Chapter 72
Emmerick
Upon Lark and Dritan’s kiss, in the blink of an eye, they were swept away. No Moon-wielder held them back from waking as Ryn once had done to me.
Something hard hit my boot. A golden stone. My stomach dropped—the memorandum lay at my feet. It had not travelled with them; instead, its etched sun symbol stared up, taunting me.
With vehemence, the cave walls rumbled again. Brimstone filled the air as I bent to retrieve my last hope of returning to the living world again.
There would be no laughter at a dinner table.
No mornings spent tangled up with the woman I loved.
My skin, laden with burns from the smoldering rock, had blisters. Any moment, a chunk of the cave would take me down, or the plateau would split beneath my feet.
Despite the grave circumstances, despite my decaying surroundings, I found solace in knowing Dritan and Lark made it out.
My anger dissipated, with it my guilt.
I’d kept some promises.
Maybe this was my penance for all I’d done wrong.
Squeezing the stone in my burned palm, I closed my eyes, wondering if this was how Firose had felt as the amphitheater fell around her. A fate accepted.
I knelt, ready.
“Elsedora… forgive me,” I whispered into the roar of eroding rock.
The air stilled, and all quieted. Bright light leaked through my lids, and when I dared open them, I was kneeling in the grass by the stone bench where Elsedora used to sit and spread seed for the birds at Lamoreaux.
In her place, a light-haired woman with familiar hazel eyes rocked a bundle of soft linens—a tussle of red hair peeked out, and a babe cooed.
“Hello?” I tried to call to her.
But the woman could not see me, and the moment faded.
Night fell. Time unraveled in a dizzying manner. The swaddled babe grew into a spritely child, who roamed the orchard on a dull, flea-bitten pony. Her parents shook their heads at the door each time she ran off, but their smiles didn’t convey any ire.
Another turn of night, and she sprinted on knobby knees with a card in hand toward the stables, only to return with a red nose and tear-stained cheeks. Fen, lacking the scar that now ran across his face, patted her on the back and ushered her inside.
Another turn of day, and she threw daggers at plums hanging ripe from the branches of trees, never missing.
After losing sight of her, I pocketed the waking stone, and walked to the front of the estate. I sought more moments of her youth, so I could puzzle together all the pieces of her she’d thought she’d buried. All the parts that built the one person I could not live without.
The estate looked much the same, only the placement of the back veranda lay offset slightly. She’d rebuilt it from memory alone.
Night fell again, and torches approached. Men overtook the gardens—an army was upon them. They burned trees, they broke windows, they tore the estate apart. I squinted through the smoke, heart bleeding for the girl inside being thrust into an Egress, leaving it all behind.
Then I saw her—not the child, or heartsick girl, but the version I knew, standing before the flames. She faced away from me, toward the estate as it burned.
“El,” I whispered.
She spun on her heels.
She could hear me.
Her face slackened, arms hanging at her sides. “Puppy,” she answered, and a smile tugged up the corners of her mouth despite the sob that followed.
In only a few strides, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her, relieved to find I could hold her.
But if she was in here—able to see me in this place between life and death...
My chest tightened as I let her tears soak my ash-covered tunic. “What happened?” I whispered into her hair.
“I hit my head… I might be dying. What an embarrassing way for an immortal to go,” she whimpered.
I squeezed her tighter. “They’ll heal you,” I reassured her and myself as her fingers dug into my tunic.
“How are you here?” She clung to me; her presence shattered my ability to hold back my tears—half elated to see her and fully heartbroken that we’d soon part again.
“I’m under the Sethe curse. I don’t know if I’ll be coming home. I’m so sorry, Elsedora.”
“You won’t need to be sorry.” She reeled back, meeting my gaze with fiery persistence. “Because you are coming home.”
I shook my head and soothed, “When Lark and Dritan woke, they left the stone behind. They’re safe.”
Offering her a weak smile, I held her face between my palms—my burns were gone, the remnants of Caym’s treachery gone with them. Night turned to day, and the ruins of Lamoreaux smoldered behind her.
She would find peace without me. She had to.
My thumbs rubbed away her tears.
“Then, give it to me,” she demanded, hands roaming to my breeches pockets to retrieve it herself. “It worked once.”
My brows rose as I took in this last moment with her—her cheeks flushed with determination. My beautiful wildflower, too stubborn to be tamed.
“What worked?” I asked, goading the truth from her.
“I kissed you before you woke, too,” she blurted out, palming the stone. “You don’t get to raise a white flag now—not when we are so close to having everything we’ve dreamed of.”
I chuckled, reveling in those words.
If it was the last thing spoken to me, I’d hold on to it like a precious gift. I’d stay here in these orchards where her sentiments would echo for an eternity of sleep or whatever came next for me.
“I am not surprised…” I answered. “There is no one truer to my heart, Elsedora. But the stone still may not work for us. If it doesn’t, then you need to go back without me.”
She shot me a smug smirk, the same one that she’d graced me with so many times, making my cheeks heat through that mirror.
“Well… there is a simple way to find out.”
She brought the stone to her lips, then pulled me forward by my tunic.
And I melted into her kiss.