Chapter 85
Chapter Eighty-Five
Emmeline
“Emmeline,” Lola wheezed. Her blue eyes pleaded, bottom lip trembling.
And Emmeline knew what she was trying to communicate with her stare—knew Roremar wouldn’t see it.
Lola was willing to let Dryvius take her, knowing it meant her sacrifice, because her brother needed Emmeline. And Lola would do anything to give Roremar what he needed after all he’d been through, after feeling like she’d abandoned him and their family these past ten years.
But repayment wasn’t the way to show love, as Emmeline had been told recently.
And aside from the fact that Emmeline would never let Lola sacrifice herself, none of them knew—none of them had all the pieces she had, all the messages the Fates had been sending her for weeks that she’d been putting together since they arrived in this grave.
A fortune spun by Fated hands,
A choice taken from forsaken bands.
Two hearts staked through with malice.
It meant Dryvius and Anphrosia. It was their malice the fortune spoke of. Their hatred that seeped across the realms, across the stars and eons, and sank its claws into this forsaken bond between Emmeline and Roremar, one that took all choice from them.
For Him to fall, and Her to bleed.
He’d fallen.
Fates, Roremar had fallen with the exposure of his Fate tie. The man she loved had been thrown so far from grace, and her heart bled for him until she was raw and aching, screaming his name in the capital halls and being deemed insane.
But now—now, she had a chance to fix something.
To remedy a past scorned daring,
And cross with bloodied footsteps faring.
Dryvius was going to cross the veil no matter what, and he was going to leave a crimson trail with his next sacrifice.
All because he wanted revenge for a scorned heart.
It was all there.
Every line down to Anphrosia telling her Valyn was built on the bones of fortune. The bones of the Fates in this very cavern.
The entire time Dryvius had been speaking, Emmeline had been recalling the pieces of fortunes, grateful for how meticulous she’d been in her notes. The Fates had been repeating themselves since Lyra, trying to get her to understand what waited.
But she’d never have thought they were telling her this.
That Dryvius was trying to travel between realms.
While the Fate waited for his time to strike tonight, she’d waited, too. It was why she hadn’t pushed him or Rocarri. She’d been slotting fortunes into place, and while she didn’t have every answer, she’d come to one conclusion.
All of this? It all circled around her and Roremar.
Star’s Reign and Star’s Ruin.
She will lead you if you are brave enough to follow, but you will need him, too. Two parts of a whole—two ends of a tie.
They were forever entrenched in this battle of the Fates no matter what happened tonight. She’d never be free, no matter whom she loved or how she told the realm about it, but Lola could be. If she could only convince Dryvius to take her instead.
At least Roremar and the Silventas wouldn’t mourn another sibling.
She hadn’t found her sister in coming to Valyn, but she had found strength she never knew she possessed and a love she never thought she deserved. She was willing to use every last drop to save the man who’d helped her claim both from the pain of losing Lola.
Roremar, Myrella, and Cyren all knew pieces of who she was looking for. They could carry on her search.
If she was gone, Addie could live without the threat her magic posed anyway. She’d suspected for a while they wouldn’t get a true reunion.
“Please, Dryvius,” Emmeline begged, ignoring Roremar’s beseeching presence beside her. Ignoring the way she was torn in two from all of this.
Emmeline stepped closer to the starfire, inches from the scorching line. Sweat beaded over her skin. She chose her words carefully, aware that one twitch of the Fate’s wrist would take Lola’s life. The indent of the metal against her skin was visible from here.
“You don’t want Lola when you can have me. Lola is tied to Anphrosia, but I’m tied to all of them. Every one of them you hate. You said yourself. They all had a hand in your downfall.”
She dared another inch forward, the hem of her wine-red gown singing in silver embers. Smoke curled in the air, stinging her throat.
And her breath shuttered out of her as she said, “I will be so much more valuable to you.”
Her heart screamed in terror at that word—be it hers or Roremar’s or both of theirs, she didn’t know. All she knew was that losing him again might break her, but she’d break a thousand times to save him the pain at the end of that blade.
To save him, she’d use her value any way she had to.
“Emmeline,” Roremar whispered hoarsely. Pleading shot down their bond.
She ignored him.
“You’ve been here these past few weeks, Dryvius.
You’ve seen how this city hungers for my magic.
” Tears welled on her lashes as she remembered their covetous stares, the insatiable words, each memory a lash against her skin.
As she inched forward again, the rubies crusting her bodice reflected the starfire, like steel and moonlight melting in a bloody pool.
An image of a Mistress of Chaos and Revelry.
Regal and powerful and so very, very valuable.
“Think of that power in its true realm. You can gain so much more from me than you can from her.”
The cavern felt like a bubble one wrong move would pop.
Every breath hung on the edge of it.
Emmeline forced herself to hold Dryvius’s stare with her chin high, fear buried beneath every scar she bore.
“Oh, Emmeline,” Dryvius finally said as galaxies swirled through the veil behind him, a glass bridge to some land she couldn’t see reflecting the stars. “You’re smart enough to know that won’t work.”
He said the words as if they were a secret she was supposed to understand.
And with that parting message, Dryvius stepped across the veil, and onto the bridge, dragging Lola with him.
“NO!” Emmeline screamed, the word tearing up her throat.
Roremar’s and Desmond’s agonized yells matched it.
She took two lunging steps, soaring across the line of starfire, her skirt catching white embers.
But before she could reach the veil, an arm latched around her waist, and she was hauled back into a firm, bare chest, the scent of sandalwood wrapping around her.
“Let me go, Roremar!” She fought, the layers of her dress weighing her down.
“No, Emmeline!” he argued, voice ravaged by torment. “You said it yourself, you’re too fucking valuable to all of them. If you go, they’re only going to use you as they have here, and I love you too much to let that happen!”
She spun in his hold, staring up into silver eyes. “I’m no better off here, Roremar! Everyone, everywhere wants to use me. Let me be used this way so Lola doesn’t have to. Let it be my choice.”
“A choice between types of manipulation? Emmeline, that’s not a choice at all.”
“It’s the only one I have. The only one I have ever fucking had.” Tears tracked down her cheeks as every moment she’d been hunted and used collided in her chest.
When her sister was taken instead of her.
When her mother died in her place.
When she finally thought she’d chosen Roremar only to find out Rocarri wanted their bond all along.
She couldn’t let Lola hurt for her, too.
She couldn’t keep them, but she could save them. That was the deal she’d made with the stars.
“You’ve been dealt so many bad hands, Emmeline.
It’s so fucking unfair, but you can’t trade yourself because they’ve conditioned you to think someone’s life is worth more than yours.
That isn’t how love works, remember?” His good hand tightened in the fabric of her dress, his body tense beneath her hands as he stared toward that veil and the glass bridge beyond, where the Fate’s form was getting smaller with every second she waited.
“Let me get her back!” she cried, heart beating erratically. “I’m never escaping this web no matter who else dies for it, so please, let me go.”
“You are worth a thousand Fates, Huntress. I won’t lose either of you.”
Either of you.
Emmeline’s heart crashed to her stomach.
Roremar wasn’t stopping her because he didn’t intend for her to go after Lola. He intended to go into the Fate Realm without her.
To keep her from being used again.
His voice was frantic, urgent, as he said, “Please, Emmeline.”
And she felt those words for what they were: Another goodbye.
But she’d seen him walk away from her too many times. First atop the Trade House after their fate-altering kiss.
Then, each time she’d pushed him away in Valyn.
They’d only just agreed to stop the games, to stop pretending they weren’t in this together, two halves of one fate, two futures entwined as one as long as the stars had hung in the skies.
Star’s Reign and Star’s Ruin.
Together forevermore, be it for tragedy or fortune.
Emmeline squared her shoulders. “Wherever I go after tomorrow, our souls, our bodies, our fates are entwined. That’s what you swore to me, Reckless. We go together or not at all.”
She’d chosen him, Fates be damned. In every life, but starting with this one. It was the only choice she’d ever truly gotten to make for herself, and the one she’d make time and again without question.
She knew he heard every promise in her words. Knew her hand in his now meant more than a bond from the Fates ever could.
She saw each realization land as a spark of silver in his haunted grey eyes, the same eyes that had looked at her with love and adoration only hours ago and now held so many fears of how this could all go so wrong.
He looked all around them. At Desmond, who Perry had jumped the starfire line after them to help. He was barely holding him together, both of them covered in blood.
At Myrella, a trembling mess on the floor where Rian tried to soothe her. At his uncle and the Chancellor, awe and anger mixing in both of their expressions.
At Cirre, pawing impatiently at the mouth of the veil.
And his vow crashed down the bond.
“Let’s go meet the Fates.”
Emmeline slid her hand into Roremar’s good one, and with Cirre on their heels, they raced through the veil.
And as they left Ambrisk behind, all Emmeline heard were those words from the Fates:
And somewhere beyond the veil,
Spins an utter star-crossed tale.
And she hoped it wasn’t theirs.