Chapter 82
Chapter Eighty-Two
Emmeline
Roremar’s fury boiled down the Fatesworn bond, potent enough to cut through whatever was suppressing it. Emmeline inhaled sharply as it struck. She couldn’t blame him, though. Not after he’d told her Falliare had kill his father.
“What are you doing here?” Roremar spat at his uncle as they emerged in the mouth of the expansive cave, both men dressed in their rich clothing from the masquerade still.
“He’s my guest,” Rocarri interrupted. “He’s been so helpful in my experiments lately, I thought it was apt he be here for this.”
His experiments. The rituals Falliare was monitoring. They weren’t to do with Fatalium or recreating Dryvius’s murders.
They were at the instruction of the Chancellor and the Fate Bound Seekers. Emmeline had known thanks to her joint readings that Rocarri and Falliare were working together, but she hadn’t known how or why.
Was Falliare helping the Chancellor research how to create a Fate from this tournament?
“Rore,” Des said, Lola still draped in his arms, “what’s going on?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve done to my niece, Mr. Alvanti?” Falliare asked.
“Don’t act like you care!” Roremar barked. Emmeline’s chest ripped in two with the ragged sound of his voice. The sting of betrayal. “You don’t give a damn about any of us. Not me, not Lola, not your own sister, for Fate’s sake! So don’t even fucking look at my family after what you did to us.”
“What did he do?” Desmond stiffened, but turned slightly, as if to shield Lola from her uncle.
She seemed even more pale. Fates, they had to get her out of here.
There were enough of them that they could probably take Rocarri and Falliare even with Roremar being injured, but she wasn’t sure whose loyalty they could count on other than Desmond and Myrella.
And her magic was rushing through her veins, faster by the minute, distracting her.
“He killed my father and framed me for it,” Roremar deadpanned, as if he had no more emotion for the revelation.
“Arenothos’s fucking forge,” Desmond said. He shifted further away from the exit, carrying Lola toward her brother and Emmeline.
“Are you here because I ran?” Emmeline asked Rocarri, very aware that four people in this cavern were active participants in his ongoing trial, each currently facing their own trauma.
“I’m here because of both of you,” Rocarri said, his tone haughty as he looked between her and Roremar.
Everyone tensed as the Chancellor strode across the Warder wings in the center of the room, their glow reflecting in his silver-trimmed robes, and stopped feet from Emmeline and Roremar. She didn’t pull her hand from his, didn’t bother to act like she wasn’t Roremar’s in every way.
After weeks of torment, weeks of her heart being torn from her body and swearing she couldn’t have him, she was taking what she wanted. What was made for her. Emmeline loved Roremar, and no one could make her say otherwise again.
“What do you want with us?” Roremar asked.
Instead of answering, Rocarri smiled, nodding at the others in the room. “Do they know?”
Emmeline’s brows pulled together. Roremar’s confusion rippled down the bond, too.
“Know what?” Emmeline asked.
“About you two.”
Roremar’s gaze dropped to their entwined hands. “Give them a little more credit than that, Chancellor.”
“Always with the smart mouth,” Falliare muttered, shaking his head.
“Be quiet!” Roremar snapped.
“Do they know?” Rocarri repeated, not even flinching. Emmeline’s magic spun faster, her chin lifting higher. “That you two are bonded?”
Silence ricocheted through the cavern.
“You’re what?” Desmond asked finally at the same time Perry spat, “No fucking way.”
Rian only looked at the two of them with his brows raised. “Would have been nice to know.”
“We didn’t hide it,” Roremar said without looking at them.
“Not maliciously, at least,” Emmeline corrected. “It happened tonight.”
“We knew you were gone for each other, but we didn’t know you’d officially bonded,” Perry clarified.
Myrella’s eyes shone with both pain and joy. “You completed the ceremony? The vows and everything?”
Emmeline stiffened. “It isn’t that kind of bond.”
“What kind…” Desmond’s words trailed off, his eyes widening.
Myrella smiled knowingly as she guessed, but it was Falliare who announced, “Emmeline and Roremar are Fatesworn.”
The words cracked across the room like a prophecy, Emmeline’s skin tingling. She swore the starfire in the Warder Mark below their feet glowed brighter.
“How long have you known?” Roremar snapped at his uncle.
“I didn’t when I first paired you together.
I knew Emmeline had powerful magic and suspected your Fate tie.
” Falliare’s attention landed on her. “When you revealed your eleven alignments on Lyra, I wondered what it could mean. The two of you—all twelve Fates brought to life. It wasn’t until Balmour and I exchanged theories on the inner workings of bonds that I guessed it. ”
“Was that before you sent me here?” Emmeline asked, a lump in her throat. Her fingers twitched toward the triple blade sheathed at her thigh.
She had to know. Had to know how deep the betrayal ran. How many people in this Fatesforsaken realm had only looked at her as an opportunity?
Falliare nodded. “We corresponded the night you blew up the seeing chamber.”
She shouldn’t be shocked that a man who craved power had never cared for her beyond hers, yet her eyes stung. A part of her—another childlike part that yearned for nothing more than belonging—broke off.
She was used.
Disposable without her magic. Priceless enough to cage with it.
When would this realm stop hurting her? When would they finally break her beyond repair?
As if he heard, Roremar pressed his lips to her temple. “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered.
But it did. She’d chosen him, but as long as she had these Fate ties, she’d never be free. Rocks weighed down her limbs at the realization. She’d claimed him, claimed their bond and their future, and still it wasn’t enough.
“Rore.” Desmond’s voice cut through her thoughts.
Lola was stirring, eyes fighting to open. Desmond backed further away and propped her on the altar, her form swaying as she struggled to wake. Desmond whispered encouragement to her, bracing her spine so she could sit upright.
Emmeline forced her emotions down and focused on Rocarri. Lola was safe, but they needed to get her out of here before Dryvius returned—
Fear trickled down her spine. What if the Fate was already among them? She’d thought Falliare was recreating Dryvius’s rituals, thought maybe Rocarri wanted to use this tournament to create new Fate, but what if that wasn’t quite right?
What if they were even closer than she’d theorized?
Her stare narrowed on the Chancellor. “Why are you so interested in our Fatesworn bond?”
“Who wouldn’t be interested?” Rocarri feigned. “It’s a rare legend.”
Though it pained her to reveal her final card, Emmeline had no choice. And she wanted to do it when Rocarri wasn’t expecting it. “What about the Fate Bound Seekers?”
“What are the Fate Bound Seekers?” Perry asked, accusation thick in his voice. He and Rian flanked her and Roremar.
“It’s a cult the Chancellor is associated with.” Emmeline’s stare sliced to Rocarri. “Care to clear up some of that?”
“My pleasure now that you two have stopped lying.” Rocarri clasped his hands before him, the tattoos on his knuckles forming a perfect constellation in the dim starfire flickering around the room, though Emmeline couldn’t make out which it was.
“I was born into the Fate Bound Seekers.
I left to pursue academia when I reached adulthood.
But their doctrines were bred into me from a young age, and I never stopped wondering about some of their more… advanced beliefs.
“When the idea of the tournament resurfaced, I hoped a competition of this caliber would unveil those with the strongest magic among us. That’s why I based it on the Angel’s initial structure, used to select the Fates, as I’m sure you’ve figured out.
I wanted to target that magic, to continue the research.
But then”—his attention honed on Emmeline, a gluttonous glint in his eyes—“you went into that seeing chamber on Lyra, and your eleven Fate ties blew it to bits in a display no one could look away from.”
“I knew you wanted to come to Valyn, and from what Aldryn recounted about both you and Mr. Silventa, with all the research I’d done on bonds, I had an inkling of what truly lay between you.
You fell into my hands. Was I not to play that card, sweet Emmeline?
” Rocarri stepped closer, a hand lifting to brush her cheek.
Roremar’s arm slipped around her waist, his voice lethal. “I’d be very careful where you put that hand, Chancellor.”
Emmeline’s heart fluttered at his defense—even more because she knew he was well aware she could handle Rocarri herself. For once, it felt good to not face a threat alone. To stand together as they were meant to.
Rocarri laughed. “Oh, you two made it so easy.” He stepped back across the Warder Mark, his eyes still twinkling.
“So, you suspected we were Fatesworn, brought us here because of it, yet you still wanted to force me to bond with whoever won this tournament?” Emmeline sneered.
“I never expected anyone other than Roremar to win,” Rocarri said simply. “That’s why I allowed him to enter.”
And realization crashed into her. “You were trying to force our hands.”
“You weren’t lying when you claimed you didn’t want me to die,” Roremar added, and Rocarri nodded. “You put me in the tournament, and you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist fighting for Emmeline.”
“And if you threatened him and denied every truth I told about him, I would become desperate.”
And under the pressure of so much turmoil and denial, the bond would be forced to surface.
And they’d have no choice but to accept it.
Everything Rocarri had done since she arrived in the capital made sense then. Why all the Chancellor’s threats always felt antagonistic, why he removed Roremar’s guards recently to tempt him to sneak out when Emmeline pulled away.
He’d been baiting them.
This entire time, Balmour Rocarri had been pushing them toward one another by prying them apart.
All he’d wanted was for them to claim their Fatesworn bond. For what? So, he could study it? Manipulate it, as he had her for weeks?
No.
Emmeline wouldn’t let this be tainted by his hand, too. He had no control over it.
The irony was, the Fatesworn bond didn’t matter to her. Not when it came down to their core. Roremar had become her safety in a world so cruel, not because of a bond, but because he’d cared for her on Lyra and heard her when she screamed. The Fatesworn bond meant nothing to her without any of that.
“Correct, Emmeline. This has all been a show, as you say,” Rocarri confirmed. “And no, Roremar, I was not lying when I said I wanted you to live. I needed to push you into being your most reckless self.”
“Congratulations,” Roremar growled. “You’ve reminded me exactly how much I can gain from it.”
On the altar, Lola had her head resting on Desmond’s chest, eyes closed as his hand coasted up and down her back. Fates, they really needed to get her out of here.
Roremar must have heard the thought because he stood taller, addressing the Chancellor with the same professional stoicism Emmeline had heard the very first day she met him. Back when he was accepting terms from the Lyra Temple Master in order to provide for his siblings.
“Your problem here is with me and Emmeline. Stop the torment of the other competitors in the third trial. Declare me the winner, and you get the bond you want. We’ll go back to the manor with you tonight so you can conduct whatever inquisition you have, but we need to get my sister out of these tunnels right now. ”
Rocarri looked from Roremar to Lola. Falliare said nothing.
At their prolonged silence, Roremar growled, “I’m not asking, Chancellor.”
“You assume I can stop the trial when you two saw to it being set in motion, but okay.” He jerked his head toward the exit, dismissing them.
Emmeline remained frozen, fortunes screaming down her veins in warning. What was in motion? What was Rocarri unable to stop thanks to her and Roremar?
Her Fatesworn bond strained, fighting.
Oblivious to her racing thoughts, Perry blew out a breath, saying to Roremar, “I still can’t believe you had us allying with you, and all this time, you knew you were the only person who could truly win.”
A dark chuckle rumbled through the room, and Roremar stiffened beside her.
All eleven of Emmeline’s Fate ties reared their heads.
“Come on,” Khasson said, reclined against the altar, looking for all the realms like he wasn’t leaving. “You can’t really be surprised, can you? These two? That draw between them was evident the moment Roremar stepped into the arena. I felt it as soon as he saw her.”
Slowly, with the calm lethality of a panther lying in wait, Roremar tilted his head and asked, “And how are you so familiar with it?”
Khasson’s hum purred along the stone. Cirre prowled silently to Emmeline’s side.
“I have seen a few Fatesworn bonds in my years.”
Emmeline’s breath lodged in her throat, a Fate screaming through her mind. “What’s that mean?”
Khasson flashed a curling smile, rolling his sleeves to the elbow and crossing his arms leisurely. Emmeline’s attention dropped to his wrists—
To the long scars marring his skin. As if clawed by fingernails.
Her fingernails, during an attack on the night before the opening ceremonies.
Khasson, who had allied with Roremar with no explanation as to why.
Khasson, who meddled just enough to go unnoticed.
Khasson, who looked over them all with the cruel amusement befitting someone who’d planned out this exact moment.
And Roremar’s voice was pure venom when he said, “She asked you a question, Dryvius.”