Chapter Forty-Two
Ipaced back and forth. There was no point in our testing, in the research, if there was no cure, was there?
Soulless after soulless were dying. We couldn't figure out who had been making them, although of course, I had my assumptions.
I didn't know how to restore someone's melody back to them.
No matter how much we worked at bringing their humanity back, we couldn't undo what had been done to them.
I sat down in the chair behind my desk. I looked over a few papers, fumbling with the files there.
Ten soulless we had found, all dead now.
The last one just died that evening. I buried my face in my hands.
I didn't do well with failure, I wanted to find a way to solve every problem, but I did know that I was only one man, and even with the network of Terrans on Earth, which we had assembled, there was only so much we could do.
No amount of praying to the Ancients had helped, but I found myself looking out the window toward the stars again in prayer.
There had to be a way to save these people, my people.
I was more desperate than ever, after the last Terrans came through the cave and informed us of the state of the kingdoms. From what I heard, Terrans were fleeing because they were being taken and stripped of their melodies.
I slammed my fist against my desk in frustration.
Turning to the side, I noticed my journal and flipped through the pages.
Yet another thing that I had failed at. I had failed at finding the other half of my soul.
I followed the prophecy to the letter; I had looked, and I had searched.
I closed my book and looked at the wall.
It was not going to happen; I was not going to let failure become my life—one failure after another.
There was a knock at my door.
“Come in,” I called, wondering if it was Keil. I didn't know if I was ready to talk about the next step, because I didn't know what the next step entailed. I couldn't save those people. Courtney walked in, an older lady from Terra who had worked for me for many years.
“Highness, I thought you may need refreshment,” she said, setting a tray on my desk. I looked at the glass cup and the two bananas on the tray and smiled.
“You always know the way to my melody, Courtney.” I smiled as I reached for a banana.
“I know you love this fruit,” she said with a slight smile and a bow.
When I reached for the banana, the cup spilled, falling off of my desk and onto the hard floor, shattering into pieces.
Courtney hurried to the floor, picking up the pieces of glass.
The bottom of the cup had not broken; the jagged, sharp parts had made it a shorter, smaller cup.
I watched as she slipped the chunks and shards of glass that had broken into what was left of the cup, and I froze. I put my hand on hers to stop her from moving. I stared at the broken cup, filled with shattered pieces of itself.
That gave me a partial idea, a developing thought. It was still forming, so I gave my mind time to figure it out. I looked at the cup, half of it still roughly intact, and the other half shattered inside of it. I jumped up and shouted, my mind reeling. I pulled Courtney away from my desk.
“This is it!” I said into her confused face. I sat down at my desk and quickly wrote these words:
We may be unable to give them a life without a soul. We may not be able to return their stolen souls back to them; however, what if a soulless person could live with half of someone else's soul inside of them? A type of soul song created from one melody and then split into two?
As I wrote, Courtney left the room and came back with a new cup of water. I froze because it was then that I heard it, the melody I had been waiting to hear since I had first heard it over fifteen years earlier: my soul song—she was real.
“Call for Keil. We are leaving immediately,” I said, grabbing the paper and sticking it into my pocket.
“It seems that all of our prayers to the Creator and the Ancients might have been heard, at last.” I turned to the window as I heard Courtney make the call for Keil, and I thanked the Ancients for the inspiration, and for letting me know that she was still out there somewhere, alive and waiting for me.
I gasped awake. The cold room where I was held captive was a horrible welcome back to consciousness, but my body didn't seem to care.
That was it. That was the memory Shad left for me.
I held onto that chance to save him. I wept, tears spilling from my eyes and onto the black sheets.
Why now? Why, when he is probably already dead, have I been given this knowledge; I now have access to his memory, the one that could save him?
Why, now? I punched the bed and wished, not for the first time in my life, to be dead.
I was certain that Shad was dead by that time.
I didn't even know how long I had been held captive.
But I knew what a soul song was; it had to mean ‘soulmate’ because I felt it with everything that I was.
I cried, for a while because of the loss of everything, for the stupid choices I had made, and for failing.
Hours passed before I realized that I was very hungry, feeling starved of everything—disoriented.
I wondered if the food was drugged because, when I did eat, I always felt foggy in my head afterward, even if I only ate one slice of bread.
I would not put it past Cade to drug me.
Something had happened to Cade after I attempted to trick him.
Either he snapped from my betrayal, or he finally dropped his act.
I voted for the latter, although I had a suspicion that it was more my fault than I had given myself credit for.
I hated myself for having had even a small amount of pity for the fact that his current behavior was caused by my betrayal.
But even though he may not have directly murdered my parents, he had murdered Shad.
I hated Cade. But, as Keil explained, I couldn't let that hatred overwhelm me, not again; that was just letting Cade win.
I knew that it was hate that I was feeling, but I wouldn't focus on that, couldn't let it consume me again.
I knew that I couldn't let the monster loose inside of me again, not when she had finally disappeared. Shad’s melody, even while inside of Cade, had cured me of that demon, and while I did hate who Cade was, I felt the emotions of pity flood through me.
He was a miserable person, no doubt; his life seemed difficult from his youth.
While none of that made what he was doing okay, it just made pitying him that much easier.
I knew that Cade didn't mind my hate. I knew, however, that when I pitied him, he cringed.
So, in truth, the best thing that I could do to truly hurt him was to pity him.
I screamed into my pillow, reflecting again on the memory, on the dream that I just had.
I knew how to save Shad, but it was too late.
I wondered if I should have known all along because of Shad's note inside of me, that if I had been willing to sacrifice my melody, we could have become two halves of my melody long ago, and he could have been healed this entire time.
Again, I sobbed into the pillow, hating myself for not understanding that information until it was too late, and I felt like an idiot for not putting it all together earlier when it seemed like it could have been so easy. Why had he just not told me?
“Ah, awake,” Cade’s voice bounced around the room, an unwelcome, discordant noise adding to my misery.
“It seems we are ready to leave. Everything has been taken care of, and now, we can be off to Terra, just one final piece of business.” He walked over to me, and I retreated.
“Oh, Emma, I wish you wouldn’t fear me so much. ”
“I do not fear you; you disgust me, and I pity you. There is a difference.”
“You pity me?” he asked with annoyance. His irritation brought me such joy.
“Sure, okay, whatever you would like to call it. Your plan to steal Shad’s soul back, I mean, it was a valiant attempt; however, the melody is mine now; it’s inside of me.
” He tugged at his collar, revealing the midnight crystal.
“This is merely a token, the melody is inside of me now, Emma, and it can't be removed, even if I wished for it to be removed.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Because it belongs to me; it knows its rightful owner.” He came closer to me, and I slapped him. I wasn’t going to believe his lies.
“Shad was born with that melody; you said so yourself. It is his, and it always will be, no matter what you tell yourself.”
He ignored my statement. “Okay, so you have really got to stop hitting me. How is that going to look if my future queen keeps trying to kill me?”
“I will never be your ‘queen,’” I screamed.
“Calm down, Emma. Once we bond, you will understand everything.” He seemed so assured that his plan was going to work, and I mean, I was there with him, but even if he had Shad’s soul, how could I ever forget that he wasn't Shad and that he had killed Shad, his own brother?
And by the way, what is wrong with this family—killing each other? Like, seriously?
“I doubt that.”
“Now, hold still, and let your melody out.”
I wished softly that I could call out to my monster, but the beast was gone.
I wanted her gone, remember that, Emma, Cade sent to me. I let Shad’s soul chase it away, and it never returned.
I was very weak, and I was sure he was weakening me even more with the drugs that he put into my food.
“Leave me alone,” I said, annoyed.