CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
EMMERY
The blinding white fire, monsters shrieking, bodies piling up, and black blood spraying blurred over Destonne’s shoulder. Emmery shoved all the anarchy and death away, and there was only them.
Her and Dez against the world.
His words echoed in her head, battering her. I think the thorns broke me down and remade me. Tore away my insides and scraped me raw. They left me this empty, soulless thing.
But Dez had never been soulless. He’d never been evil or empty or cruel or any of those lies people spewed about him. He was her greatest friend and her future.
He would have been everything for her. Would have greeted her every morning with knee-weakening kisses and relentless teasing.
He would have given her that family she dreamed of.
Would have spoiled and loved her and kept his promise to see her through this prophecy.
And he never would have turned away from her.
As his thorns crackled under the force of her flame and she targeted the prison of parasitic vines, she wept.
For so long he’d endured this world—this agony—alone, and though he’d hardened himself against its cruelty, he'd let her see his softness. Let her hold it. And now that she’d felt life with his touch, with his hand and his heart, she couldn’t face it without him.
She cried for all the things she couldn’t have. All the things she never would. That they never would. It was so fucking unfair.
Dez clenched his teeth through his cries, though the sound chipped away at her soul, little by little. He begged her not to stop. He begged and pleaded and said her name over and over and it embedded into her memory.
This was his choice. Done by her hand.
And she would forever have to live with it.
The light dwindled in his eyes, and his body that had once been all her strength slumped, yet he clung to her like she was the only thing that mattered.
As Dez’s knees cracked on the stone, she caught him, his body impossibly heavy. Helplessly, she watched his eyes shutter, watched him fade, his breathing shallow and strained. The last of his thorns turned to ash, and he fell quiet.
Emmery sank to the ground with him and rested her hand on his chest. She memorized his stubborn pulse like a lifeline, searing it into her skin, bones, and blood. As if she could tie a string to both their hearts and keep him.
However, Death wouldn’t wait.
In a torrent of silver, she thrust every ounce of her magic into him.
Like a miracle, her threads began to mend the holes in his chest. She numbed herself to the pain, desperately pulled the pieces of his broken body back together, and threw both reservoirs of their magic into this one act, though it feasted on their vestiges.
She gave him everything. Because if her magic couldn’t save him, what was the point of anything?
Nothing mattered if he wasn’t here with her.
But his heart was too broken, and despite each valiant pump, it slowed. With each second, he slipped away, little by little.
“Dez—d-don’t,” she cried. All her other words, everything she wanted to say, lodged in her throat.
As if he needed to see her one last time, his eyes peeled open.
Emmery’s heartbeat slowed, now a dull thud, thud, thud in her ears, knocking against her brain. Her peripherals blurred and she blinked in agonized disbelief, but there the truth remained, hidden all this time.
Now that the thorns were gone, it seemed the black veil of compulsion had lifted and—
A deep, guttural sob tore itself free from the far recesses of her soul. Her world swam and she couldn’t tell what was up or down or right or wrong. All she could do was bow over his body, like she could shield him from what was coming. She braced her forehead against his as her world splintered.
He reached for her cheek, to wipe a tear away, but his limp hand fell back to his chest and clutched it, like he could reach inside that scorched cavity and fix himself for her. But not even her magic could mend him.
His voice rang through her head, the reality of never hearing it again decimating her. You want my heart? It’s hardly worth it for this sad, withered thing, but it’s already yours.
It was all she wanted. For him to stay. She would do anything, absolutely anything, to have one more moment with him. To hear him laugh, or say her name, or even look at her. But his eyelids fluttered closed.
Dez’s chest stuttered and both of their vestiges drained to nothing. Shadows devoured his late summer sunshine, snuffing out his warmth, and the gaping hole in her chest prevailed, cold and hollow. And though with Dez she revelled in darkness, without him, it was terrifying and empty and alone.
Then his vestige flickered out like the flame in her heart—the one he’d ignited.
Agony like none she’d ever known impaled her soul. Lightning in her veins, a vice around her heart, an axe to her chest. The pain wrenched her apart, threatened to rend her limb from limb. Her back bowed, neck strained, and her tendons leapt against her flesh.
Someone was screaming, almost far off in the distance. But the raw, bloody tears in her throat told her it was her. She screamed and screamed and screamed—
Until something inside her cracked with permanence.
Their bonds severed. Tore her in two. Left her tattered and bloody, once more a broken half.
Then she couldn’t feel him. She scrambled for any sign of him, reached for him, searched for anything at all, but … she couldn’t touch his sunlight. Couldn’t sense any part of him. Only the silence of death remained.
And the absence of him was deafening.
“Dez…” she croaked, her voice depleted.
He didn't answer.
Crumpled on the floor, she cradled his head in her lap.
His face slackened in that boyish way she adored, when all the lines softened and he was at peace.
She combed her hand through his hair and caught one of his curls around her finger.
She tried to imprint the feel of it into her memory. Tried to hold onto any part of him.
The thorns were gone, but so was he.
And he wasn’t coming back.
As she gazed at his still face, she clung to one truth. An unwavering truth beyond the prophecy, this world, their bond and their love.
A truth that could have changed everything.
But now, it was too late.
Destonne’s eyes were green.