Chapter 8
Emmerick
Fifteen years into the Sethe curse…
After propping the charmed mirror up on my writing desk, Elsedora sat in an armchair across from it. Her face lit up as she described the celebrations in full swing in the dining hall below. I wished I could have sat next to her at the table—witnessed her joy in person instead of secondhand.
“I didn’t dare tell Sybilla the child loathes the color pink now. The palace was decked in it when I arrived. Down to the color of the flower bouquets in the washrooms!”
The sound of her laughter sent a prickle down my spine. When her face dropped, I leaned closer to the pane, missing the levity in her demeanor.
“They’re telling her tonight,” she added. “About the curse on her father’s bloodline, Isolde’s prophecy, all of it.”
I grimaced. “Heavy news to deliver to a thirteen-year-old, no?”
“It was only a matter of time before she snuck into our heads and figured it all out on her own. The kids at school can’t ward their thoughts yet, and not a single one showed tonight.”
I frowned. “Her mother had similar struggles as a girl. Even though her magic remained a secret, she still felt ostracized.”
Elsedora’s lips pursed for a moment before she sighed out, “I wish she had someone like who you were to Syb growing up. At least one friend. The poor thing was subjected to speaking with me all night.”
“Talking to you isn’t so bad,” I placated, avoiding the comment about Sybilla and the reminder that I’d always longed to be more than just her friend.
Elsedora leveled me with a droll glare. “Such high praise.”
She wore a fitted emerald velvet dress and had pulled her typically wild auburn locks into a neat bun. The fabric hugged her shoulders, and the neckline plunged between her…
Ugh.
I shouldn’t notice her body that way. If she caught me, she’d turn my ears red with a lewd statement and be far too amused by it.
I tore my eyes upward—luckily, she was fixated on her bitten nails.
“You know I mean it. Why else would I choose you as my only confidante?” I pressed.
She scoffed. “I was your only choice.” El threw her legs over the armrest of the chair, getting comfortable. The slit of the dress put her long legs on display as the velvet pooled at her hips. To say I didn’t wonder how it would feel to slide my hand up her thigh would make me a liar.
“Fair enough. How are you faring this week?” I corrected my gaze from her legs, too.
Torturous woman had laid herself out like a model in a sultry painting.
Lust had no place between us. She wasn’t doing anything indecent, and I loathed myself for the attraction; it wasn’t proper.
When I met her gaze, she smirked. “I saw that. Do you want me to put on a private show for you?”
Yes, I almost answered.
Her hand trailed up her leg with painful slowness, pulling at the fabric, as it traveled toward her core.
My cheeks heated. I prayed for my humility, that my body, out there, didn’t react. The last two times I’d allowed myself physical connections with a friend had gone tragically. Elsedora had become the one solid thing I possessed—sullying that would make me a fool.
She was the most forward woman I’d ever met, knowing precisely how to distract me and guard her heart from my question.
“Stop trying to turn me to putty, Else. That doesn’t work on me,” I lied. “And I’m being serious. I worry about you.”
“Oh, it would work eventually, pet,” she cooed.
I would not blush twice. “If it is Lark’s birthday, then that means next week…”
I didn’t have to finish the sentence before El’s face turned steely and she said, “We don’t need to talk about that.” She waved her hand, but the sadness had already crept into her hazel eyes, dimming their usual shimmer.
Caym was quiet tonight. He hadn’t tried to claw at me or pull me into the shadows. It made me uneasy.
The weight of his fury pressed heavier upon me. My plight through thick, cloying amber fog to reach my parents’ or Elsedora’s voices grew harder. Each day felt like it may be the last.
Without their visits, he’d destroy me.
“We don’t need to, but do you want to talk about it?”
She sighed, righting herself and then pitching forward on her elbows.
“Maybe I should want to, puppy. The first few years were easy. You remember—I buried the pain in a bottle of liquor and an illicit affair with a bored married couple, or a traveling performer, or a barmaid, whatever seemed fun that year.”
I hummed in acknowledgment; I’d worried about her then, too. “What’s changed?”
Elsedora always had a penchant for stirring herself a tonic of trouble. Often in the wrong places at the wrong times, she rarely avoided debauchery. Hearing her downtrodden, second-guessing herself, caused my chest to ache.
“Maybe I’ve changed. Centuries have passed; the people I love have families of their own, duties of their own, paths onward. I once felt so firm in my ways. Lately, I’m feeling more untethered than usual.”
Her trusting me with the truth made my chest puff, honored to be the person she could lean on despite hating the frown that erased the dimples in her cheeks.
I’d sink to her level of teasing to win a smile.
I smirked. “Isn’t that the way you like things? Untethered? Admit it, you miss bedding the married couples and jugglers.”
She wiggled her fingers. “You’d be amazed by the dexterity and coordination a juggler must possess.”
“There she is,” I chuckled out.
She frowned again.
Source-damned wrong thing to say.
Though I couldn’t fully understand the inclination, I suspected her bedroom activities soothed the ache of loss. Even when she told me stories that had made my ears burn, emptiness lingered in her tone.
“I was teasing,” I eased out. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “I know, pet. I enjoy our talks because I don’t need to feign happiness if I don’t wish to with you.”
My throat tightened. If only I could take her hand—tend to the wounds no bed partner would heal. I’d once thought myself good, kind, nurturing. Could I even be that man anymore?
“I enjoy your visits, too. Greatly. But since I feel you desperately want to change the subject—it’s my parents’ anniversary tomorrow. You know what to do.”
That earned me a weak smile. “Two dozen white roses. Chocolates from Perdelia’s. Angeline will make me stay for dinner, which I will happily agree to because that woman works magic on a plate.”
“That she does. I miss that—home-cooked meals.” I grinned. “Thank you for looking in on them.”
Her brow quirked. “How do you know it isn’t self-serving? I need a married couple to do deviant things with next week.”
I balked, knowing full well she was trying to get a rise out of me. “Elsedora, seducing my parents would be an unforgivable offense.”
She tapped her chin. “Considering that Angeline reminds me eerily of my mother, I think I’ll pass. Too scandalous even for me. I’ll simply enjoy their company platonically.”
I chuckled.
After El had discovered the enchanted mirror, Krait had deemed the object useless. It was not a relic of Isolde, so it’d come back into El’s possession. She’d told me once that the way my mother’s face had lit up the first time she’d spoken with me made every tomb that she’d scoured worthwhile.
I worried about my parents growing older. Still, I remained grateful to El that I wouldn’t need to say goodbye to them by looking at their graves. If I ever woke from the Sethe curse—no one had before.
My throat ached.
“Are you afraid of what will happen in another ten years?” I asked. “What if the Sethe curse isn’t enough to contain Caym? He could grow stronger.”
He already had.
And I’d missed so much. Asterie and Fen had married, Sybilla had become a mother, the realms had reintroduced education systems for Source magic, most of the Corridors were prospering. The dreams I’d once discussed with a young fair-haired Princess upon the Luz Palace walls had come to fruition.
He could destroy it all so easily.
Elsedora scoffed. “No, of course not.”
She was making light of it for my benefit. The most likely outcome ended with me trapped with the Origin of Death in this void for eternity.
It may not take another ten years for my mind to be lost to the Death Origin anyway… I didn’t voice those concerns. It did her no good to worry about me or rush her search.
“Are you afraid, Emmerick?” She rarely used my name—it’s how I knew her question was sincere.
“Always.”
“What are you afraid of?”
I sighed, meeting her gaze. “I fear that even if I do wake up, I won’t find the man I used to be. Most days my joyful moments evade me. The memories keep getting overrun with whatever treachery Caym feeds me. Sometimes I wish you and Krait had just killed me when you had the chance.”
Only Elsedora’s presence sparked my will to keep fighting; these quiet nights with her at my bedside gave me a source of joy. The way she held my stare, lips parted, seemed almost full of longing.
She sat up straighter. “I would never have. You are far too pretty to kill.”
Again, with the distractions. “We’re having a serious conversation now, Else.”
She took a deep breath. “Fine. I understand you. It should have been me who died in the amphitheater that day. I’ve tried to find my way back to myself ever since, but it’s been an uphill battle.”
“You need to stop blaming yourself. I see what you’re doing.”
She shrugged. “If I hadn’t climbed up the arena wall, if I hadn’t distracted Ryn, then I may still have my Source Match. I have no one else to blame.”
I shook my head and reached out toward the barrier between us. “That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” she snapped back, and my heart sank as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
“Elsedora…” How could I make her see that she didn’t need to hide from me?
“I’m fine, puppy. It is always a hard week. I can’t sit here and complain to you about the things I’ve lost.”
“I enjoy hearing you, though,” I said. “I’ve never asked you… how did you know you’d found your Source Match in Ryn?”
When Firose’s magic had first called to mine, I’d just known. Walking from the wreckage of the amphitheater without her had broken something fundamental within me, even if it hadn’t been love—it had been too new for that.
“I didn’t know I possessed Source magic, so I thought it was impossible. But when he crumbled, a part of me did too—the magic within me writhed,” she admitted. “I didn’t know until I lost him.”
Tears welled, clouding her bewitching hazel irises. I’d wanted her to open up, to talk to me, but now I wished only to hold her—the one thing I couldn’t do.
“I wish I could embrace you,” I said. “And if I ever get out of here, I promise you will never have a moment of peace during this week every year.”
And every other week.
So much for not blushing again—but I refused to let her go on thinking she was unworthy of care.
Losing her parents, her Source Match, her sense of self… she shouldn’t bear it all alone. I’d wear her pain for her if I could.
A weak smile spread across her beautiful face as she said, “I will hold you to that someday.”
“Ah… the redhead. Still mourning her lover?” The Death Origin’s hiss grated on me.
Pulled back to the depths of his torture, I growled. If he touched a hair on her head, he’d pay. He had taken enough from her.
Caym crept out of the cave’s shadows. The viscous molten red veins in the black rock glowed brighter, burning hotter. We always ended up here—in this lair of his mind’s making.
He appeared less and less human with each passing year. His skin had paled, his blonde hair had grayed, and his sharp crooked nose had caved in, exposing the bone beneath tattered flesh. Long claws grew from his fingertips.
The unnerving predatory glint in Death’s murky green stare had stayed intact.
More monster than man, he meant to intimidate.
“Have I hit a nerve, puppy?” The way Caym used El’s nickname caused my back to stiffen. My fists clenched, ready to strike.
“Don’t speak of her!” I barked. Of all the horrid things he’d shown me, imagining her at his mercy scared me the most.
“I’ll do more than speak of her…” His tone made bile rise in my throat. “I’ll snuff the life right out of her.”
When he closed his clawed fist, my boots scraped against the rough rock as I launched forward. Before I could reach him, I fell through dark amber smoke.
That fucking coward never let me get in a single hit.