Page 397 of Heat of the Everflame

“The future is so much darker now,” she said. “If there is even still a future at all. Where victory was once certain...” She sighed and shook her head. “I share the blame for not telling you sooner. Blessed Father Umbros warned me that our fate hung in the balance of your choice. He urged me to trust you, Instead, I tried to force your hand. That decision cost me much. This decision will cost meeverything.”

“Get to the point,” Faunos groaned. “Are you voting with her or not?”

Still, Yrselle’s shadowy eyes did not leave mine. “Take the rosebane. Use my key. Heed my warnings—especially about my heir. And don’t forget what you pledged to sacrifice to see your plans through.”

She twirled her fingers—a seemingly idle gesture, were it not for the glint of glittering black inlaid beneath the sharpened points of her nails.

“I am giving you the thing I value most, Diem Bellator. Use it wisely.” She smiled coldly and held her arms out to her sides, her voice rising. “My answer is yes. I cast my vote in Diem’s fav—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish before a godstone blade plunged into the hollow of her throat.

Her blood splattered across the crisp white linen robes of the dagger’s bearer.

“Ignios!” Arboros screamed. “What have you done?”

Yrselle stumbled, clutching her throat and choking as red liquid dribbled from her parted lips. She swung her hand forward and just barely missed Ignios as he darted back.

“I’ve been wanting to do this foryears,” he said. He pulled his blade free of her neck and stabbed her again—and again, and again.

“Blessed Kindred,” Doriel breathed. “Ignios, this space issacred!”

Meros ripped off his tunic and revealed a hidden baldric of weapons strapped to his chest. He grabbed the longest blade and thrust its point forward. “Come anywhere near us with that thing, Ignios, and I’ll paint the heartstone with your innards.”

“Obaneryn,” Doriel hissed. “You know weapons aren’t allowed here.”

Ignios fisted the fabric of Yrselle’s dress to hold her upright as her body began to slump. “No need for that, Meros. I only needed to eliminate one vote, so I chose the one that’s pissed me off the most. Although...” His eyes turned to me with a violent gleam.

Despite my thundering heart and shaking hands, I reached in my boot and pulled the dagger I’d hidden there. “Try me,” I barked. “I dare you.”

“Of courseyoubrought one,” Doriel huffed.

Faunos and Arboros reached beneath their skirts and drew their own blades from straps tucked high on their thighs.

Doriel threw up their arms. “Do none of you obey the rules?”

A quiet gurgle drew me back to Yrselle. Her hand was wrapped around the Ignios King’s wrist. Her nails sank into his flesh, and her bright, bloody smile stretched from ear to ear.

He grunted and reared back for another blow. With one last thrust of his godstone knife into her heart, Yrselle’s eyes fluttered, and she was gone.

The ground began to tremble.

The fire atop the Umbros obelisk hissed and faded with a wisp of smoke. The light illuminating the etched sigil of its realm—a skull with a chain around its throat—guttered into darkness.

Far away, a gryvern wailed in mourning.

A sharp pain pressed between my temples. The air felt hot.Toohot. Too heavy. Like it was crushing me in from the top of my head.

“No,” I whimpered. “Please—no.”

The blade clattered from my hand as my knees crashed to the floor. I gripped my head and screamed.

Two beams of dark light shot through the sky.

One from the heartstone.

And one from me—the new Queen of Umbros.

Chapter

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