Page 404 of Heat of the Everflame

All because I was too damn late.

A rift cracked through the center of my soul. It split me open with the same explosive destruction as my falling blood when it fractured the heartstone.

I no longer feared the cold, heartless monster Ophiucae had become—I welcomed it. I would embrace it with hateful glee. I would devour the world whole for all that they had taken from me. I would become a thing of vengeance and spite, I would—

Thump, thump, thump.

Luther’s hand tightened on my arm.

“Blessed Kindred,” he breathed.

I straightened. “Is that...?”

His eyes slid to the west, then grew wide at the sight of Sorae’s outline on the horizon. “It worked. It actually worked. I didn’t think...”

“Whatworked?”

He gazed at me, his features strained, like he was holding something back. Something desperately, painfully important.

“It doesn’t matter,” I cut in. “Go—run as fast as you can. And don’t come back. The spell will kill her too if she returns after sunset.”

He grabbed my jaw and crushed his lips to mine. “Stay strong, my Queen. No force in the world will keep me from you forever.”

I wanted so badly to pour out the full truth of my love for him, but there were not enough words, and so very little time. I pushed him off, then looked at my brother. “Go get Mother, Tel. Then go get your girl.”

His jaw flexed. “Love you, D.”

I looked at Perthe. “Get my brother on that gryvern.”

He nodded. “I will, Your Majesty.”

I forced myself to turn my back to them, knowing one more word, one morelook, could cost me everything. The cadence of their fading bootsteps and the howling cry of an approaching gryvern was the most beautiful music to my ears.

Sorae had come. She had known I needed her, and she had broken free of Remis’s chains to get to me. It seemedutterly impossible—even if our bond had somehow overcome the island’s effects, the flight from Lumnos would have taken at least an hour or two. I hadn’t even known I was in danger for that long.

Wait. If she’d come to saveme...

I whipped back around, and my heart plunged as my terror was confirmed. Sorae was spearing through the air—but her eyes were on me.

Only on me.

“Sorae, no!” I shouted.

Her talons opened wide in preparation to snatch me from the ground. I ran back up the steps to the Temple and cowered inside the Lumnos arch where she couldn’t get to me. I tried to send a command through the bond, but it was suffocated by the island’s oppressive force.

“Save them!” I yelled at her loud enough to bleed my throat raw. “Leave me—takethem!”

Her golden eyes filled with conflict as her sensitive hearing picked up on my words.

“Save them, Sorae.That’s an order!”

I could see on her face that her heart was still torn, but her body was helpless to disobey. Her wings tilted down, and her path shifted.

My heart stopped beating.

If she touched the soil, she would die.

If she missed them, they would die.

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