Chapter 31 #2
“Oh,” she gasped as they stepped into the Mourning Gardens, inhaling sharply as soft lyrical music trickled on the air. “This is…beautiful.”
Dreamy white fox gloves draped the pathways, seeming to glow as if plucked from the skies themselves, cascading over the stone walls that peeked between gaps in the hedge maze.
Trees stretched high overhead, forming a web of branches dripping with flora, hammocks strung among them.
Arches of greenery covered the pathways winding away from the stone pond in the center, lily pads floating in slow circles atop its surface, pink flowers at their hearts winking in reflections from above.
People milled lazily between the hedges, more than a few bodies pressed closely below the lights of the starflies. A couple writhed so passionately in the shadows of the nearest tunnel, Emmeline was positive they were fucking.
Despite their low groans, the scene was nothing short of mystical, its aura seeping into Emmeline’s skin and pulling at her own magic.
“It is,” Desmond agreed, voice tight. “It’s barely changed.”
Myrella exchanged a glance with Emmeline at Desmond’s tone, asking the tattoo artist, “When were you last here?”
He was quiet for a long moment. So long Emmeline dared a glance at Roremar, but his gaze was locked on his friend, those steel eyes heavy with a concern Emmeline rarely saw from him. It twisted something in her chest.
“Over a decade,” Desmond finally answered. At his voice, Roremar visibly relaxed, the feeling wound behind Emmeline’s ribs loosening with it.
Though her distrust of Desmond had been mounting, she recognized genuine distress. “Thank you for bringing us here.”
Her sincerity had Desmond sobering, his usual smirk flitting back across his lips as he cast Roremar a taunting look she didn’t understand, then said to her, “Anything for you, darling. But it wasn’t my idea. Your Storytellers wanted you to find something here.”
“We should split up. Talk to some people. Try to find whatever reflection they implied,” Nico suggested, his cheeks flushing with anticipation. “Myr—”
But Myrella interjected, “We should each go alone.” Emmeline’s chest cracked at the instant droop of Nico’s shoulders.
Myrella hesitated as she added, “It will be easier to speak with locals then. If we’re on our own.
” Emmeline swore her friend’s lips trembled as she forced a nod and gestured to one of the archways. “I’ll start down that path.”
Myrella was gone in a heartbeat, and Emmeline grabbed Nico’s hand. “She’ll come around,” she whispered even though she still didn’t know the whole story.
Nico rubbed the back of his neck, eyes trailing after where Myrella’s skirt floated around the hedge. “I’m not so sure.”
“Don’t give up. Myrella has a bubbly exterior, but I don’t think that means she’s as instantly trusting as people believe. She feels with her entire heart, and it takes time to fill that sort of well.”
“Hate that I’m the one that drained it,” Nico muttered.
Emmeline squeezed his hand. “Let’s go find some of that debauchery Desmond spoke of. We’ll make a loop around the garden to see if we find anyone interesting.” She offered him a wink. “Give her a minute to regret walking away.”
Slowly, Nico offered Emmeline a bashful smile, two dimples piercing his cheeks that pinched Emmeline’s heart.
This poor sweet boy, who yes, had lied to Myrella, but based on what Emmeline had seen of him, was truly good at heart.
He was, as her mother had said of the best people she knew, woven with stardust. When the universe truly believed a soul was good and put good into the world, they gave them extra magic.
Emmeline looped her arm through Nico’s, and without another look at Desmond and Roremar—who had been acting distant all day—they headed toward the back of the gardens.
Winding through the maze, Emmeline made sure to track the turns they were taking.
They stumbled onto a small clearing where warriors were passing around bottles of shimmering blue liquor, a flute humming out a soothing tune.
Not wanting to drink from sources they didn’t know, Emmeline and Nico politely declined and kept walking.
The next hollow they stumbled into was bedecked in curtains of silk, the swaths so soft and dreamy, they rippled like pools carved of starlight.
A few couples traipsed through, and Emmeline couldn’t help the feeling that she’d stumbled into some other world where the skies pressed right into the earth beneath her feet.
She and Nico found a few Starsearchers to question—all unsuccessful—and were finishing the conversation when Myrella stumbled into the space.
Blinking rapidly at them, she whispered, “Oops,” and took off toward another archway. At the very last moment, she cast a lingering glance over her shoulder.
“Go on.” Emmeline nudged Nico. At his bemused expression she added, “Follow her.”
His eyes widened. Fates, she nearly laughed. “She’s still mad at me, Emmeline. What if she wants time to herself?”
“She’ll never get over it if you don’t talk about it.” She nudged him forward. “She wouldn’t have given you that look if she didn’t want you to follow. Trust me.”
Nico’s gaze flicked between Emmeline and the ivy curtain Myrella had disappeared beneath, his brows lowering.
In a blink, he squared his shoulders, jaw set, and Emmeline saw the man Myrella must have fallen for.
The one who set his sights on her that first night, showered her with charm and attention.
The one who still had a bit of a shyness beneath his smile that hooked you in and intrigued you.
“Okay,” Nico said, swallowing. “But if she threatens to chop my cock off again, it’s on your Fate tie, Emmeline.”
She rolled her eyes, shoving him forward before he could respond. And Nico followed Myrella, glass baubles swinging as he swept the ivy curtain aside, reflecting the shimmering petals of the star-kissed blooms.
Giving them space, Emmeline turned down the opposite path.
The hedges thickened as she walked, until she was scampering down a tunnel that eclipsed the night entirely.
Small flowers punctured the leaves in starlit silvers, dreamy whites, and night-born blues and violets.
Her turns were on no more than the instinct in her chest, the words of the Storytellers flowing through her mind until her body was light and airy, magic pushing, pushing, pushing at her veins.
At the end of the tunnel, she emerged into a small clearing, a pond at its center. Silver grasses lined the pool like ornate frames on aged mirrors, their surfaces holding thousands of years of secrets within. Reflections of confessions and affairs, salacious whisperings and pleasure.
Emmeline approached the edge, fingers brushing the soft, feathery plants and tiny blush flowers rimming the water, but a soft laugh echoed from one of the hedges nearby, and she froze.
Her hand shot to the triple-bladed dagger at her waist. Slowly, she crept into the shadows and slunk toward the sound.
Peering around the corner, she—
“Oh,” she gasped, and the people in the maze looked up.
An ache split her chest, her hands falling uselessly to her sides when she met a pair of steel-cut eyes, burrowing into her from over the woman’s head. His back was against the curve in the hedge, her body pressing close to his.
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, instantly turning back toward the pool.
“That’s okay,” the woman called after her. “We’ll go else—”
“No,” Roremar’s voice cut through the night with such deep authority, chills spread across Emmeline’s skin.
“What?” the woman asked him, and Fates, Emmeline didn’t want to hear any of this. Something roared within her, curled hot and angry in her gut. Lightning shot through her veins until her fingertips felt numb with it.
Why do I care?
Why did jaws snap around her heart at the sight, teeth sinking into her spirit? Why did heat rush to her cheeks but a chill iced her veins? And why did this dreamlike place suddenly feel derived of nightmares?
“Whatever you thought was going to happen, it wasn’t,” she could distantly hear Roremar saying to the woman.
She recited star maps in her mind to try to block it out, but it was like his words tunneled into her brain, refusing to go unheard.
“I’m sorry if my asking you questions was misleading, but this isn’t that. ”
The woman sounded petulant as she argued, “But—”
“Leave.” That singular word—no, demand—clanged through Emmeline as she wound back around the pond’s edge on trembling legs, crushing the small pink petals beneath her boots, the nectar of their hearts seeping into the air.
“Emmeline?”
Why did she spin to look at him? What did her expression give away?
“Is everything okay?” Roremar asked.
Clearly too much, she answered her own question, pulling up a mask of indifference. “Yes, why wouldn’t it be?”
“You ran away awfully fast a moment ago,” Roremar said, hands slipping into his pockets. His sword gleamed in the starlight overhead, matching the silver dancing through his eyes as he studied the small clearing encased in its own little world. “What is this place?”
“That’s what I was trying to figure out, but I’ll leave you and your friend to it.” Her chest was flayed open at those words, an ancient thing screaming within. She shoved it down, down deeper than her magic and down deeper than all the secrets and scars she buried each moment she breathed.
It almost felt like a betrayal when she looked at him, and Emmeline couldn’t make sense of that.
Roremar’s brows rose, amusement tugging at Emmeline’s defenses. “Are you jealous, Huntress?”
She snapped those crumbling defenses back up, cheeks burning. “I find jealousy to be a waste of energy.”
“You must be exhausted then.” Roremar took a step forward. Every inch was temptation.
“On the contrary”—Emmeline turned her back on him, surveying the tunnels branching away from the pond—“I’m feeling rather adventurous. I think there are quite a few people back on the other side of the maze I’d like to speak with.”
Warmth pressed against her back, seeping through her spine and along every inch of her body as Roremar whispered, “Who are you looking for, Emmeline?”
Though she knew they were both aware of what answers they were here for, the question said so much more. Who was she running to? Why was she running from him?
She glanced over her shoulder, eyes dropping to his lips then flicking up to his silver stare.
It was molten again. She could count on one hand how often it had done that before Alvan, yet ever since the boat, they’d been pools of ire that seemed to draw her in.
Perhaps it was the heady incense from the Lair yesterday toying with their magics or she was still weak from fainting.
Slowly, without a word, Emmeline turned her chin back to the pool, searching the crystalline water, silvers rippling around the edges.
“Whatever you thought you saw, you didn’t.
I was only asking that woman a few questions as we agreed we all were supposed to.
She had me cornered.” Her heart beat faster at his proximity.
“It’s only us here now, Emmeline.” Those words were breathed into the crook of her neck as Roremar leaned forward to peer into their reflection. “What are you looking at?”
She didn’t quite know the answer. It was her, she thought. Her, with eyes swirling silver and white flames haloing her head. Her, with shadows as dark as the voids between stars pressed around her body, hands threatening to rip her from this realm.
They converged, claws sinking and shredding, until the screaming starfire woman faded. A silver staff took her place, only briefly before a glowing insect landed on the water, and circles ebbed out from it, shattering the illusion.
Then, it was only her and Roremar, two portraits framed by antique silver grasses, that could have been as ancient as the Fates themselves, as fitted as twin constellations.
But Emmeline said, “Nothing.”
It came out as more of a breath than she’d intended, and Roremar’s brow quirk echoed in the reflection.
Emmeline faced him, their breath mingling.
“What are you looking at, Reckless?” she challenged.
Reluctance warred across his features, desperation to hear his next words sending Emmeline’s heart pounding.
“You, Emmeline.” A vow laced those words. His hands framed her hips, tugging her a step closer, and she gasped. “I am looking at you. Way more than I should be.”
His thumbs drew circles against the bare skin of her waist, each gentle brush setting her body aflame. Heat pooled between her legs, and for once, she desperately wanted to damn caution and give into the recklessness she scorned.
“I have been looking at you for longer than I care to admit,” he went on, dragging a hand over her collarbone. She nearly whimpered at the featherlight touch.
“But we can’t do this,” Roremar whispered, voice rough and crackling with a restraint she wanted to shatter.
Fates, his breath was warm against her lips. The entirety of her being coiled tight. With one slight shift, she’d unravel at his feet.
“Why?” The question was only a breath. Roremar’s answering groan hummed against her chest, a soft whimper falling from her parted lips.
His gaze tracked it. Each drop of his attention threatened to undo her, clinging to her skin, and she wanted to bathe in it.
In him. To indulge for once in her Fatesdamned life.
But he’d said they couldn’t, and those words felt like they were ripping away a future she hadn’t even gotten to experience.
His head dipped closer.
And though Emmeline knew she couldn’t—knew everyone close to her wound up dead, she wanted to hear him say it. She forced the question out again, the words nearly a moan as his fingertips grazed her bare spine, and she arched toward him. “Why can’t we, Roremar?”
His eyes glinted silver at his name, lips brushing hers as he muttered, “Because I will be your ruin.”