Heat of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #3)

by Penn Cole

“To pray. I saw a shrine to Blessed Mother Lumnos on our way in, and I wanted to make an offering.” “What were you praying for?” He didn’t answer for a long moment. I shifted my hand until it sat above his heart. “Peace,” he whispered with a shaky exhale.

“Luther has always made time to listen to whoever needs him, no matter how trivial the issue, but he never shares his own burdens.” Her expression turned solemn. “Except with you.”

“It’s the man from our vision,” I breathed. “The one who called me—” “Daughter of the Forgotten,” he finished. “The same one who asked you to help him kill all the Descended.”

Look, it urged again. I squinted my eyes, and the haze parted like a curtain drawn back from a window, revealing what felt like an infinite library of images that felt at once wholly foreign and yet intimately familiar. A wave of thoughts and emotions overwhelmed me, but among them, one stood out—a secret buried under a deep layer of sorrow and regret. And suddenly, I understood.

If I’m worth fighting for, then why aren’t you fighting for me?

Zalaric. “Her Majesty may be letting you live for turning them in, but don’t think I’ve forgotten your original plan. I’ll ensure you pay for it eventually.” “Zal... you betrayed us?” Taran asked softly.

“Leave him alone,” I said. “I’m the one to blame.”

“You knew?” Luther demanded again. “Yes,” I mumbled

“Our thoughts make us who we are. Violating someone’s mind is no better than violating their body.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her when you’re not around.” He clapped a palm hard against Luther’s hip. “Very good care.”

Shit. He must have believed my ruse with Symond. “Luther, what you think you saw...”

She was sex in human form, a buffet of curves to satisfy the most insatiable lust.

“I have wondered if, perhaps, she is scared of Diem.”

“You put thousands of people in a chokehold, Queenie. At the same time. You turned day into night.”

“You shattered the arena barrier,” Alixe said. “That’s Forging magic—it’s supposed to be unbreakable, even by the Crowns.”

“Normally, if someone’s magic is strong enough to sense, I can feel them when

they enter the room. I could feel your magic when you ...

Sometimes there are no good choices. We do the best we can, and we hope we find forgiveness along the way.”

“Diem,” he said carefully, “how did you know I’d betrayed you?” I stiffened. “I... I didn’t—” “I know what it feels like to have an Umbros Descended reach into my mind. Earlier, in the tunnels, it almost seemed like...”

How could I explain that Zalaric had never told me his plan, and yet I knew? That I had looked at him in those tunnels and seen his secret—that he’d been so desperate to warn us, his mind had been screaming it?

I could feel his aura, though something about it was odd, like a song sung slightly off key.

maybe Aemonn needs you to be the kind of brother to him that he wasn’t strong enough to be for you.”

Your mother has a role to play in what’s to come.”

“Because an education is the most powerful weapon of them all.”

One could not hold on to what one could not define.

“The Crown,” she started, “does it look...?” “Different,”

“though it’s always looked the same in old paintings.”

“What happened to you?” I whispered.

“What happened to us?”

“Once a mind is crushed, there is no saving it. Memories cannot be rewritten. Even Blessed Father Umbros cannot restore what no longer exists.”

it was never voices I’d been hearing, here or in the markets. It was thoughts.

breeding Descended with mortals, then breeding that child with a mortal, then breeding that child with a mortal, on and on for generations. The Kindred blood never fades. No amount of mortal blood can destroy it. Only the blood of another Kindred can do that.”

“Tell me, do you know why we named it the Blood War?”

“Because of the blood sun on the morning the war began,” I said, parroting what I’d been taught in school. “And because of how many people died.”

“It was the old Lumnos King who coined it. He said the war was about blood—whose would triumph, whose would survive. We Crowns were certain we would prevail, because we believed the blood of the nine Kindred would always win out—in war, as in life.”

watched in surprise as a line of blood sprang to the surface.

His hand slid over mine, holding it in place on his thigh. Despite the emotions churning between us, the simple gesture filled me with an unexpected calm. His magic caressed my skin as it dissipated, and my godhood swirled happily in response.

“This.” Yrselle tapped her finger at the blood pooling in my palm. “The war will be fought over this. But this war will be unlike any we’ve ever seen. Those who are most certain they will win will find themselves among the first to die.”

“My fate on that is sealed. The war has begun, and there’s not a soul on the continent who can escape it now.”

Satisfaction is the death of curiosity.

“The heart doesn’t care who it should love. Only who makes it sing.”

He held you like you were his own heart, ripped out of his damn chest and beating in his arms.”

“The Kindred are not dead, child.”

Their bodies perish, but they endure.”

Not distracted, but as if a piece of him was somehow... gone.”

I always felt seen by you.

He said you don’t have to see all of someone to love all of someone.

“Love isn’t contingent on never keeping a secret. It’s about trust. It’s about standing together, even when you don’t understand, and never giving up, even when things get hard.”

“You said I was a Queen worth fighting for. Luther Corbois, you’re worth fighting for, too.”

“Fuck her answers.” I cupped my hands around his jaw. “You’re my answer. The only one I need.”