Chapter 87
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Emmeline
Emmeline screamed as they fell.
The sky faded from the navy depths of the endless space between stars to a riot of purples in every possible shade. She tried to catch everything surrounding them as it streamed past, Roremar’s voice and Cirre’s screech whipping on the rushing wind, too, but it was all an impossible blur.
All she knew was the heightened swish of her magic in her veins as it found its origin and a burning in her blood that said welcome home.
She crashed onto the earth, her breath cascading from her lungs.
When she opened her eyes, the sky was bleeding purple. Through dizzying vision, it reminded her of watercolors fading together, a wavering sheet of stars swirling above.
Emmeline coughed as she gasped down breath, the cold soil beneath her rock hard. Her eyes streamed with tears as she sucked in great breaths, the purple-streaked sky melting overhead.
“Rore—” She wheezed. “Roremar?”
“I’m here, Huntress.” His voice was cool and comforting as Emmeline rolled to her hands and knees. The terrain surrounding them was shrouded by fog and willow trees, but they’d landed on a grassy hill full of starlight wildflowers, everything taking on the slightly purple hues of the sky.
A strong hand cupped her cheek, and Roremar turned her face to his. In those silver eyes—more silver than Emmeline had ever noticed—a medley of emotions sang. Terror for his sister, determination to find her, worry for Emmeline after that fall.
“Lola?” Her own chest clenched, all eleven Fate ties stirring like wild.
Roremar’s lips pressed together, torment shuttering his eyes. “Whatever happened when we crossed…the bridge.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where Dryvius went.”
“We’ll find her,” Emmeline swore, squeezing his hand against her cheek.
Cirre’s head landed on Roremar’s good shoulder, the panther entirely unharmed and her soft purr a promise they’d get Lola back. And though Roremar was battered, bruised, and furious, Emmeline could see the relief in his eyes that she and Cirre were both here.
Emmeline’s gaze lifted to the cosmos overhead that looked so close, she felt like she could reach out and touch them. Breathlessly, she whispered, “I think this might be the most reckless thing either of us have ever done.”
Roremar followed her gaze. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to top it.”
“Emmeline. Roremar,” a voice greeted through the mist.
At their names spoken so familiarly, they both shoved to their feet, Roremar groaning at the pain in his shoulder.
Emmeline’s heart pounded as a silhouette emerged from the distance, parting the fog in a stream of silver stardust. A relentless beat pounded through her veins, one string lifting its head.
The woman stepped barefoot across the soil, and Emmeline knew without being told who the russet-skinned celestial being in the dusk-streaked dress was.
A crown of stars arched over her head, shimmering stardust rippling off her braided hair.
A vine of silver ivy draped her neck, and across her stomach, displayed by the strategic gap in her dress, was a prominent scar.
And her face—flawless complexion and swirling eyes, high cheekbones and full lips, even the small beauty mark on her left cheek—it was all visible. Every detail, every expression, Emmeline could see it.
“Hyllara,” Emmeline whispered, awe making her weightless.
Roremar stiffened beside her, his hand bracing Emmeline’s lower back and his wariness of the Fates seeping off him.
The Fate of Fertility and Betrayal looked them over, Emmeline’s tie to her leaping within her bones. It writhed and hungered, begging her to take a step closer and fall into the Fate’s nurturing embrace.
“Reign and Ruin,” Hyllara mused, tilting her head in a curious nature, like they weren’t quite what she expected. Emmeline supposed in their tattered and injured state, falling from a shattered glass bridge in the sky, they weren’t.
But Hyllara smiled—the kind of grin that boasted power and brokered obedience.
“You’ve arrived,” the Fate of Fertility and Betrayal said. “Now we may begin.”
Thank you for reading Revels on an Angel’s Grave.