Page 316 of Heat of the Everflame

I stilled. “Umbros attack?”

“Three days past. It’s too early to know how many were lost, but we hear the casualties were significant.”

A chill slithered over me. Three days ago, I was meant to be spending my final day in Umbros as a guest of the Queen. Mymagic had been at its peak, and four of the strongest Descended I knew were at my side. If we had stayed...

If we had stayed, Luther would be dead. But how many more might be alive?

Hepta went on. “Like us, the Umbros Queen has looked the other way on the rebels in her realm. In return, they left her people alone, as they have here. But if they’re no longer honoring that truce...”

“Then Montios could be the next target,” I finished. They all nodded, sharing looks of concern.

I leaned my forearms on the table, my hair spilling around me as I dipped my head. The weight of the world seemed to hang on my shoulders. Even if Montios wasn’t next, Lumnos could be. Whoever this Descended man leading the attacks was, he needed to be stopped.

And if my visions could be trusted, then Luther and I were destined to be the ones to do it.

But how? I had no army, few allies. I was a fugitive on the run and the Queen of two realms who didn’t want me. I wasn’t even sure I was going to be allowed to leave this realm alive.

My gaze rose slowly to the Councilors. “I will help you however I can, but I have to ask... why are you telling me this?”

Hepta’s head cocked, the creased lines of her aging face becoming more prominent with her frown. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Why save me and bring me here? What is it your Crown wants from me?”

“Your Majesty... youareour Crown.”

Chapter

Sixty

“Iamnotyour Crown.”

Even as I spoke the words, I doubted them. I had felt a calling to this place, an ownership of it humming in my blood. It was the same way I’d felt about Lumnos—and how I now felt about Fortos, even though I’d despised it all my life.

“We saw you at Rymari’s gravesite,” Hepta said. “You placed your hand inside the circle—it’s spelled so only the Montios Crown may enter.”

“I’m already the Queen of Lumnos. I can’t also be—”

But I could. IknewI could.

“The late King warned us his heir would be unlike any other,” another Councilor said. “He urged us to trust the Blessed Mother’s choice. Even so, we weren’t expecting...” His gaze surveyed me. “...this.”

“When did he die?” I asked.

Again, they all placed two fingers on their lips and murmured as one, an awkward reminder of how little I knew of the people I was now meant to lead.

“The attack on Coeurîle,” Hepta answered. “He warned us before he left that his end was near. When he didn’t return...”She looked pained. “The other Crowns are not aware. We decided not to inform them until our new Crown was found.”

My mind flashed back to my coronation. I had no clear memories after the initial explosion, but there were... fragments. Slivers of recollection that glittered in the fog, wobbly images and muffled sounds that had broken through as my mind flirted with consciousness.

A bright light and a heavy pain at my temples—not an injury from the bomb’s blast, I realized now, but the onset of a new Crown. That’s why my Crown had looked different,feltdifferent. The Arboros Guardians hadn’t been familiar enough with the Crown of Lumnos to know, but Luther and the others had.

The Umbros Queen—had she known? Was this one of the secrets she’d intended to reveal?

I reached inward for the Forging magic that answered only to the Crown. It rose to greet me like a housecat purring for its owner, nuzzling itself into my grasp and mewling to me to take control.

Luther’s presence within it called to me, a lilting melody that my own godhood gasped to join, despite its exhausted state. Even as I shattered the binds around him and breathed a sigh of relief as his magic was freed, my heart sank. There was no denying it now.

I started to pull away, then hesitated. The Umbros Queen had mentioned using the Forging magic to spy on people within her realm. If this mysterious Descended killer was in Montios, perhaps I could do the same to find him.

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