Book Review: Glow of the Everflame

Title: Glow of the Everflame
Author: Penn Cole
Genre: Romance, Romantasy, Fiction

What It’s About:

Diem continues freaking out in front of Teller, and he assures her that he can see the crown, but she panics and looks for the flameroot powder inside the water of the sea, while Teller urges her to come back out. Suddenly, Lily appears with a bouquet of flowers and sees the crown, then tells them that that it means that the King is dead and she is the queen. Diem tells her that she doesn’t want it, and both Teller and Lily reveal that she will have the Challenging period—a time of 30 days where other members of the various houses could challenge her to the crown if they feel that she’s not a fit, and it is a fight to the death. Diem decides she needs to disappear for some time while she figures it out, because she is certain that she is not a Descended. She tells Teller that he needs to go back to their father and Henri, and tell them that she has gone to see a friend, but that he doesn’t know how long she will be gone. Lily offers to help her hide, telling her that there is a hunting lodge on the grounds of the palace that no one ever uses, but Diem makes her promise to not tell Luther.

At the hunting property, Diem gets undressed and warms her clothes—the Royal Guard clothes—up by the fire. Suddenly, Luther shows up with his sword and the two of them share a few barbs, but he convinces Diem that there is nowhere to hide as Sorae will start to seek her out soon and the Royal family will follow Sorae to find her. She agrees to go into the castle with him, and he introduces her to the rest of the Corbios family. Remis is the acting Regent in time of the King’s illness, and that will continue as long as Diem is in the Challenging period. They ask about her family, and she doesn’t hide the fact that her parents were mortal, which brings up a few faces of disgust, particularly from Gareth, King Ulther’s older brother, though Luther shows her loyalty. Diem picks up on the dislike between Gareth’s oldest son, Aemonn, and Luther, and pretends to bat her eyelashes at Aemonn to piss off Luther. As the party winds down, Diem speaks to Lily and tells her that she has forgiven her because she thought that she was doing the right thing by getting Luther to help her, despite her wishes. Diem asks Lily if she will be able to get Teller into the castle the following day and Lily promises to do that while maintaining a secret. Luther then escorts her to her room, and they get into a physical fight, while the guards to her room look onto them. When she goes into the room, he rips into them, telling them that they let him put his hands on her, and they shouldn’t have—any time there is anyone that tries that in the future, they should always defend her and not let that person put their hands on her. Diem takes a bath, and while she is still soaking in, Luther knocks, bringing in a bag of weapons for Diem, and giving her back her own weapon.

The next morning, Diem wakes up startled by someone walking around in her room, and almost kills Eleanor with her weapons. The two girls talk, and Eleanor gives her the truth about why she wants to get close to her, which Diem appreciates. The two women go around on a tour of the castle, and Eleanor tells Diem a lot about the castle, the family politics and all the members of the family that Diem makes her an adviser of Culture and something else, to help her navigate her new royal status. Aemonn comes by and takes her on a walk, through the gardens, and away from Luther’s prying eyes. He tells Diem that he had a purpose—to ask her to go with him to the Ascension Ball that will happen after the funeral of the king, something that will happen in a few days time as the servants cannot keep their mouth shut. It’s the first time that Diem is hearing of this and she slips up from what Luther had told her when they came to the castle—to tell people as little as possible—any revealing to Aemonn that she is betrothed to a mortal. He says that she should invite him to the ball then, so that the families see them together. When she returns to Luther, she tells him what had occurred, a nd he tells her that he will go speak with Aemonn to wrangle him to keep his mouth shut.

Later that day, Diem meets up with Lily and Teller in the Dungeons of the castle—Lily having found and taken her to the dungeons to meet with Teller. They talk a bit, but Luther finds them, and realizes that Diem’s anger is unnatural, especially when Teller confirms that the fiery anger is normal but not the volatility. He tells the two of them to run the hell away, and then he goads Diem into releasing her power—a blast that nearly takes out the castle, and shreds shield after shield after shield that he puts up. The reality that Diem is a descended starts to sink in. Luther and Diem begin spending time together in the mornings during which he gives her reports on the state of the realm, and one morning he takes her to his room and shows her a book of what she realizes is all the half-descended children that he had saved and spirited out of the realm along with their parents, and the ones he could not save. That even though he is the Keeper of the Laws, he also skirts them, and he reveals that he had been working with her mom during it, but tells her that he is not able to tell her more than that seeing as she doesn’t know anything at all. He promises Diem that if her mother isn’t back by the end of the year, he will personally go get her and bring her back to Diem for answers.

Days go on, and Diem makes a Bonded agreement with Remis, the Regent of the realm in King Ulther’s stead as well as in the period of challenging, that she will accept his family name—the House of Corbis—in exchange for his help, and that no member of his family will challenge her in the Challenging. She panics when she realizes that she doesn’t know how to get a drop of magic out, but the work of the bond does it for her to the point that she doesn’t have to do it. She leaves the meeting with Remis, going through the servants quarters and runs into Henri, who was there to pick up letter on behalf of his father. He is furious with her when he realizes that she is Descended, and starts accusing her of things, so she pulls him away by asking him to come with her to pick up a letter. They walk through the halls towards her rooms, and she finds that Henri stops to look into a room—where Luther and Aemonn are arguing. Henri tells her that the man who killed the boy is there, which confirms her suspicions that Luther’s white horse with a black spot on the head is the horse that trampled the human child that Henri witnessed, and that Luther is the man who had killed the boy. She pulls him away making sure that Henri doesn’t do anything rash, taking him into another room, where they talk and she tells him that she accepts his proposal and wants him by her side as her consort. She also invites him to the Ascension Ball, which he accepts. Luther arrives, telling her that one of the guards had seen her duck into the room, and has Henri escorted out of the palace by one of the guards, to hide him for safety. The two talk and Luther reveals that she cannot go to the Ascension Ball with Henri as the Descended will not be happy about it. He advises her that if she really wants to be with Henri, she needs to wait until after the ball when she is queen and no one could dare Challenge her as a result of their dislike of the mortals. He reveals to her that he had gotten Aemonn to agree to keep his mouth shut in exchange for attending the Ascension Ball with her, and when Diem realizes that there is no chance that she can attend with Henri, she agrees to go with Aemonn.

The day of the funeral arrives and Diem cannot decide what dress to wear—she pulls out a black number in front of Sorae and the gryvern makes a noise that it doesn’t think the dress is acceptable. She pulls out a red number, and the gryvern makes a noise that it’s acceptable, but Diem doesn’t believe it so she puts on the black number. When she arrives at the funeral, she realizes that she had made a blunder, as everyone is dressed in red and looks upon her in disgust. As she makes her way up to the royal box, she overhears snippets of their conversation and disgust for her. She offers Gareth and Remis to sit in the throne area, and instead joins Luther, Eleanor, and Taran behind them, where she becomes fast friends with Taran as they have the same type of humor. Eleanor is mortified that she had failed her Queen, and offers to blame herself, then resign. Diem will not hear any of it, as she knows it was in error and asks Eleanor if she will do better next time, to which Eleanor says she will, so Diem tells her to drop it. Gareth glares at them all giggling behind him, and Diem apologizes to him, but the funeral keeps droning on. Finally, the time arrives for her to light the pyre with the king’s body, and she goes down there to do the magic, which makes her panic. Luther centers her and tells her to unleash it, repeating the mantra, as her magic starts to work. Then she manages to look over to a group in black—the mortals that had been invited—and sees Maura, then her father who is crying. It’s the first time that she has seen her father cry, and it breaks her, so Sorae arrives and lights the pyre on fire before taking Diem back to her room, which was formerly the King’s room.

Luther has Diem’s father brought in to her room, and the two of them talk, with Diem asking him to be her advisor to the crown on all military and mortal matters. At first, Andrei says no, but then he acquiesces to her request when she makes the point that Remis wants her to continue the stability of Ulther’s reign, and this is one way that it might stay. Alixe, one of Luther’s cousins and a master strategist, shows up and makes Andrei invisible before sneaking him out of the castle, but she is also very happy to meet Andrei as his prowess is so well known amongst the military. Eleanor invites her to meet with all of the other cousins later that night, and then they all take their leave. Diem stays around her room, moping until she decides that she shouldn’t hide. So this time, trusting Sorae’s dressing recommendations, she goes to the dinner to meet with all of the cousins. Eleanor advises her to show them that she has strength, and Diem realizes that she can play that game. Of course, Ileana is there with Luther, and that bothers Diem because of how entitled Ileana acts. Diem uses Aemonn to get her knife out from between her thighs and then throws it on the table, getting everyone’s attention. She trades barbs and acts a little vicious with them, but when the topic changes to scars as she has one on her neck, Ileana tells her that she should get that fixed as scars are ugly. Ileana goes on to tell them that Luther had promised to have the scars removed when they get married, and Diem realizes that Luther doesn’t seem happy with Ileana’s words, though he is not showing any emotions. She thinks about how hard it must be to keep onto those scars in spite of everyone trying to pressure him to remove them to have that flawless skin, especially as those scars were the result of his father’s actions against him. So she tells Ileana that if Luther was hers, she wouldn’t have him removing his scars because scars are the story of all the battles that the body and the person has been through. At some point, Luther and Ileana disappear from the table, and as the night ends, Eleanor walks her to her room, telling her that she was fabulous and did exactly what they needed. When they arrive at Diem’s room, Luther is waiting, and Diem recognizes Perthe at the door. Perthe is surprised that she remembers him, and Luther reveals to her that Perthe is not a Corbois, though he is part of her guard because he volunteered for it after he healed in Fortos. Luther tries to enter her room, but Perthe stops him, which has Diem laughing and reminding Luther that he gave them the order. She tells Perthe to let Luther in and Luther puts her on the bed, then takes off her shoes, massaging her legs until he mentions Henri and then Diem gets distance from him. Luther tells her that they need to start training the next day, even though there is a ball, because the Challenging period has started.

Diem has her first lesson with Luther, Alixe, Eleanor and Taran—the three had arrived to see her magic. But before they did, Luther and Diem shared a moment in private, as she had gone there early. She assures Luther that what she said about the scars is true, and then shows him many of hers. He takes off his shirt and shows her the one he has—running across his face and across his torso, but is not yet ready to tell her the story, though she knows that her father did it to him. The training session goes bad as Diem is not able to access her magic. That night, the Ascension Ball happens, and Diem gets dressed with Eleanor, who advises her on what outfit to wear—Diem dresses in a white dress that is the opposite of who she is, and that is the point. Aemonn shows up and gives her a necklace with the etching of a phoenix with blue sapphires for eyes—a symbol of House Corbois and the eyes symbolizing the blue of the Descended’s eyes. There is a commotion as they are on their way to the ball, and Diem realizes that the guards are punching Henri, who is dressed in a borrowed outfit that is grand for the Mortals, but would stick out in the ascension ball. She asks him to trust her and to go back home, but he refuses and reveals that a group of Guardians is nearby, waiting for his signal to attack as they are planning on taking the castle. She tells him that this is going to be a bloodbath for them, but he refuses to budge on attacking. Diem asks the guards to take him to the dungeon so that he doesn’t give the signal to the Guardians, and sees his look of betrayal as he is dragged away. Aemonn comes up to her and wraps his hands around her, but her body screams that it is all wrong, so she asks Aemonn to get Luther. Luther comes to her to ask what is wrong, and she tells him about Henri and the Guardians, so Luther comes up with a plan—she will need to release the magic of the Umbros Queen so that they can use it to convince the Guardians that they do not want to fight tonight. He walks her through the process, and Diem releases the Umbros Queen’s magic, before he tells her that he will take care of it and that she needs to go to the ball.

Aemonn and Diem make a grand entrance, and then the introductions begin. At first, it is almost everyone that she knows in House Corbois, but then House Hanoverre shows up and Marthe, who is Ileana’s grandmother and the Matron of the house, starts slinging insults. She reveals that Diem was found with a dagger over the King, raising suspicion on Diem. Finally, Diem speaks out—she was supposed to play the vapid party girl as agreed with Remis, but she wasn’t having any of what Marthe was saying—and asks Marthe if she is accusing House Corbois of murder and if she wants to start a fight with the house, as House Corbois was the one who had been charged with taking care of King Ulther. Marthe shuts up and the house leaves, freeing up the Umbros King to come talk to Diem. Diem feels the effects of his magic, as he uses his mind magic to send her images of her touching herself and them having sex. But then her own magic rises up to protect her and shuts down his connection and attempts to get into her mind again, which Diem can tell baffles and annoys him. The Umbros king tells her that the Queen is otherwise occupied helping Luther with some issue, and that the Queen had already the pleasure of meeting with her. Diem realizes that the crone she had met the night that she watched Luther and her mom was, in fact, the Queen of Umbros. The King walks off, and a lot of the other Royals leave as well once they have given her their gifts. Aemonn and Diem dance the first dance, and there are many other dances that she has that night, though she does have an incident with Jean of Hanoverre, who taunts her with his guy friends. They want to see her magic, and Diem doesn’t know how to control it at all, nor how to get it to come out, so she refuses to show it to Jean and his friends. But they continue to pester her about it until Luther shows up and tells them off, revealing that it is very strong and that it ripped through his own shields so Jean doesn’t have a chance. He later tells her that her magic might hurt everyone in the palace, and Diem is upset that she didn’t think of that. Luther spends the rest of the night watching her, as she dances with person after person, while Eleanor gate keeps her. At the end, Aemonn is going to ask for her to give him the last dance, but Diem looks for Luther as she had promised Lily to save the last dance for him. Luther shows up and the two of them dance together, with everything melting away. He reveals to her the depth of his feelings for her, and that there is nothing that he wouldn’t do for her.

The House Receptions begin, and the first house to start is House Bennette—the one that Diem had infiltrated and stolen the plans from for the Guardians. Eleanor provides her information on the family, and Diem actually manages to flatter Evrim and puff him up, but then his demands about what to do with the Guardians who attacked and the mortals annoy her. She has her father in the council with her, though Evrim is not happy with it, as is Gareth, and her father tells them that doing conscription is one surefire way to get the mortals to actually turn to the Guardians faster. Everything that Evrim wants to do with the mortals, the father speaks up about and pushes back against, and the way that Evrim speaks about the mortals, makes Diem’s blood boil. Ultimately, they get to some kind of agreement that Diem says she will have to think about and the Bennette house leaves. Her father resigns from his position as her advisor, telling her that he is only going to be a problem. Diem takes the resignation as her father’s disappointment in her, and tells him he accepts, and tells him to leave. Later, Diem is hanging out with Teller and Lily in the dungeon, when Alixe comes to get her and tells her that she has to come with them quickly. They put Teller and Lily in Diem’s room and she takes Sorae to go to her old home, where Luther is already waiting. Diem realizes that there is a lot of blood, and despite Luther’s pleas, she enters the home, where she realizes that someone had written slurs against her in blood on the walls, and that her father is dead. She pushes Luther away with Alixe, telling Sorae to take them away from here, and then holds her father as her magic explodes around her, burning everything away including the house, the father’s body, her clothing, and the pendant that Aemonn had given her. Luther fights through and comes to her, to hold her while she cries and her magic dries up. Then he takes her home. She tells Teller about what happened, and the two siblings wallow in their loss for a while, before Teller decides he can no longer avoid school, and Diem decides that she is not going to continue wallowing in loss to avoid the house receptions. She gives Teller two of the gifts from the realms, but he tells her that he cannot take the dagger as no weapons are allowed in school, so she straps the dagger herself. She then asks Sorae to follow him and ensure that he will be fine, before heading to the next House meeting, which is with Hanoverre. During the whole meeting she is silent, even when Marthe pushes for them to get rid of all the mortals for good, she is silent as she takes her fathers last words to heart—that she lets her emotions to get the best of her. She takes her time getting something to drink, and then tells them that her offer is that she will be the defender of all people—descended and mortals alike. That is her offer, and none other will be good enough. She tells the Hanoverre to get out after that and tells Gareth, Remis, and Aemonn to stay seated.

Time goes on, trainings keep happening though Diem is unable to do anything in her magic, and the House Receptions keep happening though she gives the same offer and stays silent during most of the meetings. Teller and Diem hold a ceremony for their father—as everything is a burnt crater, they only put in swords and daggers into a pit, while their friends look on. Henri and Vance show up late, and Diem argues with them, as Vance doesn’t trust her at all and Henri is trying to show him that she is one of them. Diem tells Henri that they’ll meet at dawn, and when they do, she lets Henri and Vance look around the royal boat as they had wanted a while back. Vance doesn’t trust her so he doesn’t tell her whether she will be on the boat when they use it, but he does give her information that they want to conceal people and some things as these are the only boats that can get through the Fortos navy without too much scrutiny. At some point, they are almost caught, so Diem hides them in a stairwell, which she reveals needs her blood. Once the soldiers have passed, she tells them to run, and they continue running, at which point, she realizes that Vance had betrayed her—he had wanted to know where the entrance is to the boat and she had them blindfolded on their way in. Henri pauses when she calls out to him, but then jumps after Vance, shrugging her off. One of the House Receptions is with a Brother and Sister who are married and mated, which bothers Diem, and both Diem and Luther find out that Remis had agreed Lily’s hand in marriage with one of their children. They are both against it, but he tells them that it’s not up to them. Later, Lily talks to Diem and tells her that she could do the marriage if it keeps things smooth for her and helps her be the Queen, to which Diem responds that she doesn’t want Lily to do something for her, but to do something for herself. A few days before the Challenging while at a House Reception with House Ghislane, Aemonn approaches her and puts his hands on Diem. Taran attempts to stop him, but Diem allows Aemonn to speak with her, and then twists his arm when Taran steps away, telling Aemonn that if he puts his hands on her again, she will do much worse. Taran tells her that he loves her for her spunk, and she huddles with Alixe, Taran, and Eleanor, but before they can tell her anything more, it’s time to have a discussion. She asks for Luther, and Remis tells her that he is indisposed. After the meeting, Remis reveals that Luther has been stripped of his titles and that all of those titles now belong to Aemonn. Remis had provoked Luther during the meeting around Lily’s marriage, by using the death of Andrei as a way to show Luther that he is incapable, and Luther has been gone since then.

During this time, Diem had also done a few things to help the mortals—sending money to the orphanages to ensure that they are taken care of, and then she also has the gardeners at the castle plant some medicinal herbs that she brings to Maura at the Healer’s center in exchange for some time to teach Lily some healing. She tells Maura to speak to Luther if these herbs ever stop coming to her, and asks about Lana. Maura tells her that Lana had gone to Arboros to get some ingredients that they need, so Diem tells her that she will catch her when Lana gets back. Diem also had Alixe secretly remove the guards that are known to be the worst amongst the mortals from the city’s guarding, though she doesn’t know how much of an effect that will have.

With two days left to go before the Challenging, Diem tries to fight with Taran, but there is nothing coming out of it. She runs off on Sorae, using the magical compass gifted to her that is supposed to show her what her heart desires and finds herself at her old home, where she breaks down. Teller, Alixe and Taran show up and Teller tells her that she hasn’t been fighting—not really, just going through the motions, and not letting herself to feel the emotions, which is something that Taran had said. Taran had also told Diem to not hurt Luther because he owes Luther a lot and asks her to break it off with Henri, but Diem had stormed out. They talk more at the crater, and Diem agrees to continue fighting, to continue surviving, so they return to the palace. The next day, they go into the dungeons, and Luther is there already. She goes to him, and asks him where he has been, to which he reveals that he has been doing anything and everything he can to make sure that she is not Challenged. He reveals to her that House Hanoverre had offered him to make a Bonded agreement to marry Ileana, and Diem begs him to not do it—she is not willing to admit her feelings for him, but she cannot lose him. Then she asks him to help her with the training. Luther agrees to help her and makes a wager with her—if she is able to use some magic, he will decline the agreement with House Hanoverre. He tells her that the first thing that she needs to do is know how to defend and protect. She reveals that she thinks she knows how to do that as she did that when she protected against a fight from a Descended man, who had come to kill his son and his son’s mother. Luther quickly puts it together that the child was a half-mortal. He walks her through it, after revealing to Diem that her magic doesn’t hurt the people she loves as it was how he was able to get through to her at her house. And Diem creates a sphere of protection that encircles them—a few of the others outside of the protection try to use their magic to penetrate, but it is strong. Luther is not able to leave the sphere either, to show her that it is actually her that is doing the magic. Her friends do tell her that she won’t be able to always keep up the protection around her as it uses a lot of energy, but they are not able to get her to fight back.

After their training session, Eleanor offers to have dinner for just the seven of them—Luther, Alixe, Taran, Lily, Teller, Diem, and Eleanor—but Diem tells her that she has something else to do that night, and to make a celebration for the day of the Challenging. Eleanor agrees, and Diem takes Alixe and Taran into the Mortal City, where she meets with Maura to talk to her for a bit and tell her the truth about the Challenging. Then, she has Alixe make them invisible with the intention of her going to visit Henri, but she decides to first show Alixe and Taran the mortal city, and how they all live. When they arrive to Henri’s house, she asks Alixe to hide with Taran away so that she can speak with Henri alone. To her surprise, only Mr Albanon is there, but Henri is in Arboros as well, delivering a letter. He tells her that Henri is bad with goodbyes and he is glad that they are getting married as he hopes that she will help him keep some of his humanity left, because he is so angry. Diem leaves afterwards, still clutching the note that Luther had delivered to her from Henri earlier in their session.

The next day is the day of the Challenging, and Alixe and Eleanor help her get dressed and ready. She commands Sorae to stay, though she knows that in the past the Kings had to chain her on Challenging day. Luther shows up and walks her to her horse—one that is white like her, and with her fiery temper. He then gets onto his own black horse, and Diem asks him what happened to the other one, which he had picked her up from the lodge with. He points to the horse in the distance and reveals that actually it is Aemonn’s horse, which he had borrowed to go to the lodge since his own had thrown a horseshoe. Diem realizes that he had not been the one who killed the boy—it was Aemonn that Henri had seen. By this point she has also learned from Taran, Alixe, and Eleanor that Aemonn is close with Ileana and that he was the one who had invited her to the dinner with the cousins. The contingent rides to the arena, and while they are there, Luther kisses her, to show to the Houses that they will be dealing with him if they challenge her. Remis tells Diem that she has to go down and she is able to take one person with her to help her prepare, as Luther flees from him. She takes Teller with her, and together they watch as Maura and a few other mortals file into the arena in support of her. Teller realizes that Henri is not here, and tells Diem that she deserves to give her heart to someone who would be here for her, and that Henri is not it. She ignores him and comes out into the arena, where Remis announces her and gives the crowd the right to Challenge her. Jean Hanoverre challenges her, but then slowly, one by one, 19 houses also challenge her. She looks up in a panic to Luther, and then suddenly Luther also challenges her—using the knowledge that she had a deal with Remis that none of his house would challenge her or else he’d lose his magic, to get revenge on him. When Remis demands that he take it back, he tells Remis that the crown had always been his and he’s not going to let someone else take it away, and that if he lost his magic, it is an added bonus. Luther gets in line, Remis is panicking because if the houses find out that he doesn’t have magic, all of his enemies will come after him. Diem and Teller are with him as he’s panicking, so she strikes a deal with him—she will not tell anyone that he doesn’t have his magic, as long as he gives her the choice on who to fight. They don’t make a Bond agreement, but Remis considers it, and then Teller, Diem, and Remis discuss who would be a good person to fight with. They weigh the pros and cons, which causes Remis to eye Teller with newfound respect for Teller’s knowledge and his eye for strategy. Ultimately, Diem chooses Rhon Ghislane to fight against, despite knowing that he’s from one of the smaller houses and that by choosing him, she will be the center of the gossip that she is choosing one of the smaller houses. But she chooses him for one reason and one reason alone—his murder of his innocent son and the mother of his son.

Luther tries to convince her to fight him, and Teller tries to tell her that he doesn’t think that Luther has changed his mind, but Diem is not willing to listen to him. Luther prods her but she tells him that she is not willing and cannot raise her hand against him at all, because she cares too much about him. Luther reveals to her that he had been planning to make it look like her own magic killed him as it would have been an honor to die by her hand. He finally tells her that he’s tired of keeping secrets, and if she makes it through, he will tell her everything. Then she kisses him, agreeing that they will be brutally honest with each other.

In the arena, Rhon and Diem face off each other and Diem yells at him that he is guilty of murder. She uses her shields to protect against him, but she is unable to fight him, though she does use the rocks to trick him into thinking that she is elsewhere, and then she uses the sand to blind him. But no matter how much he attacks her, she only uses defense, and he quickly realizes that she is unable to attack, which Rhon shares with the rest of the crowd and they all start laughing at her. At some point during the fight, Diem gets knocked out cold, and she has the same vision with her and Luther on a battle field with their hands on their hearts, but in this version, there is a man who calls her the Daughter of the Forgotten and basically asks her to join him, but she decides to fight, by accepting the fact that she is part mortal and she is part descended, and has both. With that acceptance of herself in her heart, she finds herself awake and the spikes that Rhon had sent into her body suddenly disappear and heal. He starts attacking him, finally, showing her powers, but instead of taking his life, she spares him, asking him to kneel. He does, pledging his allegiance to her in exchange for his life. She turns and walks back towards Luther, when Rhon calls out to her and then attacks her anyway. He’s too close and she doesn’t have time to put up a shield, but she thinks it and he suddenly becomes nothing but dust, raising cheers from the crowd. Diem decides to take the advice of her friends and make the houses fear her, so she uses her magic to break the barriers around the stadium, floods it with darkness, while levitating, and using vines, she forces each house to pledge their allegiance to her. This includes Luther, who tells her that Corbois follows her.

The seven friends had celebrated late into the night, and the information had come that she will be coronated at the island in the middle of the sea. So Luther takes her in the royal boat, after she has him check the ship over to ensure there is no one on it or it hasn’t been sabotaged by the Guardians, and they sail over there. He reveals to her one of his biggest secrets: His father had a dream from Lumnos that his firstborn son will be extremely strong, but in addition to being married, his father had a mortal that he was seeing at the time. The mortal got pregnant, so he hid both the mortal and the wife in a house, and once Luther was born, he was passed off as a child from Remis’s wife, while the mortal was sent to an asylum to make sure that she didn’t tell anyone that she had a child. Luther tells Diem that he never understood why Avena had hated him so much, until one day, his mortal mother showed up at his school and they immediately had recognized each other. He thought he was doing a good job at hiding the fact that he knew who his mother was, but Remis had realized his son wasn’t himself, and followed him to find the two of them talking. He attacked them both, and Luther’s mortal mother had covered his body with hers to protect him from Remis, but he left them both for dead. As he was dying, Lumnos came to him and told him that it’s not his time yet, before giving him a vision of him kneeling in front of a grey-eyed queen. The vision never showed her features but he has been sure it’s her since the day he met her when she saved Lily. It’s why he’s always covered for her, no matter what she did. Diem tells him that her mother had given her flameroot all her life, and that the day she overheard her mom and Luther talking in Paradise Row, she had also met the queen of Umbros dressed as a crone, and giving her advice to stop taking the flameroot. Luther is shocked that Auralie had been doing that to her own daughter, and furious about that along with the Queen of Umbros stepping foot in their realm. He decides that Auralie really needs to come clean with Diem.

When they arrive, Luther tells her to continue walking and she will meet with all of the other royals on the island. She does, first meeting Faunos, then Arboros, then Fortos-they are not to be using their names on the island, but rather they are known by the name of their realms. She keeps heading up towards the temple while Faunos and Arboros argue, and Fortos breaks up their fight. Diem hears some steps or sounds, so she strays off the path to see if she can find someone, but then she stops and picks at the flowers, which she recognizes as flameroot. Fortos tells her that he gave her order to follow the path and not stray off it, and tells her that she’s not allowed to pick the flowers without the agreement of all 9 realms, which confuses Diem as her mother had some. They make it to the temple, and almost all of the royals are there, but one older looking one arrives, and no one goes to help him. Diem walks up to him, and he smacks her away, until he almost falls back and she steadies him. Diem offers to help him, and the guy looks at her, then his eyes widen at her eyes, so he looks at her a lot longer, before accepting her help. The remaining royals tell her that he doesn’t talk, but she hears him say “good luck daughter of the forgotten.” Finally, the queen of Umbros arrives, and Diem recognizes her despite the fact that she was a crone the first time they met. The other Royals fight over the fact that Umbros hadn’t been with them at Forging day and that they only made an exception for the King of Lumnos as he was ill, which doesn’t mean she can do the same. Umbros tells them that it all worked out, that she did have something important to attend to, and she is here now. They all go around as the Sophos Royal leads the ceremony and cuts himself with a special dagger that lights up in the color of each of the Royal’s eyes. Then they drop their blood into the Hearthstone, and Diem follows the same protocol, but when she drops her blood into the hearthstone, it cracks and the clouds roll in. The Sophos Royal is confused as to why the blade didn’t light up in blue, and the other Royals accuse her of being an imposter. Suddenly, Diem hears someone calling her name—a voice that she had not heard in eight months—and she sees her mom running towards her before the world goes black.

Auralie had been living on the island for eight months by that point, and she hides herself in the bushes as she watches one of the Royals make their way towards the temple. Suddenly, someone steps in and grabs her—when she looks at the man, Luther, he doesn’t have a crown which she questions. He tells her that they need to talk as things have changed, but Auralie knows she doesn’t have much time, so she cuts the tendons on his legs before she runs away from him and around the temple, to set off the bomb. Then she runs in a different direction, where she runs into Vance, who tells her that a lot of things have happened, and changed. Before he can tell her anything else, Auralie notices Diem step out from behind a column while arguing with one of the other royals, and she starts running for her daughter, telling her to run.

My Thoughts:

What the actual flip happened here!? I have been slowly falling in love with Diem and Luther together, and I loved that he has always worked in shades of grey but on the side of the good—as evidenced by his desire to help the half-mortals, saving them. I love Alixe, Taran and Eleanor for not only being loyal to him, but becoming loyal to Diem and having her back no matter what. I love that Luther and Diem fight together for Lily so that she might have a future of her own choosing.

But man do I hate House Hanoverre and Aemonn. I suspect Aemonn, Ileana and Garath are scheming assholes and that they will need to be taken out. Maybe Aemonn will change his heart or mind. That said, I have loved how Diem stood up to all of them, every time, and also defended Luther when she could, as well as how Luther defended her to Ileana.

Henri on the other hand is a wuss unworthy of Diem and I’m hoping that Diem ends this betrothal with him or whatever thing it is. He doesn’t seem like he has any redeeming qualities or any remorse, though he is still in love with her, which gives him some humanity in trying to protect her from Vance, who seems to be a bit more brutal. But the way that he breaks her trust first by trying to take her out without hearing her out at the palace, then by going around saying that he will be king, then by showing up at the Ascension Ball and asking her to let them take the palace despite her asking him to stand down as it will be bloody, and then by not even being there for her when she buried her father, using her to get to the boat and then jumping away from her when she realized that they betrayed her, and not showing up for her challenging. That’s a very weak man who doesn’t deserve her at all. He’s ugly and I hope that he’s gone for good.

And Auralie—my god, what is wrong with this woman? How do you drug your own daughter for years, and then live on an island, oblivious to everything and everyone who you claim to love. How do you not trust the person who has helped you time and time again-Luther-and ignore him when he tells you that things have changed, and instead go to bomb the island to hell anyway, only to realize at the very last minute that your daughter is one of the Royals, and run to try to protect her. I’m sorry, this lady is selfish as hell despite all of the good she has done with helping with the half-mortals, she doesn’t sound likes he has a good bone in her body, and what is with her and Vance—Diem has memories of the two of them together talking at the center, and now Vance is here? She’s bombing the island? What about her vows as a healer? I cannot stand this woman.