CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE #2
“Sentium ta morta. It’s called the sleep of death for a reason.” Dez studied her wet lips. “I don’t know what to tell you. Your heart—it stopped. And then by some force of nature, it started again. But the healers weren’t optimistic you would ever wake up.”
He plucked the glass from her trembling hands before she spilled it.
Death had always lingered behind her, ready for her to fall, but she’d always somehow escaped its embrace. Was that what the numbness was? That unending darkness of the Divide? Zyphira must have pulled her back when she sent that icy nip into her blood.
On the brink of something dangerous, Emmery’s limbs began to shake.
Dez rubbed circles into her back, his touch a warm blanket on a cold night. “It’s going to be alright. You’re here now,” he said, his voice thick. At her silence, he continued, “Just keep that firebird inside you.”
Though she recognized it as a joke, she winced.
“I shouldn’t—gods, I shouldn’t have unleashed it.
” Her blood iced over as she recalled the phoenix's golden eyes blaring into her soul. He’d begged the phoenix not to kill her, but it had leached all her strength.
She could practically still taste the blood spilling from her eyes, nose, and filling her throat.
“It rained fire. The bricks were … burning. That’s—that’s how I destroyed Ellynne, isn’t it? ”
“I think we can be certain,” he said somberly, yet no condemnation hung in his tone.
“That firebird burst from your chest with vengeance in its eyes. Like it had some personal vendetta against Deimos.” Seeing the guilt written on her face, Dez tucked a stray hair behind her ear.
“When right and wrong fail, the truth does not falter. And you truly didn’t intend any harm with both the study and Ellynne. ”
Her sluggish heart sped. He didn’t know that and neither did she without her memories. Then his words truly sank in. How did he know that quote? She glanced at the nightstand and there sat a leather novel with a thick black quill used as a bookmark.
“Like Fionn, the healers said it might help if I read to you,” Dez said. He gave her a sheepish look. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your book.”
She peered up at him and blinked back the wetness gathered in her eyes. “You—you read to me?”
“Fionn offered, but we knew if you came back for anyone’s voice, it would be mine.
So you could tell me to be quiet, of course.
” He gave her a tiny smile then stared at the pool of tea, sad contemplation in his eyes, like he sorted through the broken shards for answers.
“I can see why you love him. Because if he wrote that for you—” He swallowed.
“It’s clear he loves you more than anything. ”
Her breathy laugh morphed into a sob as her desperation to find her memories and Shade settled in. She traced her finger along the mended slice on her elbow and a heavy pit settled into her stomach. “Dez, where’s my vial?”
For an infinitely long moment, his eyes skimmed over her face, and then, her heart fit to burst.
Because he slowly shook his head.
Her world halted, slogged, like pushing mud down a thin pipe, sucking molasses through a straw. Her universe collapsed. Buried her alive.
“Where is it,” she whispered, no longer a question, because she knew. She had felt that glass splinter into her arm when the saber had struck her. Had felt the liquid and her blood meld as it trickled down her arm. After everything she had fought for, all she had sacrificed and endured—
Gone. It was all gone.
In a split second, stolen from her like everything else.
Maybe that was why Zyphira couldn’t see her threads anymore, because she said every path Emmery found her memories, she also found her way to Shade.
And now that her memories were irretrievably gone, her past and future vanished in a single moment, her path to him with it. A foreign ache swelled within her.
Dez reached into his shirt pocket and produced the vial. He’d mended the glass, but it remained tragically empty. Gently, he pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers over it.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried everything, but it was diluted with your blood and had spilled onto the floor. The room was on fire and I needed to get you out before…” His words faded away as she gazed out the window.
Night’s embrace now blanketed the room, and she wished she could flee into the dark, sink into the stillness.
Leave her body and be free of this pain.
This fate. This failure.
“Did you get yours?” she asked, barely a whisper. She clutched that vial as if she could extract the answers it once held. At his silence, she turned to him.
He nodded and took her face in his hands.
She swallowed her despair and closed her eyes, reaching for anything to hold herself together, but she was crumbling to pieces. Her foundation had been ripped out from under her. The reason for her existence. The one she had finally accepted, and now—
She’d doomed everyone.
He offered a wistful smile. “We’ll find another way. I always fulfill my pactums, remember? I’ll fix this.”
She gripped the vial tighter. “This can’t be fixed, Dez.”
“Have some faith in me.” He searched her face, but for what, she wasn’t sure. And for a long moment they sat there, until Dez broke the silence. “Can I get you something to eat?”
She nodded. Anything for space. A moment to fall apart alone.
His mouth opened, as if he wanted to say more, but he clamped it shut, released her, and stood. He gave her another lingering look before he strode from the room.
Tears clouded her eyes, but she refused to let them spill. Aera nudged Emmery’s hand, and her amber eyes, so similar to her gold, blinked up at her. Her fox snuggled into her neck and cooed softly.
Only for a moment, did Emmery let herself wallow, but she made sure to pull herself together before Dez returned.