Chapter 68 Emory
EMORY STARED AT THE DARKNESS of the sleepscape and forced herself to her feet.
She had to get to Romie and Aspen and Tol before Clover could reunite them with the fourth piece needed to bring Atheia back.
Behind her, Virgil, Nisha, Vera, and the two Golden Helm draconics appeared on the star-lined path, panting as they asked what happened.
Nisha fell to her knees. Romie’s name escaped her in a sob. Virgil pulled her to him, his face grim. Vera held tightly to the compass Emory had returned to her, staring angrily down the path to where Clover had disappeared.
“What do we do?” Nisha asked, a note of desperation making her voice tremble.
Movement caught Emory’s eye as the crowned umbra hovered nearby, quiet as a wraith. Sidraeus. He wasn’t gone, had simply left his vessel behind now that he was back in the sleepscape.
Conflicting emotions warred inside Emory. She could have used his help now more than ever, but without a vessel, he would have to remain here, formless. And maybe that was a good thing. Because the alternative was him regaining his true form—which meant Atheia was back, and her friends were dead.
She would not let that happen.
The crowned umbra seemed to realize the same thing. Something passed between them, an understanding that this wouldn’t be the last time they saw each other, for better or worse.
And then Sidraeus slunk back into the darkness he had come from.
“We go to the next world,” Emory said to her friends with renewed conviction. “We find Romie and Aspen and Tol, no matter what. Then we storm the godsworld,” she vowed, “and we make Cornus Clover pay.”