Page 220 of Heat of the Everflame

“Choose someone else.” I flung a hand toward the window, the snow-brushed rooftops of Lumnos City just barely visible in the distance. “If our misery is what makes you happy, there’s a whole city of pricks out there in their mansions planning how tocrush the mortals under their expensive heels. Pick one of them to torture for your amusement. Pick someone who deserves this.” Hot, angry tears sprung to my eyes. “Pickme. Letmesuffer. I’ll take it all. Please, just... not him.” I sank to my knees, my voice turning hoarse. “Not my Luther.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, hunching forward under the unbearable drag of my sorrow. “Is this because of me? Because I haven’t bowed and worshiped your name like everyone else? Is this some depraved attempt to force me in line?”

My palms fell open in front of me, and I let my magic tumble from them unrestrained. Light and shadow swirled in a twinkling fog and spread across the floor, then crept up the walls. Dark clouds coated the ceiling, sparks glittering in the air, until the bust and I were floating alone in an infinite expanse.

“Here,” I pleaded. “My offering of magic. Take it—take every drop I have. Take the Crown, too. If that’s what you want from me, you can have it all.”

More magic began to pour out—a circle of crackling fire, chunky white snowflakes fluttering in a gust of wind that whirled through my hair, flowering vines that pushed through cracks in the stone walls, a cacophony of chirps from nocturnal creatures in the woods outside. I gritted my teeth and forced the magic out of me, screaming internally at my godhood to lay itself bare.

The bust’s silhouette wavered in my watery vision as my sobs grew more desperate.

“If you’re trying to break me, you’ve won. I’ll submit. I’ll be loyal. I’ll do whatever you ask.Anything. Just please...don’t take him from me.”

The tears fell hard and fast, splashing against the cold stone beneath me. My soul felt as if it were rending in two, and I collapsed forward as I surrendered, with my words and my heart.

“Is my magic not enough? Do you need my blood, too?” I pulled Aemonn’s blade from the sash at my waist and slashed it across my hand, the blade cutting deep enough to scratch against bone. Blood gushed out in a heavy stream, though I felt no pain, my body already overwhelmed with a greater agony.

I threw the knife against the wall and offered up my bleeding palm. “Here. A bonded bargain—his life in exchange for whatever you want. My life, my soul. I’ll fight this war in your name. I’ll die for it, if you wish. I’ll pay any price you ask. You hear me?Any price.” My head sank low, too heavy to lift, my voice choking beneath my sobs. “Take it. Please.Please. I’m begging you...”

Words gave way to a long, sorrowful wail as I collapsed forward and succumbed to my despair. I knew my prayers would go unheard.

She wasn’t listening. The gods never listened.

But as my tearstained cheek pressed to the rough, cold stone, an unexplainable instinct lured my gaze back up.

And my breath caught in my throat.

Streaming down the smooth marble of the bust, beginning at the eyes and rolling over the apples of its cheeks, were tears. Dark, crimson-black tears.

Blood tears.

My heart seemed to still, watching, as I climbed to my feet and slowly walked closer. I reached out and brushed a finger across them, my eyes growing large as the blood trickled down my palm and mixed with my own.

“Diem! Diem, are you in there?”

Lily’s voice rang out from the corridor, shrill and panicked, followed by a string of rapid knocks.

I dissolved my magic, then sprinted to the door and threw it open. “What happened?”

Her face was ghastly white. “Come quick—it’s Luther.”

A delicate hope sprouted inside me. Had it worked? Had Lumnos answered my pleas?

I ran beside her down the hallway, through the parlor, and into my bedchamber. Remis and Avana were standing in front of the bed, clutching each other and blocking my view.

I darted around them—and froze.

Luther was convulsing, his body stiff and jerking in sharp, erratic jolts. Choked sounds rasped from his throat as he struggled to breathe, and lines of blood streamed from his nose.

“No,” I breathed, shaking my head.

I ran to the bed and grabbed his shoulder, grunting as I fought to turn him, but his body was too heavy, and my quivering hands were too weak.

“Help me,” I screamed at Remis.

He startled, his face as pale as Lily’s. He stepped forward and slid his hands beneath his son’s back, then pushed him onto his side.

The web of poisoned veins had grown significantly in my brief absence. Their spindly lines now stretched across Luther’s face and swirled around his temples.

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