CHAPTER 50
Draevyn
And it’s killing me, Esmyra’s words rocked Draevyn right down to his core. But he knew. He knew it had been killing her.
It had become undeniable.
Those black veins were like cursed roots burrowing through her flesh. He saw them every time he closed his eyes. Twisting. Spreading. Devouring her.
And he had to stand strong beside her, as if it didn’t shatter him to look every time she lifted her shirt.
Through it all, Esmyra had remained so calm. So composed. It didn’t make any sense, but it was why Draevyn had forced himself to appear as calm as possible. She was acting like she wasn’t being consumed from the inside out by a power no mortal or god could survive.
And here she was, some hybrid mix of them both.
And Draevyn was supposed to stand there and do nothing? He had never felt so fucking useless.
His mind flashed to several nights before, when she had finally become his again.
Where she had finally seen his actions for what they were and admitted to loving him anyway.
And then her scream—that agonizing, pain-riddled scream—that erupted from her the moment he claimed her mouth with his and lifted her shirt to reveal the cursed veins.
His heart stuttered, feeling like he was losing her all over again.
Draevyn blamed himself. He’d promised to protect her, swearing it on every wretched fucking god who had hurt her before.
It was then he realized they could be wrong.
Perhaps they were never meant to survive each other and were instead fated to be undone by a love so consuming, so merciless, it devoured their very souls and left their hearts in ruins.
And now, with every passing day, the veins spread farther across her back.
Draevyn knew Jak was as desperate to save her as he was, but he didn’t trust the cousin. He didn’t trust anything that promised salvation when it had never come before.
But Esmyra had hope, and Draevyn would chase it with her. Even if it killed him.
He just knew he wouldn’t survive watching it kill her.
The words drifting through the room finally pierced the fog of his thoughts, and Draevyn blinked, pulling himself out of the spiral he found himself in every waking and sleeping moment of his days.
“How long has it been inside of her?” Jenli asked, her tone resembling fear.
“At least two weeks,” Jak said quietly.
Jenli’s gaze snapped to Esmyra, eyes wide. “Two weeks? That’s impossible. She should be—”
“Dead?” Esmyra offered flatly, a tired smile tugging at her lips. “Aye, we know.”
Jenli turned a full circle, hands on her hips. “How in all the hells have you survived this long?”
“You haven’t been listening to her,” Draevyn said through his teeth.
“Drae, it’s okay. This is a lot to take in,” Esmyra admitted before turning to Jenli. “I don’t even know where to begin with this, but the reason I’m still here is because I’m a god.”
Jenli blinked, her expression twisting with shock and a hint of dread. “Well,” she said finally, “that would explain a lot.”
Esmyra let out a breath, her face looking relieved.
Until Jenli said, “If I believed you.”
Esmyra’s eyes went sharp then, and a growl erupted through Draevyn’s chest.
“Everybody, calm down!” Jak said, lifting his hands between them all as if to separate them. “Jenli, we know how this sounds, but you need to hear us out. She’s telling the truth.”
“Oh? Then which god is she, huh? From what I can remember, they’re all accounted for.” She crossed her arms.
“Kaelypso,” Esmyra, Draevyn, and Jak said together.
Jenli’s jaw fell open. “I stand corrected. They’re all accounted for…Except for Kaelypso and Naerysa. Because they’re—”
“Dead.” Esmyra’s eyes softened, seeming to plead with Jenli. “I know it’s impossible to believe, but Kaelypso was reborn. Through me. I’m Esmyra Aeress, an heir to Maerinys before its collapse.”
“Maerinys has risen, Jenli,” Jak chimed in as he leaned against the wall. He nodded to Esmyra with his chin. “Listen to her.”
Draevyn watched Jenli as her eyes went wide, her mouth opening slightly before she took a single step back. Her gaze drifted from Esmyra’s face to her body and back up again. And then her expression slackened, her focus seeming to blur as if she were looking through Esmyra entirely.
“No,” she whispered. “That’s… impossible.”
Draevyn’s brows furrowed. “Believe me, we thought so too.”
Esmyra snorted. “Everyone believed the goddesses were long dead or lost. Me included. Meanwhile, I’ve had one living inside me the last thousand years.”
Esmyra went into detail of everything they had endured over the last several months, bringing in bits of her childhood and past aboard The Night Wraith to try and help Jenli understand.
Draevyn couldn’t help but notice her leaving out the specifics of what happened between them thanks to Syrena.
All she said of her sister was they were no longer on speaking terms, and she wasn’t to be trusted.
Draevyn was desperate to know what happened between them, desperate to know what her sister could’ve done that was so terrible that it had brought her back to him. Neither of them had wanted to talk about what they had been through. Not after they discovered what Atlas had done.
They spent their nights holding each other in silence. And when she would finally fall asleep in his arms, he would lay awake, staring at her perfect face as his heart twisted a thousand ways, knowing they could very well be on borrowed time.
“Well, first things first,” Jenli started. “We have to get it out.” She was moving a moment later, her hands a flurry of motion as she ran to a long, rectangular table in the far corner of the room, sweeping aside jars and scrolls, sending them all crashing to the floor.
“Wait, what?” Jak asked, brows furrowing. “You mean now? We need a plan first.”
“It’s in her spine,” Draevyn growled, watching her. “You can’t just rip it out like a fucking splinter!”
“If we wait too long, it won’t matter. It’ll take root, if it hasn’t already.” Jenli turned, dragging the heavy wooden table to the center of the room with a grunt. “The longer it stays in her, the more it merges with her body. And even then, I don’t think it would be enough.”
Esmyra didn’t move. She just stared at the table with her teeth caught on her bottom lip.
Something’s wrong.
Draevyn stepped up beside her, his hand instinctively brushing her lower back, just below the cursed markings. “What is it?”
“Jenli’s right.” Her voice was quiet. “I don’t know if anything you do will work.”
The room went still.
“What do you mean?” Jak asked warily, his brows knitting.
Esmyra inhaled sharply, eyes flicking between them. “There’s something I haven’t told you. Truthfully, I was just hoping that if I ignored it, it would go away. But it seems I was only drawing out the inevitable.”
Her gaze halted on Draevyn and dread swirled in his gut. He knew she had been keeping something from him.
She swallowed. “When I fled Lephyrin after Draevyn helped me escape, I didn’t survive it alone. The velsinyte could’ve killed me then. Or turned me into whatever kind of wraith I’m becoming now.” She gestured to herself.
“Esmyra, stop it.” The words left Draevyn in a whisper.
She whirled on him, her lip curling back.
“Stop it? Stop what, Drae?! This is the reality of what’s happening.
I’m dying. Or my body is. I see it. I know you see it, and I’m shocked the crew has been silent regarding it.
It’s plain as day, and we can’t keep pretending that’s not exactly what’s going to happen. ”
Draevyn stiffened, his heart ready to erupt. “If you had no trust in being able to be healed, then why are we here, Esmyra?” He couldn’t help the sharpness in his tone.
Her nostrils flared, but her eyes softened a moment later.
“All of Rymelle is after us. I had to get you all some place safe, at least until we could form a better plan. And if the two of you”—she gestured to Draevyn and Jak—“believed that coming here could also help me, then I knew I had to play into it.”
Jak stepped forward, hurt evident in his eyes. “Why do you think it’s not possible? Let’s start there.”
Draevyn watched Esmyra as she searched for what to say, and when she lifted a shaky wrist, her eyes fell to the mark she refused to talk about on the ship.
“I had managed to carve the bullets out of my wounds, but I didn’t know how to get the poison out. When I finally made it back to Maerinys, I collapsed.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I woke up in the healers’ wing of the castle, and Syrena and Azarian were there.”
Draevyn’s stare darted back and forth between hers and the twin serpents on her wrist. “What the fuck did they do to you?”
The veins in Esmyra’s neck strained, her eyes turning glassy as if she were holding back tears. But after a long moment of silence, she shrugged, and that look of terror was gone as quickly as it came. “They healed me.”
“How,” Draevyn demanded.
Bull-fucking-shit they healed her.
“They told me the only way to cure the velsinyte curse once it enters the blood is by removal of the curse itself or the blood of another god.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Jenli chimed in.
Esmyra swallowed, refusing to look Draevyn or Jak in the eye, and it was driving him mad. “Well, supposedly they tried all of that. But they said the wounds had festered by the time I arrived in Maerinys and had been infected for too long.”
“Wildfire…” Draevyn’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Esmyra lifted her wrist again, displaying the twin serpents as the sun and crescent moon reflected in the candlelight. “Azarian bound Kaelypso’s soul to Naerysa’s to pull us back.”
A blistering silence filled Draevyn’s mind, the edges of his vision turning black as if his brother’s shadows had crept in unseen. A fury unlike any he’d ever known began rapidly consuming him.
Jenli’s expression hardened. “Soul-binding?” she echoed before letting out a low whistle. “I hate to be the bearer of more shitty news, but your sister lied to you.”