Page 91 of Heat of the Everflame

The flames at my feet sputtered like a candle fighting a breeze. I clung to him as a web of cracks splintered across my shield. “It’s still too weak. I—I can’t...”

Luther’s fingers dug into my skin. “Haven’t I given enough?” he roared up at the sky, muscles trembling. “At least return my magic. Let me saveher.”

The Ignios guards changed their attack, hammering their efforts on a single point in my shield. Their grueling assault felt as if it were burrowing past my defenses and worming beneath my very skin.

I had a minute—seconds, maybe.

There was one hope left. A lark, a prayer, a shot in the dark, an insane instinct that could be the final one I ever had.

I gazed up at Luther. My fingers trailed the white ridges of the scar from his temple, down his sculpted cheeks, across his lips. If this was where it all ended, I wantedhimto be my final memory.

“Do you trust me?” I asked softly.

“With everything I am,” he vowed.

I gripped him by the shoulders and twisted until my back was to the guards. Luther’s eyes went round in dissent, but a squeeze of my hand stopped him still. I held his stare, and with a sigh, my shield crumpled and collapsed.

Luther’s face illuminated in a kaleidoscope of red and orange as the guards’ lethal attacks found their target. The flickering glow of the Ignios fire played along his furrowed brows, gleamed in his icy eyes, cast dancing shadows in the curve of his throat. It was terrifying, and yet more beautiful than words could honor. It burned the air from my lungs and left me gasping and breathless.

Tingling spread across my back. Scorch and snow, heat and hoarfrost, inferno and ice. It was neither painful nor pleasurable, yet both all at once—and somehow invigorating. Reenergizing.

My magic sparked back to life, burning brighter with every blow. As I turned, careful to keep Luther behind me, I no longer bothered to raise my shield. Though the guards’ strikes were still coming, they absorbed harmlessly into my skin.

The King lookeddeeplyunsettled.

With a swing of his hand, a tidal wave of fire rose and crested a head above me. I threw out my arms and accepted its crushing fall with a smile.

He tried again with a cannon of flame shot directly into my chest. I laughed.

Ilaughed.

“What kind of shield is that?” he spat.

Honestly, his guess was as good as mine. It didn’t even feel like I was using my magic at all.

I had no idea how this was possible, but that had become my baseline state these days. My eyes, my body, my magic—none ofit conformed to the Descended’s neat little rules. All I knew was that it was my best hope of getting us out alive.

“It’s the kind of shield you can’t destroy,” I crowed. “Let us leave, Ignios—while you still can.”

His lip curled back over his teeth. “You’re not leaving my realm, half-breed. If you refuse to fight like a Descended, then we’ll kill you like a mortal.”

A chorus of metal sang across the beach as weapons unleashed from the guards’ restraints.

I lifted my broadsword. “Ready, my Prince?”

Luther shifted to my side. “Always, my Queen.”

First came the long blades.

Though my father had trained me for all manner of battles, a sword was my weapon of choice. I preferred the distance it gave me from my opponent—the space to study their moves and read their tells. In a duel of long blades, the real adversary was my opponent’s mind. No matter their size or strength, if I could outwit them, I could outwin them.

We fought well together, Luther and I. He also favored a sword, and unlike me, he was used to fighting in a scrum. He adeptly swerved and side-stepped each attack, then cut them off as they tried to surround us. Through all of it, he never strayed far from my side, his watchful eyes always guarding my back.

But I was doing just fine. The fighting exhilarated me, galvanized me. It mended the cracks in my broken spirit. Were our lives not on the line, I dare say I might have been having fun.

Then came the short blades.

Here, the stakes were higher. Short blades required speed, dexterity, clever footwork, familiarity on the terrain—all areas where Luther and I were at a disadvantage in our worn-down state.

---