Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Emmeline
There was an unwelcome pounding on her door the next day. Emmeline had stayed up until dawn researching forced bonding ceremonies and attempting to read the Fates about this entire tournament mess.
Attempting being the key word, given that the celestial beings hadn’t had any answers.
The Fateforsaken pounding echoed again.
“Emmeline!” Bang, bang, bang, went Alana’s fist on the wood. “Emmeline, let me in, or I’ll have Eston break down the door, and I don’t think either of us wants to deal with that mess.”
Bleary-eyed, Emmeline swung her legs over the edge of the bed and slipped into her dressing robe, the silk cool against her skin.
She padded across the room and flicked the lock.
When the door flew open, Alana blinked up at her in shock.
Despite the full tea service balanced in her arms, she clearly hadn’t expected Emmeline to answer.
Not that Emmeline could blame her. She hadn’t opened the door any time Alana tried last night.
“Good morning,” Emmeline said, not coldly, but she turned away quickly and headed for the bathing chamber.
“Finally,” Alana exhaled, kicking the door closed behind her. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
Mystlights flared to life as Emmeline entered the bathing chamber, all the pristine white marble reflecting the glowing orbs up at her.
The heavy periwinkle fabric of her gown from the opening ceremonies sat bunched in the corner where she’d peeled it off last night, mocking her.
She pressed her hands to the counter, taking a deep, shaking breath.
White flames flickered around the edges of her vision, her image in the mirror wavering. Alana swam into view over her shoulder, the tea tray deposited on the desk behind her.
Emmeline held her stare as she forced out, “Did you know?”
“Did I—” Alana’s blue eyes widened as she realized what Emmeline meant. “Fates, no I didn’t know.”
“That’s not part of your role here? Befriend me, keep me in line?”
“No, Emmeline, I swear I didn’t!” Her emphatic tone paired with the fiery indignation in Alana’s eyes and heat staining her cheeks persuaded Emmeline to believe her, at least a little more than before.
“I take it you didn’t know either?” Alana asked.
Emmeline’s lips pressed into a line, every breath still trembling at the thought of being bonded to a stranger, her Fate ties tightening. She shook her head.
Alana exhaled, falling back against the wall and crossing her arms. “I guessed as much, but then I thought about how you’d snuck out the night before and Rocarri had been looking for you. I thought maybe you’d been running.”
“I wasn’t,” Emmeline confirmed. “I had no idea that was his plan. Until yesterday, I thought I was still being given a position at the Academy.”
A lump formed in her throat, cold mourning not only for what they were trying to force her into but also for the life she would be saying goodbye to if she didn’t find a way out.
Emmeline turned the tap, splashing cold water on her face to wake herself up. She would find a way out of this.
“And why in a Fate’s fuck didn’t you run?” Alana blurted.
Emmeline spun, water splattering the marble. She blinked at Alana, moisture clinging to the tips of her lashes. “What?”
“Why aren’t you running, Emmeline? Why are you letting him trade you off like this?” Alana grabbed a towel from the rack and held it out to her.
“Because.” Emmeline ground her teeth as she took the towel, pressing her face into the thick, soft fabric.
Her eyes stung with all the emotions she’d suppressed over the last two days.
The Chancellor’s deal, the attack, the Warders of Selene insignia, the cage closing around her in this city. She was hovering over a ledge.
“Because why?” Alana prodded, nudging her toward that jump for reasons Emmeline wasn’t entirely sure of.
And a toe at a time, she fell.
“Because I need something,” Emmeline snapped into the towel, nails digging into the fabric.
“I’m not here because I was forced to be.
I’ve been asking for a transfer from Lyra to Valyn for years—I’ve been working to get here.
To find—” She panted, the sting of revealing this much already burning through her.
She couldn’t tell Alana about her sister.
She couldn’t tell anyone from this city now that she was so coveted.
It would only put Addie in danger. “Something. I can’t leave until I do, and Rocarri said if I didn’t agree, he would banish me from Valyn. ”
“And it’s worth this?” Alana argued. “It’s worth letting him trap you into a bonding ceremony with a veritable stranger?”
There was defiance in Alana’s stare, like there was one answer she desperately wanted Emmeline to give her.
“It’s worth letting him believe I agree. For now.” Emmeline’s arms fell to her sides, the towel dropping to the marble floor.
The understanding in Alana’s eyes—even though Emmeline refused to tell her everything—had so much gratitude ebbing through her tired limbs, it forced tears down her cheeks and a truth from her lips.
“I don’t trust anyone in these walls.”
She could hear the apology in her own voice, but it was compassion, not pain, that broke across Alana’s features.
“I don’t trust most of them either,” Alana admitted.
She said it like it was the simplest fact in the world.
Shrugging, she leaned a hip against the door frame.
“Not for the truly important things, at least. I’m not going to say you can trust me because words are futile for building trust, but you’ll see.
We’re going to figure a way out of this. ”
“We?” Emmeline asked.
“We.”
In the nineteen years since her mother died, there’d only been one person she felt like a we with—perhaps two if she could admit she’d gotten to that point of friendship with Myrella, but there was still so much Emmeline had been hiding from her.
There was only one person who had her using that word intentionally and doubtlessly.
Even now, with Alana, the two letters scratched against her ribs. Told her to pull away and bury everything deep down.
But Alana affirmed, “I may have said I believed Rocarri would make a good Chancellor before, but that was based on other events. There are some things we can’t tolerate, no matter how good we think a person is. You and I…we have to stick together.”
Those words burrowed into Emmeline’s old bruises, her desperation to belong, to fit, healing a small part of them.
Alana pushed off the doorframe and retrieved the tea before sliding to the floor right in the center of the bathing chamber and pouring them each a cup.
Silently, Emmeline sank down across from her, unplaiting the messy braids she’d fallen asleep in last night and combing through the waves with her hands.
As Alana filled her in on what rumors were circling about the trials, Emmeline tried not to think of the time Roremar had washed and combed her hair for her after they went to see the Snake Charmer.
As she dressed in another dazzling gown and tucked his ring beneath her neckline, she fought off nausea as she considered how the tournament could end with another man claiming her.
And as she left for the arena with Alana at her side, she couldn’t hold back the tear that rolled down her cheek at having her future ripped away from her.
Alana squeezed her hand. “It will be okay,” she whispered.
Emmeline wasn’t yet sure if she trusted her, but she wanted to try. She didn’t want to be alone in this.
And that was a start.
The arena was even louder than during the opening ceremonies. Emmeline stood in the Chancellor’s box with Alana and Cyren, Graves and Eston stationed outside the curtained entrance.
She twisted her opal ring around her finger impatiently as Rocarri greeted each of the council members, District Governors, and other notable Starsearchers who lined the rows.
Emmeline tried to pull up what she had learned about each—who had worked for the previous Chancellor, who favored the perimeter versus the spotlight, who might have access to classified records based on their status—but after yesterday, their names and faces blended together in her mind.
Regardless of how little she spoke to any of them, everyone knew her. At least a dozen people stopped her on her way in to say hello, another few doing a very poor job of hiding the fact that they were whispering about her.
“You all right?” Alana whispered as they were once again handed glasses of sparkling wine. As if the first stage of her forced bonding was an event to toast to, the crystal delicately carved with the most careful hand.
It matched the fanciful image of her lilac gown, so pale it looked white in certain lighting.
With dainty straps and tiny jewels sprinkled around the skirt that resembled far off stars, every inch of her appeared delicate.
Even the silk cloak around her shoulders was thin, a chill following her every time she remembered why they were here.
“Fine,” Emmeline whispered, plastering on a brilliant smile she was certain didn’t reach her eyes and ignoring the other attendees, only allowing them to see what she wanted them to after Rocarri reminded her yesterday how closely his people were watching. “Let’s see my bonding options, shall we?”
“Welcome, all!” Rocarri called through the silver horn, stealing Emmeline’s attention. He grinned into the crowd as they roared at his words. “Today, we begin the hunt for our elite champion. The warrior with the greatest daring!”
Another raucous cheer, feet stomping, and Emmeline’s heart pounded as if she were an animal being hunted.
“The most dauntless cunning!”
The ground beneath her thin heels shook, and her grip tightened on her glass.
“And the fairest fate!”
Emmeline’s pulse tripped at the phrase. The Fates were no part of this—not where she was involved. And it certainly wasn’t fair.