Page 320 of Heat of the Everflame

A lump built in my throat. “He was a Descended. He might have healed. Survived. The Orb of Answering said he was alive.”

She shook her head with a heartbroken grimace. “It was a godstone dagger to the heart, Diem. No one survives that, mortal or Descended.”

I jerked my hand back and prodded my horse into a trot, increasing my pace each time she tried to follow, until finally she relented and fell back with Luther, leaving me alone with my turbulent thoughts.

I blinked back tears, hating myself for their existence. I already had a father in Andrei—wasn’t it a betrayal of him to mourn a sire I didn’t even know?

But if my sire was unwell, what might he have become if he’d gotten help instead of death? What might wehave become to each other?

A dark cloud settled over me like a cloak. As we passed into the Forgotten Lands, the landscape seemed to shift to meet my mood. The warped, knobby trees arched above us, hovering with clawed tendrils like predators poised to strike. Their barren branches knotted together in such a thick canopy, we might as well have been riding at dusk rather than noon. The soil turned black and spongy, and though I was grateful for the way it silenced our movement, it would do the same for anyone hunting us.

My heart felt buried under a painful weight, compounded by the three Crowns on my head and the oppressive pressure of the man’s aura growing thicker in the air. I was being crushed from within and without by the force of everything hanging over me. Lives and fates, secrets and questions.

My eyes rose to the sky. Why had the Kindred chosenme?Was Luther right—had they seen something in me to make me worthy? Or was I just the reckless idiot they could count on to run into battle when every sane mind would walk away?

I despised being a pawn in their game. It made everything bad in my life feel inescapable and everything good feel unearned. I itched with a desperate need to make a choice that was mine, whollymine—even if it led me to ruin.

I tensed at movement from the corner of my vision, then eased at the familiar scent of cedar and musk. I waited for Luther to speak as his horse fell in line beside mine, but he said nothing, merely lending me strength through his quiet presence the way he so often did.

“Let’s run away,” I said softly, my eyes still fixed on the clouds. “Let’s get on a ship and sail as far as the wind takes us. Forget the war, forget the Crowns. Let’s have our own adventure, just the two of us.”

“Alright.”

My gaze cut to him. “Alright?”

He was looking up too, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Where should we go?”

“Anywhereelse,” I breathed.

He nodded solemnly. “Keeping it to ourselves will be difficult. Taran’s been wanting to do this for years. He’ll find our ship and hide as a stowaway.”

“If we bring him, we’ll have to bring Zalaric.”

A smile twitched. “I think you might be right.”

“I suppose Teller and Lily will want to join us. And Eleanor. And if my brother comes, my mother will, too.”

“We’re going to need a larger boat,” he said flatly. I laughed, surprising us both. “We could find a boring little village somewhere. Build a cottage on the sea with an apple tree for Sorae. And a goat.”

“A goat?”

“I’ve always liked goats.”

I groaned. “My father had one once. It was very cute—and an absolute menace.”

“That’s what I like about them.” He shot me a sidelong look. “I seem to have a weakness for very cute troublemakers.”

A grin cracked through. “Imagine that. The terrifying Prince of Lumnos and his fugitive Queen, tending goats and apples by the sea.”

“Ah, but we wouldn’t be the Prince and the Queen anymore. We would just be Luther and Diem.”

My smile faded at the deep ache in my heart to make those words come true. “Would you really do that for me? Leave everything behind?”

“I would do anything for you. As long as I can do itwithyou.”

A silent, abiding love glowed in his eyes. My mother’s presence a few yards back was the only thing keeping me from launching myself at him and showing my appreciation in every way I knew how.

I had considered leaving her behind in Montios. I yearned for time alone with him, but Hepta and the others knew well who and what she was. Merely having her with me was a crack in their fragile trust. Frankly, I couldn’t blame them.

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