CHAPTER FOUR #3
He nearly crumpled into a fit of tears when her voice ricocheted off the walls of his mind.
Vesper sprinted. His arms pumped as the distance between them stretched indefinitely, until he crashed to his knees and cradled his sister in his arms. Each notch of her spine protruded through her muddied black dress.
Vesper cupped her face as tears welled in her eyes. “Gods—oh gods, Izzy. What are you doing here? And where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know. But you shouldn’t be here.
” Her voice was weak, her magic spent. Izzy rarely spoke aloud as a child and it’d taken Vesper years to adjust to his sister’s mindspeak, but after her trial, and the price for her magic stole her voice bit by bit, she leaned on it.
When she was young she’d signed to shape her words, much like their father when his magic was spent.
The hardest part for Vesper was that it stole her bespelling laughs and replaced them with silent smiles. It wasn’t the same to hear them in his mind. At least not for him. Maybe it was a twin thing.
Vesper merely blinked and then took in his surroundings.
The darkness. Everywhere.
Fuck, what was that place? Was it some pocket of the Hollow reserved for rotten souls? Because he could imagine it for himself but not for her. She had always been the light against his dark.
“Is it because I never buried you? I never saw your body, Izzy.” He studied her in wide horror. “Did Destonne do this? What the fuck did he do to you?”
Izzy shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”
And he promised her he would get her out. That he would save her from that place. And then—
A soft knock tore him from the memory. He glanced back over the rim of the tub toward the door as it swung open and Briar stood in the doorway.
“Bri, I’m kinda … naked here.” Then he spotted the familiar pulse of that angry vein in her forehead and he stilled. Oh shit.
Briar crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you feel good about yourself?”
Between his throbbing face and fading buzz he wasn’t in the mood for her scolding. “Not now. We can talk later but—”
“No,” she said, firmly. “You’re being an idiot and someone needs to call you on it.” She exhaled and dropped her arms to her sides.
He opened his mouth to respond but she continued.
“Don’t say you’re fine, because I know you’re not.” Her red eyes burned through his remaining shrivelled wisp of dignity. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Because I have a pretty good idea.”
Vesper stood from the bath and retrieved a towel from behind him. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I am!” She kept her eyes on the stone tiles. “You’re ruining your reputation and any chance at gaining the respect of your people.”
“You’re overreacting.” Vesper wrapped the towel around his waist and slicked his hair back.
He sauntered down the hallway to his room only for her to follow after him, her footsteps angry.
After he dropped his towel to the floor, he yanked on wrinkled trousers and a clean grey tunic.
The fabric stuck to his damp skin as he struggled into it and stumbled over the mounds of clothes he didn’t care to deal with.
“Vesper!”
He turned to see Briar’s molten eyes, a perfect match to her cheeks, and her anger spouting from every pore. It bubbled over and spilled into the air.
“You’re going to listen to me. Alright?”
Her tone stunned him into silence. Briar had always been loud, a large, bold presence, but this—
She’d never spoken to him like this before. He’d pushed her too far.
Vesper nodded, his eyes wide.
“Cal and I have been covering for you but you need to figure all this out. The Council is coming.” She huffed a hot breath. “We received a letter today while you were out doing Deimos only knows what.”
The blood drained from Vesper’s face and his knees grew weak.
The Council consisted of beings who were once Kenna but had taken an oath and sacrificed their mortal shells to become the Instruments of the Gods.
The unnatural power they emitted was utterly terrifying and merely being in the same room as the Council left a taste on the back of one’s tongue.
Though they ruled as an unseen entity, their reputation kept order amongst the masses.
He recalled how the colour would drain from Destonne's stupid, smug face after each meeting. At the time, he’d never cared enough to attend and only ever glimpsed the backs of their blood-red cloaks. But now that he was being forced into the same situation—
He knew it was coming but … fuck. This had to be bad.
Briar drummed her nails against the doorframe as her shadows circled her like a rogue hurricane. “Tell me what’s going on or so help me, I’ll beat it out of you.”
His gaze remained fixed on the ground as he slumped onto the end of his bed. When he finally looked up, the feeling building in his chest the past few weeks reached capacity and burst its seams. He blinked away the tears, his voice hoarse. “They’re all gone, Bri. Izzy, Father, Emmery.”
“I know but acting this way—” She shook her head. “It’s not you.”
Vesper drew a trembling breath. “What if it is?”
Briar made her way to the bed and draped her shadows over them like a heavy blanket. “I’ve known you my whole life, Vesper. And I’ve never known you to be this way.”
The words stuck in his throat but he said them anyway. “What if beneath it all, beneath that shiny, happy exterior … What if I’m rotten?”
“You’re not rotten.” Her response came too quickly. Without thought.
“Broken then,” he offered.
“Much less has broken stronger men.” Her eyes softened. “You can’t hold all this inside. You need to talk to me or Cal or Marlys. And you can’t keep drinking your problems away. It won’t work.”
A beat passed and they both stared at each other, unsure how to proceed. He swiped at the tears clouding his vision, mortified he’d almost let them fall.
Fuck, he hated crying. It made him think of all the times his father turned away whenever he did as a boy. Come to me when you have words for your feelings, his father would say, but some emotions couldn’t be reduced to words or even voiced. He’d always find himself in Marlys’s arms after.
Vesper stalked to the window, unclasped the lock, and threw open the panes to suck fresh air into his lungs. He braced his forearms on the windowsill and leaned his throbbing head in his hands. “I’ve seen her,” he said, voice low.
Briar’s brows pulled together. “Who?”
“Izzy,” he whispered into the breeze. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I’ve seen her in my dreams.”
Her sympathetic look stemmed a hollow ache inside him.
“No, it’s not like that. I’ve talked to her.
Seen her. She—” His voice cracked. “When I—” He broke off again, “Fuck.” His head sank into his hands and he took several deep breaths before he finally got the words out.
“When I … died,” the word wheezed out of him, “I woke up in this black abyss. It was so cold and quiet and dark. But Iz was there. She begged me to stay. To save her, but”—he swallowed around the lump in his throat—“when I woke, when Emmery brought me back … I abandoned her.”
Briar was quiet. Her chest rose and fell slowly. “How do you know it was real? That it was her?”
“I’ve seen her since. Sometimes I dream about her and I can feel her. I can touch her. Hold her. I’ve never had dreams like that before.” He stared at the wall past her. “I need to save her. Something isn’t right.” He released a trembling breath. “And I fucking left her. Again.”
When Emmery had brought him back to life, he’d felt himself ripped away from that space between, his connection faded like dust in the wind. Then Vesper had woken in the castle dungeons and when he stared into Emmery’s joyous face and knew he’d left Izzy to rot in that place—
It bloody wrecked him. His temper had burned hot as he’d spat hateful things. Things he couldn’t take back.
“Maybe,” Briar drew out the word. Her fingers fidgeted nervously at her sides. “But maybe we need to leave her be, Ves.”
His jaw clenched. “What about the prophecy? This fucking fever.”
“Is it even true? How would we know?” She shrugged. “It could be some made up nonsense, like so many of these gods-driven agendas.”
“I told you what Zyphira said. She sought me out specifically. Put me on my path—”
“Yeah, and how is that going?” The regret in her eyes told him she wished she could take the biting words back.
Vesper didn’t speak, just sat down on his bed. She was right, but he didn’t know how to fix any of it. A throbbing pain sang through his eye and into his skull. He buried his face in his hands.
When he looked up again, Briar stood in the doorway, her face grave.
“You’re not the only one who's lost someone, Ves. I miss Izzy and Malachi, too.” She lingered there.
Waited for him to say what he couldn’t get out.
They both knew how much he had fucked up.
"And I don't want to lose you too. Not again. "
“Bri,” he croaked. His chest tightened to the point of pain. “What did the letter from the Council say?” Though he feared he already knew.
She stared at the floor as she spoke. “They’re overriding Destonne’s rule.”
His heart stopped. And his world turned upside down as she said three words that changed everything.
“They’re reclaiming Ellynne.”