This Ends in Embers (Divine Traitors, #2)

by Kamilah Cole

ELARA VINCENT HAD BEEN A SAINT FOR LONGER THAN SHE’D BEEN a liar.

She regretted every mistake she had made, but not the ones that had led her to Signey.

Faron is with him. With his body, she told herself. She’ll bring him back. She does the impossible all the time. But she still missed him.

You can never make them love you again. You can only make them bow.”

“Um, I don’t think I’m allowed to have an opinion.” “Why wouldn’t you be allowed to have an opinion?” “People should be allowed to grieve, to rage, to turn their pain into action without my judgment.”

“His son is dead because of me,” Elara whispered now, her belly full of food and guilt. “I think it’d be understandable if he hurt me.”

She didn’t want Elara to be hated for the crime of believing in her sister—but she didn’t want Elara to hate her, either.

“I hope it’s because you have a treaty in your back pocket.” “This dress doesn’t have pockets,” Elara said.

She was homesick for a home that would never again exist. Homesick for her simple, peaceful life, with her best friend and her sister.

Her soul is in tatters from having her bond ripped away, but mine isn’t. Why?” Signey stared her down, then made an impatient sound when Elara didn’t come up with an answer. “The only difference between what happened to Professor Rowland and what happened to me is your sister. Faron wasn’t trying to manipulate my soul. She was the only thing that held me together when I lost Zephyra.”

“If you think of our souls as pieces of fabric, Iya is tearing them, leaving them frayed and unusable. To save Signey, your sister turned it into more of a cut, all even lines and smooth recovery.”

The three of them went off to their assigned tasks, leaving Signey and Elara alone in the infirmary room. “Do not cry,” Signey said. “A teacher likes me,” Elara said wetly. “I’ll cry whenever I want. You’re not my mother.” Signey rolled her eyes and moved toward one of the tables. She returned with a bandage, which she handed to Elara to use as a handkerchief.

“Elara, meet the Night Saints,” said Signey once the door had closed behind them. Then she leaned closer to whisper, “I didn’t name them.”

“‘In the light of day or the dead of night, they hold the line.’ Sound familiar?” Elara’s eyebrows lifted. “He was talking about the Night Saints.”

“Is this the part where I remind you that when we were kept at Rosetree Manor, when we couldn’t communicate with Zephyra even though she was right outside, you killed a bunch of full-grown men with your bare hands?”

“Are you ready?” Signey called to Torrey. “My girlfriend is about to freeze to death.” “For Irie’s sake—” But Elara was grinning. Girlfriend. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy to hear the word girlfriend. “Her little nose is cold.”

She may be a monster, but at least it was on her own terms.

There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only the endless effort to leave this world a better place than it was the day before. An effort I have watched you make since birth.

The action jolted Reeve, who pulled back just enough to study her in that peculiar way he did, as if he were attempting to read her the way he would a book. Faron couldn’t help smiling. “I can’t believe I actually missed that,” she teased. “You’re still an ass.” Reeve’s mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile but had forgotten how to. “I don’t know why I thought you’d be nice to me after that kiss.” “This is the nicest I’ve ever been to you.”

“I want to kiss you.” “Now?” She smiled. “You’re not well. Your breath probably stinks.” “If you don’t like me when I’m stinky, you don’t deserve me when I’m minty.”

“Of course not.” Aveline said it so quickly that it had to be a lie. “I admit my self-control is often weaker than my resolve, but it’s… We can’t. I can’t. But there was a time when—when I pieced her into that picture of my alternate future.”

“I can do it,” Elara said. “Anything you need, I can do it.”

“I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours. I want us to be us. I’ll leave now because you’re asking me to, because I trust you to do whatever you think is best, but I would swim the Crown Sea, walk through dragonfire, drag myself across the earth inch by painful inch, to get back to you, Faron. So come back to me. Okay?” “Okay,” she said, her heart in his hands. “I promise.”

“What does it feel like?” Signey swallowed again. “Like severing a limb.”

“Fine, die. Until then, shut up.”

MAYBE VINCENTS AND SOTOS WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE LIKE this: moving around one another like water, strong where the other was weak, weak where the other was strong. A sword and a shield, trading off roles depending on the nature of the fight. Faron had never fought with Signey Soto before, and yet in this moment it felt as if she had been doing it her whole life.

“Oh… Oh, saints…” “You did it,” Faron said triumphantly, turning to Signey. “You—shit.” Signey had collapsed in the mud, her limbs arranged haphazardly. Faron scrambled over to her, feeling for a pulse. Signey’s skin was ice cold. Her eyes were open and unseeing. “No,” she whispered, grabbing Signey’s wrist to check again. “No, no, no, no.”

The woman who had been her first love, who had become like family to her, who had believed in her even when Elara had had trouble believing in herself. The queen who had once been a dancer, who had loved a woman she didn’t think she could have, who had taken care of her people as if they were her world. The girl who had grown up on a farm with parents who hadn’t really been her parents and yet had stepped up to face her destiny with more grace than Elara could have ever imagined. And now, she was dead.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Aveline. Alive and raising one patronizing eyebrow as she corrected Faron’s behavior. Dead and leaking blood around Lightbringer’s massive spike. Alive and laughing beneath the stars during a rare moment of peace during the war. Dead and plunging through the air like an anvil.

Elara’s fear began to scream beneath her skin. A gasp shook loose. “You want to take Jesper’s place. You want to let Gael Soto inside your body instead.” “Jesper never got a choice. I did. And I’m choosing to do this.” Those blue eyes were sad but determined. “Remember when I told you not to die?”

A final dragon hovered above the hole, her green wings flapping and her eyes kind. Zephyra.

Torrey and Gael received medals of valor for their sacrifice, at Jesper’s insistence. In his opinion, no one had sacrificed more.

Then there was Aveline. Aveline was honored in a state funeral attended by so many people that the streets of Seaview were packed. She was buried at her ancestral home, alongside her mothers, in a ceremony that carried on late into the night. In San Irie, a funeral was not just about the person’s death, but about their life.

That was the nature of life, of relationships. Loved ones would always be separated by time or distance, but that didn’t make them any less loved.