Chapter 54 Emory
EMORY GASPED AS AN ANCIENT, powerful presence filled her mind. Every fiber of her being felt alive, burning with a power too great for her to contain, a divinity as endless and enduring as the moon and the earth and the sun and the skies, as every living thing nature had ever contained.
“Take us to Sidraeus.”
The words spilled out of Emory’s mouth in the voices of the gods, sharp and quiet and rough and mercurial all at once. Shock and betrayal shone on Atheia’s face as she stared at Emory—at the gods now overriding her.
“Is it true?” Atheia breathed. “What Clover said—is that what you intend to do with Sidraeus and me? Sacrifice us so you can defeat him?”
“Of course not.” Emory felt herself take a step toward Atheia, spreading her arms in a gesture of innocence. “Don’t listen to the false god’s lies, daughter. You are a part of us we do not wish to see harmed.”
Their honeyed words seemed to appease some of Atheia’s doubts, but Emory could feel their deceit on her tongue.
“Take us to Sidraeus,” the gods said again, “and we will let you do what you please with this one once we have returned to the godsworld and are strong enough to take our own forms again.”
This one.
They meant Emory.
The hunger on Atheia’s face made it clear she was on board.
She stepped over Farran’s body, silencing the pleas from Luce and the angry protest from Kai with her magic.
Emory tried to look at Kai, tried to convey to him to leave with her mother and Theodore, to get out of here without her before it was too late.
She wanted to scream at Atheia that the gods were manipulating her, that Clover had been right.
But she wasn’t in control of her body. She was powerless to do anything as her feet moved of their own volition, as the gods followed Atheia down the foreboding corridor littered with dead Regulators.
Sidraeus was held in a dark cell, in a part of the Institute that felt older than the rest, like catacombs beneath it, cold and damp and chilling. He stood there suspended by chains, hands and feet bound, limbs drawn taut. His head hung limply, as if he’d been put to sleep, or worse.
Pain and misery hung thick in the air. There were no visible wounds on Sidraeus except for the raw, burnt skin around his wrists and ankles—because woven with the metal chains were veins of the same bright, burning light Atheia had used to singe Emory’s own skin.
Emory wanted to go to him, wanted to lash out at Atheia for what she’d done to him, but the gods inside her wouldn’t relinquish control.
“It seems you’ve been having your fun with him,” they said, tilting Emory’s head quizzically to peer at Sidraeus. “What kind of spell do you have him under that he remains so weak and docile?”
“I have him trapped in his own mind,” Atheia said. “Living in the prison of his own worst memories.” She hesitated to unbind him, turning to Emory—to the gods. “How can I trust you’ll let me kill her when earlier you didn’t want me to? You said Equilibris needs her dead to reset the worlds.”
Yes, Emory thought. Poke holes in their logic. They’re lying to you.
The gods spoke through her. “By then we will have regained our godhood, and the false god will be dead. The worlds will be restored, and it won’t matter then if the Tidecaller is gone. Equilibris will have no reason to reset the worlds if we set them right ourselves.”
Still, Atheia hesitated for a beat more before steely resolution had her turning to Sidraeus, hands extended to untie him.
Panic seized Emory. If the gods got what they wanted, they would kill Atheia and Sidraeus. They would kill Romie. And once they were done with Emory as their temporary vessel, it wouldn’t matter if she lived or died, because her best friend would be gone.
Romie had fought back against Atheia in order to get her friends freed. And if she could fight, then Emory could do the same for her.
She had no magic. She had no power against the gods impressing their will on hers. Still, she fought for words, a desperate plea, a shot in the dark. It rang in the echo chamber of her mind again and again.
Please help me.
She didn’t expect it to slip past her lips, to hear her own voice sounding in her ears. There was a familiar prickling at her wrist, where the Selenic Mark shone in a light she had never seen from it before. It echoed the spirals on Sidraeus, which suddenly flared with the same bright light.
She felt them then—an echo of the souls of the very first Tidecallers rising around her. As if her plea had called on them, just like the syrinx had done.
Perhaps the bargain she’d made tied their essence to her just as much as it tied them to Sidraeus, and they were here to help her now. To help them both.
Symbols appeared all over her skin, looking, she thought, like the tattoos Kai had on his collarbone.
The language of the gods.
They burst with a light so bright it hurt her eyes, and the scream that tore from her throat was somehow her own voice and the gods’ combined.
But she felt the gods’ presence receding, shying away from that light, as if the symbols that the souls of the Tidecallers had manifested on Emory were a mark of protection against them.
A ward that cast the gods out of her entirely, until she was just herself again.
Herself, but not entirely alone, and not at all powerless.
Emory flung herself at Atheia, gripping her wrists tight, hoping against all hope that whatever power had evicted the gods from her body could free Romie, too.
“Let go of me.” The words slithered out of Atheia, those kaleidoscope eyes burning with the fury of a thousand suns.
“Not until you give her back to me.”
But the symbols on Emory’s arms were already extinguished, their presence gone as quickly as it had come. She could no longer feel the souls of the Tidecallers.
Atheia seemed to realize this—how powerless Emory now was—and sent her flying across the corridor. Death magic gathered in her hands as she towered over Emory.
“The gods lied to you,” Emory said in a desperate attempt to stop her. “Clover had it right. They mean to kill you and Sidraeus.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I felt their lie on my tongue. Heard their thoughts in my mind.”
Atheia didn’t seem to care. But before she could deliver her death blow, a resounding “No!” erupted from her.
From Romie, who had wrested control of her body and was staring at Emory now through big, brown eyes.
“Go, Em,” she said. “Leave now before—”
Her eyes shifted to that kaleidoscope again, indicating Atheia had taken over. “Quiet,” she seethed, seemingly talking to herself. Her eyes shifted back to brown again as Romie screamed, and again back to Atheia, in a painful looking battle of wills.
“Emory!”
She whipped around to see Kai and Luce barreling toward her. Her heart sank. They were supposed to leave her here and escape with the others. Where Theodore and Farran had gone, she didn’t know.
“What are you—”
It came without sound, a spot of darkness right behind Kai and Luce that bloomed and grew.
It swallowed part of the ceiling, swallowed the corridor they had emerged from, the everlight lanterns fixed to the wall.
Rock crumbling all around it, sucked into it.
Like a pocket of sleepscape that was looking to devour the living.
Kai and Luce jumped out of the way with not a second to spare.
When Emory locked eyes with Atheia, it was Romie staring back with horror.
There was so much Emory wanted to say to her.
Don’t stop fighting. I’m not giving up on you.
We’ll find a way out of this. From the way Romie looked at her, the slight nod of her head, she understood.
There was no time, might never be enough time, and this would have to be enough.
“Go!” Emory yelled at her, just as Atheia took control again.
Even Atheia wasn’t foolish enough to stay put with the beckoning darkness threatening to swallow them all whole.
In a flash, she dissolved into a great swirl of shimmering water that darted out of sight, much like she had done in the godsworld.
Leaving Emory and her mother and Kai to scramble against the farthest wall away from the blooming dark.
It stopped spreading, only an inch from them.
It had engulfed nearly all of the corridor, leaving only a tight space for them to go through.
They needed to get out of here before the way out disappeared.
Emory wasted no time. She stepped over to Sidraeus, who had remained unconscious through all of it.
She took his face in her hands and tried to wake him, saying his name, but he wouldn’t open his eyes.
I have him trapped in his own mind, Atheia had said. Living in the prison of his own worst memories.
How could Emory get him out without magic? She tried calling on the Tidecaller souls again to no avail. Would she and her mother and Kai be able to carry him out of here?
“We have to go,” Kai said, eyeing the crumbled roof over their heads, the precarious stone that could still rain down on them at any second, the maw of darkness that could resume its spreading and devour them whole.
“I’m not leaving him,” Emory said through gritted teeth.
She braced herself to untie Sidraeus’s bindings, knowing this was going to hurt—that the threads of divine light woven through would burn her as it had before.
She screamed as her skin came into contact with the white-hot bindings, fighting against the pain as her fingers worked to untie them.
She got through both ankles first, biting back sobs, and when she was through untying one of his wrists, she felt his fingers wrap around her own wrist.
The pain—her pain—must have gotten through to him.
His eyes were on her, like blazing suns one minute, a flash of silver the next, black as pitch and all over again.
A perpetual eclipse. He gently pushed her aside to untie the last binding himself.
It was only when Emory crumbled to her knees, her hands trembling in front of her a burned, bloodied mess, that she truly registered the pain.
It was like when Romie had grabbed a star in her hands when they’d first crossed the sleepscape together.
She could feel the shock starting to set in, had never wished for her healing magic more than in this instant.
Sidraeus was suddenly crouched in front of her, holding her face in his hands, speaking words she couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on him, aware that he must be feeling her pain as his own, and yet he was fighting through it to calm her down.
Slowly, almost awkwardly, as if unused to offering such tenderness, Sidraeus pulled her toward him.
She let her head fall against his shoulder as he held her there.
Her breathing slowed, and she convinced herself the pain was nothing, numbing herself to it.
There was only her and him and the weight of these wounds shared between them that felt lighter somehow.
Distantly, she heard Sidraeus saying something to her mother and Kai.
Felt them standing on either side of her, resting a hand on each of Sidraeus’s shoulders.
Stars began to swirl around them, and she knew Sidraeus was teleporting the four of them out of the Institute.
She closed her eyes, nestling closer to Sidraeus.
She kept them closed long after everything stilled again, when the brine of the sea enveloped her and a gentle breeze tugged at her hair.
Kai left them with the promise of getting help.
A healer, perhaps. Emory wasn’t sure, didn’t care, not as she and Sidraeus stayed like that for a while yet, holding each other in this clumsy embrace.
And she felt safe.