CHAPTER SEVENTY
EMMERY
The room tumbled into hushed chaos. Emmery stared helplessly as Vesper’s face crumpled, and he slumped in the chair. His sister’s name, spoken with such anguish, hung in the air.
“It’s n-not p-possible,” he stammered. His voice shook like his bones rattled, his foundation crumbled, and his hopes and dreams crushed like a dirt clod in his sister’s fist. “It’s not possible. It’s—it’s not fucking possible.”
A slimy smile inched across Izzy’s face like a dying caterpillar.
Emmery’s flame hungered to melt it off. How could she do this? She strolled in here and sat at Thellonius’s side like some grotesque queen, while all this time her brother had mourned her and berated himself for how she’d died at Destonne’s hand, but—
Gods, none of that was true.
A vein pounded in Vesper’s neck as he sucked a jagged breath like he would drop dead at any moment. “How? I don’t understand. Izzy—”
“Not Izzy,” she said. Her voice mimicked a wind chime in a gentle breeze and echoed in their heads as her lips remained still. Disgust twisted her beautiful features. “What a dreadful name. You may address me as Your Divinity, Goddess of the Eternal Sky.”
Emmery’s blood iced over, like slush slogging in a frozen river. Because she’d heard Melantha use that name once before for one person.
Kahlia.
Vesper wilted like his entire world now lay ruinously in his hands, and everything he’d ever believed proved false. He stared at Zyphira’s bloodstain as if it were his only truth. His only reality.
“Traitors meet their ends in one way or another. There is only so long they can hide from their fate,” Kahlia sang, her voice taunting and stunning. “And you, children of the prophecy, have been gathered to pay for your sins.”
Emmery’s cheeks burned in anger. “Bullshit!” she spat. “What sins?”
“Silence,” Kahlia snarled. Her violet eyes locked on Emmery. “We have special plans for you.”
Emmery’s stomach sank as Kahlia rose from her throne and stalked toward her. Her gorgeous gaze scrutinized her in a way that raised the hairs on the nape of her neck. Kahlia stopped just before her chair, tilted her head, and pursed her lips.
“It’s strange looking upon you. We always did look so alike,” she said. She sneered and her hand snapped out to grasp Emmery’s chin. “Though that disgusting stain on your cheek diminishes our perfect form, I suppose it will do.”
At her side, a deep growly noise rumbled from Vesper.
The way Kahlia grabbed her resurfaced images of the night Vesper had saved her. How Fallon had studied her like livestock for purchase. Emmery swallowed down her disgust and wrenched her face free.
Amused by this, Kahlia’s lips curled into a smile. “But I do quite like this form. It has served me well. Pity she had to be on the cusp of death before I could claim her body. That we had to have her beaten within a whisper of her life before she would relent.”
Emmery’s stomach plummeted.
Dez. They’d forced him to do that. Gods, she was sure of it. And he’d never told anyone the truth because he’d likely been compelled not to.
“Tell me what you want,” Emmery seethed, the words pushed between her teeth.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kahlia bent at the waist, the scent of bitter apples on her breath as it brushed Emmery’s face. “I want the magic you stole from me.”
A laugh sputtered out of her. “Stole from you? I didn’t steal anything.”
Kahlia’s eyes lit up like a cougar leaping on an unsuspecting deer. “Liar.”
“How dare you call me a liar,” Emmery snapped. “I earned it from the Whispering Spring. It’s mine.” She glanced at Vesper as he gasped like he couldn’t get enough air, yet he continued to stare blindly at the floor.
Thellonius strolled forward. “This magic has always belonged to Kahlia. Rightfully so.” He stopped at her side and continued, “Because Kahlia’s body lingered within the Blood Mire all those centuries ago, the spring reclaimed her magic.
Deimos tried to steal it for himself, but he was a fool.
He didn’t know the consequences of releasing Kahlia’s shadow into the spring.
He thought her shadow would be a sponge for the magic, and when it came crawling back, he could use it to free himself.
But the Whispering Spring has its wicked ways, and not only did it steal Kahlia’s shadow, but it kept the magic too. ”
Kahlia laid her hand on Thellonius’s arm. “The spring put the magic into another vessel,” she said. “One that wholly recognized my form, similar enough to hold it.”
Emmery’s attention warred between the two, her head spinning. Because it couldn’t be true. This was—to echo Vesper’s sentiment—impossible.
But her trial flitted through her mind, and the shadow monster she’d fought lingered at the forefront. That monster had mimicked her face, until it shredded its exterior, and absorbed into her. Become her.
At the time, she’d thought the trial was too easy, but when she’d nearly drowned, hands had shoved her out of the water. Had the spring aided her? Was it Deimos himself reaching? And to help or to steal her away?
And when she’d relit the khaos flame, it’d awoken something in her. Had awoken the shadow. Melantha’s voice repeated in her mind, Kahlia of the Eternal Sky. She will wake now you have called upon her.
Oh, gods. It had to be true. And it was all her fault.
Kahlia tilted her head in pity and said, “When you fell from the sky, the spring knew what it was doing. It is smarter than it lets off. It knew this vessel would be strong enough to hold the magic since no Kenna has ever contained the khaos flame without burning alive. Every time it placed your soul inside a Kenna body, once you passed your trial you would perish. And what better place to put it than a fallen star, an angel at the beginning of its life as I once was. As you were.”
Emmery’s jaw fell slack. “What do you mean … angel? I’m Kenna. I don’t know—”
“Haven’t you heard the old stories?” Kahlia blinked slowly. “The tale of Pellius’ angels.”
Emmery had heard bits of it beyond the gate. Pellius had two angels, two twin daughters to be exact, but only one was gifted with magic. At the end of their lives, the sister with the magic descended, and fell to the earth.
“You were one of them. Weren’t you?” Emmery whispered.
“As are you, my dear sister. Seems you were always obsessed with following me, even into another life.” Kahlia’s smile brightened, her sharp teeth ready to bite.
“Life is a cycle. You and I were born a star, but we were destined to burn out. Since Pellius had grown fond of us, he moulded our forms into angels.”
How was that possible? How could a body be manipulated so? But Emmery supposed Pellius was a god and held all life at his fingertips.
Kahlia continued, “Our bodies remembered our celestial forms. Clung to it. But when we reached the end of our lives, I refused to become his star once more. I wanted freedom. So I fell. And you, dear sister, followed.” She tsked under her breath.
“Such a shame what happened to you. Seems when your demise came, Father retrieved a part of you and trapped you in the sky, a husk of a star, while your soul remained here. I still do not know how you fell again. How you escaped.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“And while this body of yours is new, your soul has lived on for centuries, held within the spring and placed within others. Since the beginning of time. Your soul has been reborn over and over again and forever will be. We are eternal.”
“You’re insane!” Emmery snapped. “I—I would remember having another life. I would remember if I was Pellius’s daughter or any of the utter nonsense you spewed!”
“Ah, it seems Deimos has been carefully plucking and manicuring each strand of memories from your soul,” Thellonius mused with the grin of a jackal. “I knew he warped that mind of yours when he brought you back, but I didn’t know it was so severe. That he left you a shell.”
She couldn’t breathe as that one key part repeated in her head. Those words a fist to the chest. A mallet to her head. A kick to her heart.
At Emmery’s distraught expression, Kahlia clasped her hands together and smiled.
“Who do you think sent you back beyond the gate? And inevitably away from here and us. We all believed you were dead, dearest. And he threw you back into that sad, pathetic life, that stagnant pond where it seemed you withered away again. I suppose he merely needed to wait until you inevitably wandered your way back to him.”
The floor dropped out under Emmery, and she fell, plummeting to the ground. She couldn’t get words out. Couldn’t manage a single thought.
Kahlia saw this in her. “The Oracle did not tell you.”
Images of Deimos’s study flashed through Emmery’s mind. The cruelty and death and the utterly disgusting state of the Hollow. The sin and demons. The blood drained from her face, leaving her cold and trembling. “It’s not possible. Deimos is cruel,” she said.
Kahlia lowered her voice. “Nyssa,” she purred and skimmed a finger along Emmery’s cheek. “You remember nothing of Deimos’s cruelty.”
Nyssa. That name sliced through her and cut away everything she’d ever known. Everything she was. Because that was the name used in The Nameless Book. Nyssa and Evryn.
“My darling sister, let me make this abundantly clear to you.” She licked her lips and hooded her eyes.
“When night falls, I will take your body since your form is the only one that can hold the khaos flame at its true force. I will reclaim my magic. And you will cease to exist. Your soul will be void, never to live again. And you will all pay for what you have done.”
The world spun and she couldn’t hold on.
Kahlia was her sister. She was an angel and Pellius’s daughter. She’d been trapped in the sky, her soul contained here, and each time she was brought back, her body burned away until she fell again and reclaimed her soul. And Kahlia's shadow now lived within her.
It was fucking insane.
“You’re too soft. You always have been, Nyssa,” Kahlia said. “It's time this land was purified of this filth. We need to begin again and extinguish the Hollow once and for all, so we can rid this land of its putrescence. Of Deimos’s will. This is my life’s task. It will be done, so it shall be.”
“The Hollow aren’t filth!” Vesper barked. His voice broke Emmery out of her stunned racing thoughts.
Kahlia spun on Vesper, her eyes narrowed.
Unflinching, he stared as his twin’s mouth twisted into a vile, ruthless grimace.
“Did you not enjoy the rot? It was intended to be a quick sweep. A means to an end for all of you. Hollow or Fallen, it does not matter. You will all burn. You will all bleed. You all have that rancid human blood anyway.”
“You’re disgusting,” Vesper seethed, his jaw clenched. “And give me my sister back you fucker!”
“You can have her corpse when I’m done with her,” Kahlia replied in an eerily melodic voice.
“We won’t let you do this!” Emmery choked out. “The prophecy says once I find my tethered and the six, this will all be over.” She willed all her strength into her words. “I will not burn the whole fucking world. And I won’t let you either!”
In the laziest gesture Emmery had ever seen, Thellonius waved his hand.
Creatures emerged from the adjoining room, and though Emmery didn’t recognize the people in their grasps, Vesper did by the way his breath snagged and jaw hardened, especially as he spotted a woman with reddish-purple hair caked in blood.
Then Briar and Callias’s limp forms were tossed to the floor.
Fear sliced into Emmery’s heart as she caught the wound on Briar’s throat, and her sallow, lifeless complexion.
And her skin, too, was burned. A sheen of sweat glazed Callias’ face and neck, his tanned flesh burned too.
Several others in various states of disarray were dumped on the floor, all bound.
Emmery quickly counted seven captives, excluding Vesper. She readied to roast every single one of these creatures when she got her hands on them.
Kahlia said, “Once we are done with you, we will kill every last one of your friends, and vanquish their souls. This prophecy will never repeat. This is the end.” She stepped back from Emmery and released a tired sigh.
“You see, in this world there must always be balance. So your equal, your match, the opposite of your power, was created each time your soul was revived. It’s the only force that can bring you to your knees.
” Sheer amusement painted her face. “And it just so happens we have it.”
Emmery could do this. She could free them. And though she’d been waiting, she couldn’t anymore. She felt for the marks, pressed the barrier, her flame flared, burned, cracked, the tiniest fissure appeared—
The cadence of footsteps halted her. But not just any footsteps.
They were ones she knew like her own, ones she’d heard in her dreams, the smooth, steady cadence echoed in her heart, and flickered that sunlight inside her.
Her ears perked and her heart slowed. She hoped and prayed she was so so godsdamned wrong.
Head lowered, he ascended two steps and stopped beside Thellonius.
And it was Destonne who stood at his father’s side.