lightning speed, my eyes furiously skimming the pages of the ancient tomes. There were books I thought had been lost forever—histories of mortalkind that stretched back long before the Kindred’s arrival—and references to Emarion’s original cities, names we’d been banned from knowing, let alone writing or speaking aloud.

There were treatises on systems of government the mortals had experimented with. Monarchies, councils, parliaments, even self-rule. Though none was without its flaws, the mortals of old had at least been learning from their mistakes. Each successive attempt had been getting more open and more fair—until the Kindred stopped that progress in its tracks by removing mortals from the process entirely.

Perhaps the most interesting find were the scriptures of the ancient religions. Sadly, these were not intact—the true names of the Old Gods had been meticulously burned away, page by page, leaving only vague, ambiguous descriptions.

The Kindred must have believed there was power in names. Why else go to such great lengths to strip them from our collective memory? One could not hold on to what one could not define. In erasing a name, they erased everything that name once stood for. The results had been ruthlessly effective.

The Everflame was the one name that had persisted, and as a result, it had become the rallying cry of the rebellion. If the Everflame’s name had been stolen from us as the Old Gods had, would the Guardians of the Everflame be so united? Would they even exist at all?

The Crowns must have had the same questions, because they’d finally banned any mention of the Everflame after the Blood War. Though mortals still revered it in private, each new generation of mortals knew less and less of its lore. If my plans failed, someday its memory might be lost forever.

For now, at least, it endured—in the pages of these books, if nowhere else.

Stories of the Everflame were plentiful. Apparently, the Old Gods once plucked flames from its branches and gave them as blessings, flames that burned forever and kept their bearers warm even in the coldest of nights. Pregnant mothers would risk their lives to travel the sea once labor began, believing a child born on the Everflame’s blessed soil would be imbued with its sacred power of life. And the glacial pits of hell beneath its roots were not eternal, as I’d been told. Unworthy souls condemned to its ice could petition for a second chance to earn their way into the warm haven of the Undying Fire.

When the clock’s chimes jolted me out of my reverie, I realized the entire afternoon had come and gone. Surely Luther had returned by now.

I stowed the books back on the shelf, wishing I had a lifetime to consume them. Perhaps I’d have another chance once this war was over.

If I survived that long.

As I grudgingly dragged myself to the exit, my focus snagged on the locked cage containing the books on the Kindred. I’d never been particularly interested in their stories, but something Yrselle said had stuck with me.

Umbros had talked to her about me.

And so had Lumnos to Luther.

If two of the Kindred had seen fit to discuss me with their most loyal adherents, perhaps there was something I should know aboutthem.

I walked to the cage and unlocked it with Yrselle’s key. The space was small and well-maintained, with glass cases for each of its books to preserve their delicate condition.

A large, pencil-drawn sketch of Emarion hung on the back wall. A golden plaque described it as the original map used by the Kindred.

I stepped closer and squinted. Faint lines were still visible where old borders had been erased and modified several times over, likely as the Kindred had apportioned out each realm. Only one seemed not to have been redrawn: a barely there scratch through the middle of Montios.

At the center, more erased lines peeked out from where the Everflame had once been labeled, obscured by a rough sketch of what would become the Kindred’s Temple.

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