Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)

by Penn Cole

As he turned, the glimmering embers of the campfire illuminated his muscled back. In his sleep-dazed rush to get to me, he’d left his shirt behind. My eyes caught on a patch of black ink on his shoulder. A gnarled tree, with leaves of flame, inset in a circlet of vines—the sacred Everflame, the Tree of Life and Death. According to the old mortal religion, all life began as sparks from the Everflame that fell to the earth as glowing seeds. At death, those found worthy by the Old Gods would be placed among its burning branches, where their earthly bodies would turn to ash but their souls would remain forever warmed by the Undying Fire. Those found unworthy were doomed to an eternity in a cold hell encased in ice, far from the Everflame’s redeeming heat. Though some mortals still clung in secret to the ancient faith, all references to the Everflame and the Old Gods were now outlawed across the nine realms. I’d only ever seen them in the old mortal books my mother collected—the one law she’d always been happy to flagrantly disobey.