But we could try. We could learn to forgive ourselves, and begin to heal—together.
“I saw the vision of us again during the Challenging,” he said.
“I saw it, too.” I frowned, remembering the strange, glowing figure. “The man that spoke to me—did you recognize him?”
Luther shook his head. “He called you ‘Daughter of the Forgotten.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“No, but I’ve heard it before. My godhood said it just before I got the Crown. So did this woman with black eyes who stopped me in Mortal City the day my mother disappeared. I think it might have been the Umbros Queen, actually. And King Ul—”
“The Umbros Queen was in Lumnos?” he said sharply. “In Mortal City?”
“I think so. She took over my mind, and she knew things about me I didn’t even know. And she told me to stop taking the flameroot my mother had been giving me.”
“Flameroot?” Luther’s eyes flew open, his voice heating with anger. “Your mother was giving you flameroot?”
“She gave me a dose of it every day. I think that’s how she was able to hide me from the Descended and convince me I was a mortal. I stopped taking it after she went missing.”
He recoiled harshly out of reach. His focus darted around while he muttered clipped words under his breath. “That’s why you never… and why she wanted to go to… fuck.” He growled so fiercely the air seemed to vibrate with his wrath. “Blessed Kindred, this explains everything.”
“Explains what?”
“Your mother has been manipulating us all with her secrets for too long. She has much to answer for, and I’m done protecting her.” He snarled and turned to the front of the boat, staring forward with narrowed eyes. “The moment you’re coronated, we’re going to get her.”
His body was quivering, a rope ready to snap, so I didn’t push him any further. I was too excited to speak anyway—finally, my mother would be coming home. At long last, I would have answers to all the questions her disappearance had left behind.
We made the rest of the trip to Coeur?le in silence, Luther distant, me eager. Even when our boat slowed to a stop at a wooden pier marked with the sun-and-moon emblem of Lumnos, his attention seemed far away.
He took my hand and led me to the end of the pier, stopping just before our feet hit the lush emerald grass, still verdant despite the winter season. “I wish I had counsel to offer, but King Ulther never revealed what went on within the Kindred’s Temple. That knowledge is only for the Crowns to know. The others will guide you.”
I nodded. A letter had arrived by messenger hawk this morning from the Sophos Crown with the time of the ritual and the rules of visiting Coeur?le—no weapons, no escorts, no gryverns. No other details were provided, save for one cryptic note: Be prepared to bleed.
An ominous message, especially considering I—and all the other Crowns—would have no access to our magic while on the island.
“I should have stashed a dagger somewhere,” I grumbled, staring down at my dress. In a nod to my realm, I had opted for a silk gown of pale blue-grey edged with dark embroidered vines and glittering gemstone stars. “Why did I pick today to start following rules?”
I took a hesitant step forward. The second my foot touched the soil, a horrible emptiness engulfed my body, as if my very soul had been siphoned out. I tried to conjure some shadows, or reach out to Sorae, or feel the Forging magic of my realm—all of it was simply gone.
I rubbed at my chest, the absence already causing a dull ache. Luther cracked a small smile. “Now you see why Descended rarely leave their realm. Being stripped of our magic is disconcerting, to say the least.”
My eyes darted nervously toward the boat. I had every intention of telling Luther about my relationship with the Guardians just as soon as the Rite of Coronation was done and we had a moment to breathe. In the meantime, I’d insisted he thoroughly examine the boat for any suspicious changes this morning, making an excuse about security being so lax that even Lily and Teller could thwart it. Though he’d found no sign of tampering, a nagging worry had me wishing I’d made the time to tell him the full story.
“Be careful out here,” I urged.
He tugged me back toward him onto the pier and slipped a hand into my hair, holding me at his mercy for a rough, passionate kiss that left his woodsy musk in my nose and his taste on my tongue.
“Go get coronated, my Queen,” he murmured against my lips. “We’ve got a realm to save.”
Chapter
Forty-Five
The briny smell of salt and sea followed me as I walked down the gravel path leading away from the pier. The heat of Luther’s stare burned into my back until a bend in the trail took me out of his line of sight.
Coeur?le was far larger than I expected. The Emarion Army kept it heavily guarded, as only the nine Crowns were permitted access, so it had never been more to me than a green dot on the horizon.
All we’d been taught in school was that Coeur?le housed the Kindred’s Temple, where the sibling gods had conducted the Forging spell that divided Emarion into its realms. However, I knew from the illicit books on mortal history my mother collected that this island had been sacred long before the Kindred arrived.
Many believed the Everflame had once existed here. In the ancient mortal religions, the Everflame was the source of all life and death, an eternally burning tree with branches that scraped the clouds and roots that spread all the way to the Sacred Sea.
According to lore, once the Kindred arrived and decided to anoint themselves as divine rulers, they chopped the Everflame down to make room for their black godstone Temple.
During the Blood War centuries ago, Coeur?le had been a fiercely sought-after prize. Not only was the island symbolically cherished by both sides, it was the only battleground in Emarion where the Descended had to fight the mortals without the benefit of their magic or their gryverns, placing them on near-equal footing.
Some even whispered that the Temple was the source of all Descended magic, and that destroying it would end their reign over mortals for good. With how viciously the Descended fought to keep it out of mortal hands, one could almost believe there was some truth to the rumor.
As I strolled down the trail that wound in and out of grassy hills and through endless fields of bright red wildflowers, it was hard to fathom the rivers of blood that had been shed over such a sleepy pocket of untamed land.
“You must be our new Lumnos.”
To my right, a woman approached on a separate path. She wore a short, fitted dress made up of a patchwork of different animal hides, and a tall feather collar ringed the back of her neck. Chains that dangled with small bones and sharpened fangs clinked on her wrists as she walked.
I paused where our paths merged. “Faunos?”
Her hips swayed seductively as she spread her arms wide. “Was it that obvious?”
“Lucky guess,” I joked, giving her a shallow nod. “My name is Diem.”
“Not anymore, kitten. On this island, you’re just Lumnos.”
She halted in front of me and propped a hand at the crook of her waist as she looked me over.
“You’re an unexpected surprise. We all thought it would be that angry-looking Prince. You know, the handsome one who looks like he’s never laughed in his life? The old Lumnos said no one else’s power even came close.”