The Kindred's Curse Saga
by Penn Cole

Beware of all the spoilers. Diem Bellator walks home from the clinic where she works, and the streets are more hectic than normal. The king has rolled out casks of free wine in honor of Forging Day. The day that the nine immortal siblings called the Kindred gave up their immortality to be with their mortal lovers, breaking the nation of Emarion into nine realms - one for each of the Kindred who infused it with their magic. The children of the Kindred and the mortals are now known as the Descended and are easily spotted by their eye color, which is specific to their realm while mortals have only brown eyes. The Descended now role over the mortals and Forging Day is supposed to help bring them all together, but most mortals are not fond of the Descended. And this particular Forging Day is marked by a blood sun (just like the day that Diem was born) which is commonly considered an omen of bad things to come. On her way home, Diem is accosted by a couple of drunk men, whom she fights off and disarms before running off – she was trained to fight by her stepfather, a decorated soldier. She runs through the back alleys and grinds to a halt when she sees her mother talking to a Descended. Or rather, arguing with him. The Descended accuses Diem’s mother of extortion and she points out that things are getting worse and that there’s only one way to stop it. He points out that if he were to do that thing, it would have to be tonight, but someone interrupts Diem before she can hear more. It’s a fortune teller who knows who she is and that she and her family have a secret, one that they hide by having Diem take flameroot powder. The fortune teller alleges that Diem’s birth father was Descended. Diem’s mother has always said her father was dead, but the fortune teller reveals that he is not dead at all - though he should be. She speaks to Diem’s mind, trapping Diem in her own body, but only tells her to stop hiding before letting Diem go. The fortune teller tells Diem that “when forgotten blood on hearthstone falls, then shall the chains be broke. Life for life, old debt requires, or eternal be his yoke.” That night, Diem’s mother does not come home. Months later - Diem’s mother has still not returned and Diem’s stepfather, (who has raised her since she was an infant and whom she refers to as her dad) realizes she has stopped taking the flameroot powder. She promises him she will start again, that she had only forgotten to take it. The disease she inherited from her birth father leeches the color from her eyes and hair - the only reason she can hide her ancestry, but it also causes hallucinations. The powder is supposed to prevent that. But she hasn’t been taking it for months (which her father hasn’t realized but her younger brother Teller has) and hasn’t had a single hallucination in that time, so maybe she no longer needs the flameroot. And her brother Teller won’t tattle to their dad; he trusts that Diem knows what she’s doing. They discuss it as Diem walks Teller to school. He attends the Descended school in the palace, which you attend until you’re eighteen while most mortals only attend school until they’re fourteen. Their mother (who was a healer) had agreed to tend to the people in the palace in exchange for Teller’s enrollment. Even though their mom has been missing for months, no one has stopped Teller from coming to the school. He reveals to Diem that the current king, Ulther, is on his death bed (this is who their mother was treating). The question on all the Descended’s minds is who will be the next ruler of Lumnos. Magic supposedly chooses the most powerful of the Descendeds to rule so it’s impossible to know for sure until they’re crowned, but the front runner is Prince Luther - nephew of the current king. He’s a Lumnos Descended who can wield both light and shadow, one of very few who are that strong. Diem’s best friend turned something more, Henri, joins them on their way to the school and after Teller goes in, Henri asks Diem to join him in a trip to Fortos to deliver a package. The Descended do not like to travel since their magic is tied to their realms, Henri’s father works as the palace’s mail courier and Henri has followed in his footsteps - even though he hates the Descended. Diem asks her boss Maura for a few days off and receives the okay right before a young Descended boy shows up at the healer’s center looking for Auralie, Diem’s mother. The Descended boy explains that a roof collapsed (his fault - he was showing off with his magic) and three of the school children have been injured. Maura goes to attend them, she’s the usual attendant to the Descendeds since Auralie has been missing, and Diem says she will go too, even though her mother would never allow her to learn how to treat the Descended and kept her away from them at all times. They take another senior attendant with them, and the boy shows them a shortcut into the Lumnos City where the Descendeds live. When they get to their patients, Diem starts to treat the oldest injured girl who is not the most, but also not the least, injured. The girl is currently being tended to by a grown man. Diem introduces herself and the girl says her name is Lily – a girl that Teller has told Diem about because she’s one, possibly his only, friend at the school. Diem gives Lily a tonic for pain so that she will be able to set Lily’s broken arm. Lily’s only other injury is a small head wound which is already healing thanks to her power. While waiting for the tonic to take effect, Diem looks at the man sitting next to Lily and realizes it’s the same man she saw speaking with her mother the night Auralie went missing. Diem does nothing right now and sets Lily’s arm by herself. Job done, Diem stands but Lily collapses when she tries to follow. Diem was so focused on her mother and the man that she missed something bad, a shard of metal sticking out of Lily’s back. When Diem pulls the shard out, the wound bleeds so much that she knows it hit something vital. She holds gauze to the wound hoping that Lily’s magic will heal her in time and a soft light glows beneath the gauze. Lily wakes up. When Diem removes the gauze to check the wound, Lily’s back is completely healed - not even a scratch remains. Diem leaves to wash up and is confronted by the man who’d been with Lily. He asks about her eyes and the light, but Diem explains that it was all due to Lily, she’s just a mortal. They get into a short argument, but something tells Diem not to ask him about her mother. Instead, Diem retreats to the bathroom to wash the blood away and cry. She and the third attendant return to the healer’s center while Maura checks on the king, all three of the injured children lived. When Maura returns to the center, she tells Diem that Prince Luther asked her to pass his gratitude on to Diem. You know, Prince Luther… Lily’s older brother and the person who sat next to her. The man who was speaking to Auralie the night she disappeared. Diem reveals she’s not a fan of Luther, that he offered to set Lily’s arm for Diem as if she weren’t a trained healer, but obviously Diem ignored him. Maura tells Diem that’s because most humans can’t set a Descended’s arm, their bones are too strong. Yet Diem did it without assistance. Maura also tells Diem that Luther asked about her eyes and father again, but Maura (who knows that Diem’s father is not her blood relative) didn’t give him any information. Diem wants to help treat the Descendeds. Teller is worried they won’t allow him to study there since it was a special deal that their mother had made and Diem wants to take over the deal so that Teller doesn’t worry any more. But Maura explains that Teller’s school wasn’t the whole deal. Their mother agreed to attend to the Descendeds for the rest of her life and if she did not, they could execute her. This deal was brokered by Prince Luther. Diem leaves for her trip with Henri. While on their trip, Diem has a dream. She dreams of her mother meeting Prince Luther, but she hears more in the dream than she actually did. She hears the prince tell her mother that the crown is calling in their bargain with her - a life debt. Either she must pay, or the boy will pay in her place. But when her mother turns around, Diem sees her own face instead. She wakes up and hears something walking. It’s a wolf, and she is dreadfully unprepared. Henri is still sleeping, and she is unarmed. The wolf is hungry, and she knows it will attack. She hears a voice inside her head urging her to fight and she decides to listen. But when the wolf lunges at her, Diem just closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the wolf is gone. Her hands are glowing slightly red and there is a burning smell. She thinks the hallucinations have started again, a symptom of her illness. She searches for her flameroot powder, but she has none - she’s thrown it all in the sea and will never be able to get more since her mother is the only person who knows how to prepare it. Henri wakes up and helps Diem look for more powder, he’s the only person outside of her family that knows she takes it. He asks her why she’s so frantic to find it since she decided to stop taking it months ago. She tells him about the hallucination, and he seems relieved. It wasn’t a hallucination; he heard the wolf too. The growling is what woke him. She must have scared it off. She knows that’s not true, but she doesn’t push it. Instead, she sees a new tattoo on Henri’s back. The Everflame Tree of Life and Death - a symbol of the old mortal faith and their gods, which is now outlawed. Henri says he got the tattoo to honor the Old Gods. The next day, they cross the border from Lumnos into Fortos. Henri knows a lot about the Descendeds, even though he hates them, and he explains why Fortos has never had a queen. Each land has two corresponding gifts. In Lumnos, it is light and shadows. There are Descendeds that can control both, but it is only the strongest among them like Prince Luther. But in Fortos, it’s different. The women are healers; the men are killers. And that is why they have only had kings, because killers are more powerful. Diem already knows that the Descended magic is tied to their land, if they leave their realms they lose their magic. She remembers a story of a boy who was taken from his homeland and raised elsewhere, but when he returned, his magic flooded him from being pent up for so long. It completely overwhelmed him. As they cross the border, Diem gets an unexplainable pain, but it is short lived and does not recur. They make their way to an army healing tent to talk to one of Diem’s mother’s old contacts from when she worked in the army. The contact, Leona, allows Diem to fill up her supplies while they discuss the possible death of the king and subsequent succession. Diem takes the chance to get some of her questions answered too, or she tries to but all she does is make Leona suspicious. Leona doesn’t know of anyone Auralie was working for, but it had nothing to do with the army, or else Leona would know. As Leona urges her to leave, Diem sees a red powder. Flameroot! She asks for some, but Leona begins to question her. Even knowing what that root is could get her executed. You need permission from all nine Crowns to get even an ounce of that powder. The container is warded from everyone but the King of Fortos. Diem explains that she must’ve thought it was something else and says she was looking for beetbark. Leona gets her beetbark but is not convinced by Diem’s lie. Diem asks what the powder does to be so well guarded, but she gets no answer. That evening they eat at an inn and meet a friend of Henri’s named Brecke. He knows Andrei, Diem’s father, as well as her mother Auralie. He made Auralie a blade once. He offers a blade to Diem too; he’s impressed by her spirit and intrigued by her gray eyes. She refuses the blade, it’s made of Fortosian steel which is one of the only things that can pierce a Descended’s skin, and there’s no way she can afford to buy it from him. He gives it to her anyway, trading her one favor to be called in at a later date as payment. She leaves the two men to take a bath and go to bed. When she wakes up alone in their room near dawn realizing Henri never joined her, she goes to find him and hears Henri talking to a group of men in the tavern downstairs. She overhears the word war and panics, knowing that if war came her brother, her father, and Henri could all be conscripted. She would be left alone unless she chose to fight also and for a moment she can see it, herself on a battlefield holding a blade with bodies strewn around her. This vision feels real, unlike a hallucination. She shakes it off and sees that all the men in the group have tattoos matching Henri’s - so much for “honoring the Old Gods”. She walks out to confront Henri, and they go off on their own to talk. He refuses to tell her what’s happening, citing the fact that she hasn’t exactly been open with him either, and she gets so angry that she hears the voice again telling her to fight. She stumbles away from Henri and tells him to leave, afraid of hurting him. Things are awkward on their way home the next day, until Diem apologizes, and then Henri apologizes too. He tells her what he’s been dealing with for the last year. He saw one of the Descended kill a mortal boy. It was an accident - but the Descended had no compassion or guilt about it. Henri was so angry that he set out to kill the Descended, but another man stopped him. He recruited Henri into the Guardians of the Everflame - the same rebel group that fought during the Blood War. They do not believe the Descended should be the undisputed rulers of Emarion. He tells Diem that she knows more people than just him in the group but won’t tell her who. But he does invite her to join them, or even just pass them information from inside the palace. The Guardians are led by a woman; Diem may even get to meet her or work with her. Diem agrees to think about it. But Henri is not done telling his truths. He tells Diem that he loves her, and he nearly proposes but she stops him, telling him that she cares about him and loves being able to relax near him. It makes him stop whatever he was going to say. When they return to Lumnos, Diem announces that she will be taking up her mom’s duties and treating the Descended herself. After two weeks of training, she and Maura go to the palace together - through the front door this time. Diem sees a gryvern standing watch. When the Kindred arrived, each of them brought a gryvern who they became bound to. Two of the gryvern died in the Blood War, but the others still remain and serve the rulers of the realms. This one is named Sorae and she gets curious when Diem approaches and flies down to get a closer look. Diem almost touches her before Sorae is sent back to her perch by a guard. Upon entering the palace, Diem is told that mortals can’t bring weapons in. This doesn’t go over well with Diem, neither does the guard groping her boob when he tries to take her weapon. She stops him and puts him into a defensive position until Prince Luther arrives. When he finds out what happens, he casually disciplines the guard (who screams through the pain) before telling Diem that she may keep her weapons while he escorts her. He takes her and Maura to two of the injured students to make sure their recovery is on track - it is. But things get a bit heated again between Diem and one of the students’ mothers. Luther pulls Diem to the side and apologizes for the woman. He also admits that Auralie was supposed to let him know when things were bad for the mortals so that he could help them. He asks Diem to do the same. She tells Luther that things are always bad for the mortals… they always have been. Throughout the whole visit, Diem seems drawn to Luther as if his dangerous edge appeals to her. When she gets home, Diem is so riled up that she spars with her father. She asked how he coped with serving the Descended while in the army. He explains that he didn’t serve the Descended, he served Emarion. He fought both the rebels and Descended. He also explains that he can’t tell her what to do with her life but believes that he’s taught her well. If you aren’t bigger, you have to be smarter. You have to know when to fight, and when to run. That night, Diem implores Teller to be careful with Lily, both she and Luther are concerned with how close the two of them are getting and what that may mean for Teller. Diem is called to Paradise Row (where sex workers work) and tends to a woman injured by her client - who was then injured by her coworkers. The man is nowhere to be seen, but Diem treats the woman as she talks to the workers. When she leaves the building, Diem hears a woman scream and runs toward the sound. She finds a mortal woman trying to protect a small boy from a Descended. The boy is his son, and offspring between Descendeds and mortals are forbidden. Since the woman did not terminate the pregnancy, the man has come to kill the child. He claims he doesn’t want to, but it is the law and he and his family will be punished if he doesn’t comply - but Diem cannot accept this. She fights the man and tries unsuccessfully to save the woman. She does manage to hit the Descended in the neck with the knife that she was given by Brecke, but she doesn’t hit anything important and the Descended quickly begins to heal the wound. She protects the boy with her own body, screaming “fire” and hoping that others will come but no one does. She begins to chant a prayer from the old mortal religion, the one that has been outlawed, as the Descended approaches her. As she finishes the prayer, his magical attack does not hurt her. She assumes for a moment that he missed, but it happens a second time. She grabs Brecke’s knife as people start to come into the alleyway with buckets of water looking for a fire. She stabs the Descended in the leg and he flees. She turns to the boy but it’s too late, he has died from injuries sustained from the first attacks that killed his mother. Diem gets some help from an old man and takes their bodies to the forest to bury them together before going to Henri’s house and joining the rebellion. Henri takes her to Lumnos City (the city itself, not just the palace) and she sees more of them in one place than ever before. Their casual displays of wealth and magic shocks her. She has been called to House Benette, a powerful family and one of the twenty families that rules Lumnos, to heal their daughter. It is a test by the Guardians to see if she can be trusted. House Benette deals in weapons, while there Diem is to find out what she can about upcoming weapons shipments. She meets an older child, a teenage boy named Loris who is rude but takes her to see his ailing sister. She realizes that someone has given the girl flowers that have caused sores on her body, fever, and congestion - but it’s easily treatable. Diem slathers ointment on the sores and gives the girl a medicinal lozenge, surprised to find that neither parent seems to care about the child’s well-being since neither stops to check in. But the teenage boy stays with his sister, even playing with her to help distract from the pain. He leaves Diem with his sister for a moment, telling Diem to go to the parlor when she’s done, and Diem asks the girl who gave her the flowers while they’re alone. Her suspicions are confirmed; the Guardians poisoned the girl to give Diem a reason to come to this house. Once she’s done treating the girl, she writes care instructions and leaves more of the medicine before sneaking into the father’s office and discovering what she can. She feels bad for the children in this family, whose father is casually cruel and who don’t seem to receive any love from their parents. Diem leaves the office, collects her payment, and makes a quick escape. Diem yells at Henri before showing him what she found - and he is very impressed; the respect she sees in his face drives the worry that someone poisoned a child out of her head. He tells her that this will prove to everyone that she has what it takes and shut up even those who don’t think she should be let in - because of her father and his role in the army. He takes her to a meeting of the Guardians that night, but she isn’t allowed in until she shows “Father” what she found. Right out there on the street, “Father” and a couple of “brothers” look through the papers, one she stolen and one where she copied a list of recent customers, and hear Diem recite a conversation she overheard about explosives. Some still don’t think she should become a member, saying she’s off limits, but the Guardians eventually decide she can make her own decisions, and she becomes a member of their rebellion. She’s brought into their little clubhouse where she sees people she recognizes: sex workers, a teacher, a seamstress, a fellow healer named Lana who accompanied her and Maura to treat the students injured when the roof collapsed. Henri explains that “Father” leads the Guardians in Lumnos - his name is Vance, and his two closest are men named Brant and Frances. He had previously told Diem that the Guardians were run by a woman, but Vance is in charge now because the woman is on a mission in a different realm. During the meeting, Vance recounts missions that have been completed and lays out plans for future missions, members request to be a part of certain missions if they believe they can contribute. Then Vance announces that there’s a big mission to help another cell. They need someone to infiltrate the palace and find a way to get around unseen on the ground floor. Henri encourages Diem to volunteer, but she points out that Luther is always with her when she’s in the palace, Henri stands and volunteers Diem for the mission anyway. She agrees under his duress. Soon, Diem accompanies Maura to the palace to treat the king for the first time. It’s supposed to be the last time Maura comes with her to the palace. Diem wears no weapons except Brecke’s blade - which is so thin she hopes no one notices it. She also has a piece of paper concealed on her chest by a breast band. Luther meets them at the gate and again, the guard gets a little handsy, so Luther takes over frisking Diem. He’s very respectful, but Diem finds it pretty sexy, and she thinks that he definitely feels the knife but doesn’t draw attention to it and he does not remove it. He takes her and Maura to the king’s room. King Ulther is sick and not recovering. Descended magic has no effect on him and the job the healers have now is just to make him as comfortable as possible until he dies. On the way to the room, Diem somehow chucks her backpack into a corner without being noticed. After arriving and bowing to the king, Diem “realizes” that she doesn’t have her bag. Even though Luther tells her he will send one of the two guards standing outside the king’s room to retrieve it, she sprints from the room to get it herself. She hides in a random room, somehow evading the guard that is sent after her, before finding her bag and pulling the paper (a map of the palace) out of its hiding spot. She is supposed to use the map to find where a boat is docked and then to search the boat for a place someone could stowaway. She literally gets almost nowhere before she hears Luther coming down the hallway and hides behind a pillar. He talks to her, even though he can’t see where she is, and tells her that she’s playing a dangerous game. He tells her not to be like her mom, who betrayed him. A guard comes and addresses Luther. He responds to the guard that when Diem is found, they should not engage her and should call for him immediately. After the guard leaves, Luther whispers to Diem that he hopes she knows what she’s doing and leaves. Soon after, Diem makes her way back to the king’s room where the guards tackle her to the floor and pull a knife on her. So much for not engaging. He scratches her neck with the knife but then Luther shows up. He repeats that he told them not to engage her, takes the knife that was used to scratch Diem, imbibes it with his magic, and stabs one of the guards with it. He then instructs the second guard to take the injured guard to the infirmary - where Luther will meet them and dish out his punishment as well. Once the guards leave, he explains that the people need to understand that his orders are to be obeyed. He then dismisses Maura and Diem for the day, I’m guessing Maura treated the king in the interim. On the way home, Maura is understandably furious with Diem. Diem has put her own life, as well as Maura’s life and Teller’s future, at risk. Maura announces that Diem will not be returning to the palace, she should have listened to Auralie. Afterward, Diem goes to the Guardians to tell them how she failed the mission. But Vance is still impressed that she was able to sneak away alone for a brief time and not get executed in the process. She reveals that she did get attacked and a guard cut her neck, but when she feels for the wound, her neck is completely healed already. She shows them the secret entrance to the palace; Vance gets even more excited. But he and his two advisors agree that she’s too inexperienced right now. Her plan for this mission was juvenile and poorly planned, they will train her some before giving her another mission. On the way home, Henri walks with her and proposes. He tells her that eventually she will be able to stay home and have kids, but Diem doesn’t want to do that… or give up her independence. She shakily asks for time to think, and he agrees but he’s so happy that it’s clear he thinks her answer will be yes. Maura is true to her word and does not allow Diem in the palace after the last debacle, taking Lana with her instead, but Diem does still get to treat Descended in Lumnos City. While there one day, she sees Lily again who stops to chat. Lily thanks Diem for saving her life and explains that Luther was impressed and asked about Diem afterward. She explains that Luther is a good man but puts a lot of pressure on himself to keep everyone safe since he is the High General of the Royal Guard. He takes it very personally any time someone is injured, and it makes him grumpy. She apologizes for Luther being mean to Diem that day but says she thinks that Luther trusts Diem because Diem was mean to him too, she thinks Luther kind of liked it. She asks Diem to come to dinner with her and Luther (and to bring Teller) but Diem doesn’t think that is possible. Instead, she tells Lily that she is always welcome at the Bellator house for dinner. That night at dinner with her dad and brother, Diem tells Teller that she invited Lily to dinner and gently teases him. Their dad doesn’t know Lily is Descended and is excited to hear that there’s someone Teller likes. In sibling fashion, Teller brings up Henri’s proposal and Diem admits that after three weeks she still hasn’t given him an answer. She asks her dad how he knew her mom was “the one” and he tells the kids the story. He had known of Auralie for a while, she was well regarded within the military even by those who weren’t healers. But he could never ask her out, he was too scared. One day Auralie left on a mission and was gone for a year. He swore if he saw her again, he wouldn’t let fear stop him. When she returned, he got nervous again but eventually asked and started courting her. But he could always tell there was something Auralie was hiding. Until one day she arrived at his door with Diem in her arms, explaining that Diem was her daughter and that they were leaving. She had wanted to give Andrei closure before she did, but instead of closure, he decided to come with them. He realized there was nowhere he’d rather be and nothing he wouldn’t do to protect them both. He knew Auralie was the one because… he just knew. As he cleans up their dishes with his kids reflecting on this, there’s an explosion at Lumnos City. He says it sounded like a bomb. Diem, racked with guilt thinking that she is the reason for it, runs to help anyone who is injured. She stops at the healer’s building and grabs supplies before running toward Lumnos City. On her way, she sees a group of men walking towards her - away from the explosions. Henri is with them and stops her from going further. Vance and some of the other Guardians she recognizes are there too and she has a flash of memory - Vance speaking with her mother. They tell her not to go; there should be no mortals there now in case it gives their activities away. Henri holds Diem by the arm; the other Guardians surround her. She feels like she is in danger and plays along with them long enough to be able to break away and run. But her pack is weighing her down and the Guardians are in pursuit, so she cuts her bag from her back and is able to get away, but now she has no supplies. Not that it matters, because when she gets to Lumnos City and to the blast site, they will not allow her in anyway. At least, not until she sees and goads Prince Luther into letting her help. The attack was only on the armory; no children were hurt but plenty of guards were. And all Diem can do with them is sit, she speaks to them and strokes any piece of skin that is not burned until the injured quiet and can be tended to by other healers. Luther says some may be sent to Fortos where the healers are more skilled. Diem is racked with guilt. She is the one that provided the armory blueprint to the Guardians, it was one of the papers she took from the Bennette office. She did this. She overhears Luther discuss with two others what to do next, they’ve come to a crossroads. There are only two doors into the armory, one has collapsed, and one is very unstable with an opening too small for descended to get through. They aren’t sure if anyone inside is still alive and the fire is still raging. But if they smother the fire, they will likely kill anyone inside that is not yet dead. Diem volunteers to go in and look, dragging any survivors back to the door so the Descended can pull them all out. The door is too unstable to chance opening it more than once. Luther agrees to her plan, but he is not happy about it. Diem goes into the still burning armory and finds only dead guards. Not from the fire or smoke, guards who were murdered. She collapses from the guilt after finding body after body inside. Men who may not have deserved this, may not have ever done anything to do deserve being killed. She’s on the ground for who knows how long until the voice inside her telling her to fight annoys her enough that she gets back up. That’s when she hears another voice, weak and asking for help. She finds a man named Perthe, trapped under a huge ceiling beam, with a second - injured and unconscious but still alive - man. There’s no way she can move both of them, let alone the beam that Perthe is under, and Perthe is too weak to help. But somehow, adrenaline makes her strong enough to shift the beam off of Perthe. She lays Perthe on the legs of his unconscious friend and pulls them both out, the voice encouraging her any time she thinks she can’t go further. She finally sees the opening and Luther waiting for her, but she’s too weak to keep going. Luther sends his magic in to pull her out gently, but she instead makes him take the two injured men first. He pulls them both to safety. Diem looks at Luther, having been touched by his magic now, and she sees the vision of herself in a battlefield again. But this time she’s not alone… Luther stands next to her. Just as he comes back to pull her out, a beam directly above her falls and everything goes black. Diem has snippets of memories. She knows everything hurts. She has a vague thought that Luther carried her out of the wreckage, even though he has other more important things to deal with, and took her to his cousin Eleanor. Memories of someone holding her hand and talking to her. When she wakes up, Diem is dressed in new clothes and her weapons are strapped to her body, Luther is sitting next to her bed and Sorae is outside making a terrible racket. He explains that the gryvern are bound to the rulers of the realms, whomever that may be. He believes that Sorae knows that the king is near death and is upset at the thought of being forced to serve someone she does not agree with. Diem tries to stand, and he warns her to be careful of her injuries and asks if he needs to call a healer for her, but she’s not injured. Just like the terribly wounded guards in the armory, most of which were able to heal at home without intervention, a handful were sent to Fortos, and only one died. But Diem claims she’s mortal, though Luther may have his doubts now. He asks her to see his uncle but when she does, she says there’s not much she or Maura can do for him any longer. He’s close to death, as Luther suspected. Sorae, who is outside his room, looks at Diem and Diem is drawn to her again, but Luther throws himself between the two of them, concerned for Diem’s safety. If Sorae attacked, only the king would be able to call her off and that’s not going to happen. He calmly asks Diem if she was working for the Guardians on the day that she “forgot her satchel”, explaining that the Guardians aren’t that discreet - he knows who they are and that they aren’t responsible for yesterday’s attack. Instead of answering, she retorts that she saw Luther talking to her mother the day Auralie went missing and asks what he did to her. He says he didn’t do anything to her mother, but they’re interrupted by two guards and Luther must leave to handle something. He asks Diem to stay, their conversation is not yet done, and allows her to stay in the king’s room unsupervised with her weapons - telling her not to betray his trust. There’s nothing Diem can do for the king except let him know that he’s not alone, so she places her palm on his wrist, and he wakes for just a moment. She believes he is having some sort of episode or hallucination as some do at the end of their lives. He begins to yell: they told him she would come for him, shatter their stone and lay waste to their borders. She sees the crown of Lumnos on Ulther’s head, made of light and shadows. She tries to calm him and assures Ulther she will get Luther but then a new voice speaks from the King’s mouth. A woman’s voice, older, unearthly. It calls her the “Daughter of the Forgotten”. She tells Diem to give Luther, her faithful heir, their gift. Diem is terrified and pulls her knife out, so obviously that’s when the guards come in, having heard the ruckus, followed by Luther. They search the king for wounds, which really offends Diem, and she storms out - followed by Luther. He asks her to give him five minutes, and she decides to speak to him. He kisses her, telling her they have a connection. He saw the vision too, and when he kisses her, he knows she can feel his magic. Because he can feel hers. She’s no mortal. He asks her to continue to see the king, not as part of fulfilling her mother’s bargain - she doesn’t have to worry about that. But Diem reveals she is giving up being a healer and turns away from him instead. She heads directly to Maura to tell her what she’s decided, then to Henri. He starts by saying the Guardians are not pleased with her, but she is not happy with them either and insists they are no better if they are hurting innocent children to get what they want. Henri doesn’t see it that way. He tells her stories of other realms. In Ignios, they got rid of all the mortals by making them stand in the hot sun until they died - cruel and long. In Sophos, they invite clever mortals to study at their institutes and do experiments. When those are done, they experiment on the mortals themselves. Diem is disgusted by this information, disgusted with herself for feeling anything for the king or Luther, and she asks Henri to run away with her. He won’t and gives her one more piece of information. Her father Andrei has been called back into service, and he has accepted… he will report by the end of the month. Henri insists that Andrei is loyal to the Descendeds, just a puppet for their agendas. Diem returns home to find her dad waiting for her. He’s angry about Luther’s letter (he has worked closely with Ulther for a number of years and was never invited to stay the night, not to mention that her parents tried to keep Diem away from the palace, not working in it). She lets it slip that she healed Luther’s sister, who is Teller’s friend, which gets Teller in trouble for being so close to a Descended. So, Diem turns the tables on her father and reveals that she knows that he’s enlisted again and hasn’t told them. He tells her war has been declared, the request is just a formality. He wouldn’t have been allowed to say no. But she and Teller will be fine with Diem working… whoops. She tells him she quit. So, her dad says to marry Henri. Then things really get heated. She won’t marry anyone she does not choose herself and she is sick of being told what to do. The voice in her head urges her to fight, she can’t ignore it any longer, and she lashes out at her dad with her words. She accuses him of knowing where their mother is and not looking for her. It devolves into Diem saying he’s not her real father and him kicking her out of the house. She runs out, Teller following her. The voice won’t stop, but now it begs to be freed. Demands to be freed. Diem can hear Sorae crying out and suddenly, she relinquishes herself to the voice. Teller gasps, Diem is now wearing the Crown of Lumnos. Somewhere else, Diem’s mother waits. It has been almost seven months that she has been here, waiting for the king to die. It’s been longer than she expected. She has a plan that she is putting into effect, one only three people know about. Fewer still know where she is. This is the same place she stayed in during her long absence during the war. This is where she had Diem. But Diem’s father is no longer here. She believes that she killed him when she left last time. Auralie goes to a large stone dais bearing a ten-pointed star. Ten obelisks. Burning fires inside cauldrons on top of nine of them. While she stands there, the ground shakes. She falls and hits her hand on the stone sitting on the pedestal in the center of the star. Where she hits it, the skin immediately swells and blisters - it’s agonizingly painful. She looks at the onyx obelisk, watches as the fire there goes out, the cauldron now only smoking. The symbol on the obelisk, a crescent moon with a sun, goes dark. The King of Lumnos is dead. In a month, she can return home. She watches as two beams of light shoot from the sky straight to the stone on the pedestal. In Lumnos City, Luther takes off his shirt, where Diem has left a bloody handprint, and folds it so the handprint is still visible before placing it in his drawer. Soon he is interrupted by his cousin, who has heard that a woman stayed in Luther’s room and wants all the details. They walk together to the king’s rooms. While there, the king starts to choke, and Luther sends his cousin to get his brother Aemonn and Luther’s sister Lily. Ulther is uncle to all of them. But while his cousin is gone, the king wakes for just a moment. He instructs Luther to find the girl with the gray eyes and points to Luther’s sword, which Luther believes is an instruction to use it on her. Then when Ulther dies, Luther notices his own brow remains crownless. Instead, a ray of light beams from the sky elsewhere in the city. He knows intuitively that it is Diem. He now needs to find the new Queen of Lumnos.