Page 339 of Heat of the Everflame

I grinned. “You named our goat after Taran?”

A mischievous spark danced in his gaze. “I think he’ll be flattered.”

“I think you’ll have to sleep with one eye open. We’ll have to get a donkey and name it Aemonn to win him back over.”

Luther’s head dropped back as he roared a laugh loud enough to draw looks across the road. It was a rare sight to see him so unreservedly joyous. I embraced the Sophos magic as it committed every detail to memory, grateful to know I could relive this moment any time I pleased.

“Come on.” I tugged him down the road. “Let’s get this over with. Suddenly, I’m dying to get home.”

I pulled back my hood, letting my face warm in the sun and my milk-white curls tumble freely down my back. We’d come here to confront the Sophos Crown—no sense in hiding now.

We reached the fallen mortal temple, which was cordoned off with signs to keep away. A soft whirr and a charge in the air warned of a layer of Sophos magic protecting the site.

I let go of Luther’s hand and strolled into the crackling barrier. My skin flared bright and my magic surged with new strength.

“You there,” one of the guards barked. “Get out. That place is off limits.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” I crooned.

I pulled a shield around Luther, and together we walked into the ruins. Guards ran forward to stop us, and I conjured a thick wall of white-hot light to block their path.

Luther arched a brow. “This will make the Sophos Crown see you as a threat.”

“Good.” I raised up on my toes and briefly pressed my lips to his. “That’s exactly what I am.”

He tried to pull me in, but I danced out of his reach and climbed further into the ruins. I spotted a collapsed fresco of a man leaning against a tree and crouched beside it for a closer look. Though the details had faded with time, the paint of his hair was still a vibrant, fiery red.

“I think this is the Everflame. I saw an image like it in the Umbros palace.” My hand trailed over a crack that ran along the man’s body, obscuring his face. “I wonder who he was.”

“With that hair, he must be related to your mother,” Luther joked, kneeling at my side.

A growing crowd had formed outside my wall of light to watch as the guards pummeled it with their spark magic, though their efforts had little effect.

“Did they teach you anything about the Everflame in the Descended schools?” I asked.

“Only that the mortal leaders gave the island to the Kindred as a gift. That’s why depictions of the Everflame weren’t banned before the war. It was meant to be a symbol of the mortals’ willing submission to Descended rule.”

I snorted. “They should have known better. Montios’s journal mentioned there were mortals who didn’t want them around even then.”

He shook his head with a wondrous expression. “I can’t believe you read a Kindred’s diary. What else did she say?”

“She mentioned being afraid of their youngest sibling. He sounded like a brat. You’ll have to remind me which brother that was.” I wiggled my eyebrows and grinned. “I wasmysteriouslyillon all the days we studied the Kindred in school.”

“You really hated the Kindred that much? Even Blessed Mother Lumnos?”

“Oh,especiallyLumnos.”

Luther grimaced like my words had caused him physical pain. “Do you reject the Old Gods, too?”

“The Old Gods have never taken anything from me. And they’ve never asked anything of me, either. They’re content to sit up in the heavens and watch, and I’m content to entertain them.” I stood and propped my hands on my hips. “Well? Which Kindred was it?”

“Fortos was the youngest brother—”

“I knew it.I knew it!I just knew he must have been a little shit to his sisters.”

“—but Montios was the youngest Kindred.”

I paused. “That can’t be right...”

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