The Spark that Ignites: Shattered Soul Series, page 15
She gulped half the water before her stomach rolled. Without warning, Emmery leaned over, and black inky water spewed from her mouth, her body violently tightening and uncoiling. She groaned, waiting for another wave but it didn’t come.
Running a hand over the back of her mouth, she immediately felt better, but the canteen slipped from her fingers when she caught sight of her hand.
Gold. The shimmer encasing her skin was gold.
“Did I—?” she croaked, her voice rough like she’d snacked on gravel.
Vesper gave a nod. “You passed.”
She should be relieved but all she could focus on was the crackling fire, the shadows of nightfall hovering around the sheltering trees.
Ugh, if she never saw a forest again, it would be too soon.
“When did night fall?” she asked.
“About an hour ago. You’ve been unconscious for a while.” Black water trailed down his cheek, his wet, tangled hair plastering his forehead.
She ran her hand down her face. “What happened?”
“Well, you drank from the chalice”—Vesper thrust his hair back, his eyes full of discontent—“and then proceeded to fall into the spring.”
“Has that ... happened before?”
“First I’ve seen.” He rolled his eyes. “Most people sit or remain standing and go into a trance. I’ve never seen anyone stumble like that.”
Shame warmed her cheeks. “You didn’t tell me!”
“I told you four times, Emmery. Four times. Apparently, you were too busy chugging the water to hear me.” He tugged at his wet collar. “Were you listening at all?”
“I—” But she really hadn't been. The ringing in her ears drowned everything. “No. Sorry.”
He patted her shoulder. “You’re so welcome for saving your life. Again, I may add.”
Emmery groaned, pressing her palms into her eyes. Muttering about ungratefulness, Vesper stood and rubbed his arm. He peeled off his wet tunic and rang it out beside the fire, before hanging it with his leather armour on a nearby branch.
Emmery yanked at her own damp clothes and grimaced. Her head swivelled the clearing, but the spring was nowhere in sight. He must have carried her here.
Vesper rotated his shoulder and winced but when Emmery tried to apologize, he shrugged it off. The bruising was faded and there didn’t appear to be any swelling, at least from what she could see in the dark.
Aera emerged from the bush, a mouse clamped in her jaw. She bit down hard, and bones crunched beneath her fangs.
“Disgusting,” Vesper muttered. Aera shot him a menacing look and growled low in her throat. He put up his hands, scooting backward.
Her white coat glowed in the moonlight as she devoured the mouse. It was easy to look away but impossible to drown out the slurping.
After changing into dry clothes, Emmery lounged on her bedroll and examined the brilliant gold wrapping her skin. The golden fragments followed each wiggle of her fingers; her heartbeat tuned with the magic pounding in her blood. Like it was destined to be there. Her magic swelled and the beast roared, straining against her flesh and growing stronger. More dangerous. Emmery swallowed her panic.
This should be a time for celebration. She’d done it. All the things she ever dreamed of. She crossed the gate, passed the trial for her magic, and met Aera. Emmery kissed the fox’s head as she curled under her arm.
Yet, even after all these years, the endless black hole in Emmery’s chest refused to close.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re safe,” the phantom murmured. “You’re alright.”
Emmery lay curled up on the ground, arms gripping her middle—holding her together. Her heart slogged with each erratic beat, chest too tight for air. Pressing her palms into her eyes, she banished the images. The clammy hands tearing her clothes, weight forced atop her, hands pinned and desperate cries no one heard or rather cared—
Choking back the bile burning her throat, she told herself she was alright. She was safe now. It was a dream. Just a dream.
She strung together the vilest curses she could conjure.
“Foul words coming from such a lovely mouth,” the phantom mused, voice soft. His lilting speech was like a song long forgotten only to hear the opening note once again. It wrenched something loose in her chest. He crouched beside her.
Emmery examined her torn skirts and red fingerprints already bruising into her thighs. She yanked the fabric over the evidence. “How much did you see?” she asked.
“Enough to want blood on my hands tonight.” His low, menacing tone echoed from far away but his green eyes softened. “I’m sorry I cut it too close.”
She blinked the tears rimming her eyes away. “You couldn’t have known. But thank you.”
And how had she gotten to this place? One moment she’d been on the floor, squeezing her eyes shut, and the next she was here. Wherever here was.
He rubbed small circles on her back. “Are you alright?”
Emmery nodded, releasing a heavy breath. The strange figure made of mist seemed so real, a distinctly familiar quality about him. His voice, cool scent, the way he spoke—
The lines of his face, vaguely visible, revealed a smirk on his lips. “You’re staring.”
“I just—” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. “I feel we’ve met before.”
“Oh really?” A smirk. “What makes you say that?”
Emmery squeezed her eyes shut. The nape of her neck tingled. It was like trying to remember a word lingering on the tip of her tongue. “I’m serious.”
“Don’t tease me.” But his eyes flared. “Do you—do you truly remember me?”
Scrunching her face, she said, “I think I do. Your voice or your eyes but—” she broke off, her cheeks burning as she picked out each fleck of green. “It’s mad but I can’t quite place it.”
The phantom gestured to the stars, darkness swaddling them, and the vast nothingness beyond. “Are you going to ask where we are?”
“I’ve had this dream before. I’ve ... been here before.”
He searched her face, his dark mist swirling. The spectre touched her cheek, his fingers like cold breath on her skin. “Do you remember my name?”
“So, we have met before.” Not a question but a statement. A confirmation that she wasn’t losing her mind. This dream was undoubtedly familiar and this man, this phantom, was too. “Do you remember mine?
“I could never forget it.” His eyes shut briefly, green lost in the mist. “Emmery.”
She grinned, her heart taking flight. “Say it again.”
He drew closer, speaking low into her ear. “Don’t get greedy.”
A giggle slipped free, as her eyes slid to his. “And your name?”
“You called me Shade.” He plopped himself beside her and leaned back on his elbows. “I still can’t remember. But it’s nice to pretend to be someone else for a little while. As long as it’s fine with you.”
“This is all a dream. You can do whatever you want.” But Shade seemed right.
Shade’s gaze flicked to hers. “I’m afraid this is more real than you think, love.”
Struck speechless after he casually called her ‘love’, Emmery didn’t have an answer. Since crossing the gate, it was apparent nothing was impossible, so this could be real. Her shaky hand slipped into his and their fingers laced. His eyes widened before fixing on the touch.
Somehow it was natural, like she’d done it a hundred times. She answered, “I have to admit, this is the most visceral dream I’ve ever had.”
Shade pulled his gaze from their tangled fingers back to her. “Something changed. You’re remembering me. Do you remember anything else?”
Emmery frowned, bearing down on that tingling at the nape of her neck. “It feels far away. Like I’m pulling an unravelling thread.”
But it had. Somehow, it had all changed.
“You feel ... different.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “What’s happened?”
There was only one explanation. One thing had changed, and the most significant to date. Even in the dream, the raw force pumped through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut, allowing her vestige to cloak her.
Emmery smiled, her heart taking flight—a bird soaring for the first time, the wind lifting it up to impossible heights until it forgot the ground was once its prison.
“Magic,” she breathed. “It’s magic.”
Part II
Spark
“She reflected my soul—a mirror I’d been afraid to gaze upon. And she saw every part of me and swaddled them in love, despite how fiercely I hid. It was our ember that banished the impenetrable darkness and devoured my fear. It seemed I was never afraid of death itself, but walking this world alone with only the memory of her spark.”
The Nameless Book
Chapter Nineteen
From the moment Emmery opened her eyes, her magic thundered inside her—a growling untamed beast stealing the air from her lungs. But as she rose and dressed, she convinced herself it would be fine.
There wasn’t time to deal with it.
So, she tamped it down as she always had, knowing they had places to be, and her worries could wait. They had to.
Vesper’s uncharacteristic quietness churned her stomach as they rode side by side on their steeds. All he told her, in a vague, cryptic way, was he needed to take her somewhere. He also hadn’t prepared her for the hundreds of stairs up to the temple, and by the time they reached the top, Emmery braced herself on her knees, her brow dripping sweat onto the tiled floor.
She panted, sucking the thin air in reedy breaths, but her heart stuttered as she took in the scenery. The sky, a heart stopping pastel, mirrored the lakes far in the distance and it was like the gods themselves had carved the snow-dusted mountains with deliberate hands. There was a quality about this view that bled magic, although it was hard to appreciate when she couldn’t breathe.
“It wouldn’t have killed you to warn me about the stairs,” she wheezed.
How had he not broken a sweat in those leather pants? Leather on this unusually hot autumn day.
Vesper chuckled, leaning casually against a pillar. The stonework could inspire the most callous man to speak in poetry, images of wings and stars, waterfalls and spring flowers carved into the pale limestone, nothing like the stark coldness of the House of Gods. The abandoned temple was spotless, untouched, and not a scuff in sight. Honestly, it was strange.
Vesper gave her a lazy smile. “I warned you it would be a long hike.”
He hadn’t been exaggerating. She lost count of the steps after hauling herself up fifty, and Vesper had to coax her with food like some mongrel. Aera had opted to ride on Emmery’s shoulder and now sniffed every corner of the temple floor.
“Yes, but you didn’t specify stairs.” Emmery dragged the back of her hand over her sweaty brow. “If you didn’t bring me here for a good reason, I might knock you off the edge.” Saying it would be a steep tumble would be an understatement.
“Hey now, don’t be hostile. This is important.”
Vesper pushed himself off the pillar, his heavy boots echoing as he strolled to the center of the temple to a smoothly carved onyx basin on a waist height pedestal. Inside was what Emmery could only describe as stardust, holding an ethereal shimmer that screamed of other worlds.
He reached a gloved hand inside, retrieved a fistful, and let it slip through his fingers. “Do you know what this is?”
Emmery shook her head, joining at his side.
“This is ash made from khaos flame.” When she reached for it, he warned, “Careful. If you hold it too long, it’ll burn you.”
Fisting her hand, Emmery retracted.
“This is where we once performed the cleansing,” he added. Vesper turned his attention to the vessel beside it made of white marble, shimmering like untouched, freshly-fallen snow—opposite in every way. Inside sat eerily still water, the same lifeless black as the Whispering Spring.
“What’s that?” Emmery skimmed her fingers along the surface. It was frozen solid, and the faintest tinge of red clouded the black. “Is that—” She swallowed the unease climbing her throat. “Is that blood in the water?”
“It’s the second part. Once babes are cleansed in the fire, they’re bathed in the waters of the Hollow,” he said. “Legend says it’s Deimos’s blood. He’s the God of Blood and Ice for a reason.”
From the tension in her chest and the lifeless state of the temple, there had to be more. “What happened?”
“The flame was snuffed out. One night it was there, the next morning gone. The same happened with the frozen waters. And we haven’t been able to relight the flame or thaw the ice since. It’s been almost a century.”
Her stomach twisted and Emmery exhaled a heavy breath. Was that what he meant when he said the gods abandoned them? “So, this is obviously bad,” she observed.
He smirked though there was no humour in it. “Obviously.”
“Because Kenna can’t be cleansed. So, they aren’t chosen or given the scars. And because they don’t have the scars, they aren’t beckoned for the trial to receive their magic.” Her gaze flicked to Vesper. “Am I missing anything?”
“That’s the gist. The extinction of our kind.” He eyed her wearily.
Unease stirred in her belly. “Why are we here?”
“Do you remember what I told you back over the gate? About the khaos flame being a rare gift.”
Emmery narrowed her eyes, taking a step back. “I do. But what’s—” She choked on the lump forming in her throat. Something was off. Why did he drag her here? “What’s going on?”
“We’ve—” He tugged a hand through his hair, cursing softly before he continued, “Well, we’ve been searching for almost a century, but no one has held that magic since the Goddess Kahlia ... Until you.”
Emmery’s heart slowed and each sound heightened around her—the whistling of the wind through the temple pillars, the erratic chirp of a far-off bird, and the scuff of her boots on the perfect temple floors. “What does this have to do with me?”
“We need you to relight the flame with your gift.” Vesper wove the words like chinks in armour, and while each link should have made it stronger, something was broken and it crumpled to pieces, rendering it useless. Because he had to be wrong.
As Emmery stared at him, trying to sift through what he was asking and find the bit of information she was missing, a stifling silence swelled between them. If she thought she couldn’t breathe moments ago, she was wrong. This fire in her veins was the last thing from a gift. He had to be joking. This was some sort of ... prank. It had to be.
Emmery’s jaw clenched, her teeth gnashing, as doubt and embarrassment sank in. “This isn’t funny. You’re making this up.”
“I’m not,” he pressed.
But Emmery wasn’t convinced. “So, what, I’m supposed to relight the fire? Shoot some sparks in there and call it a day? Is that it?” The words sounded ridiculous, and she barked a harsh laugh. “You don’t need me. I’m—I’m nobody.”
“You certainly aren’t nobody. And deep down, you know it too.” After catching the crazed look in her eyes, Vesper kept his voice tentative, soft. “We’ve been waiting for you. To save us. To relight the flame.”
This had to be some sort of mistake. Her cheeks reddened, her heart roaring, and the new magic in her blood sparked to life, the very khaos flame they spoke of striking out.
And it was angry.
What did he mean they’d been waiting for her? She was over a hundred years old and across that gate all this time—running and hiding because she was too weak to save herself. She’d done nothing with her life, and he was saying she’s some saviour?
What the fuck did that even mean?
The temple became too stuffy, and she tugged at the neck of her tunic.
“Look, I’ll do it, if that’s what you really want, but you have the wrong woman ...” She paused at the hesitation on his face. “What now?”
Vesper’s brows creased, his face drawn. “I wish it were that simple. There’s more. And it’s ... intense.”
It was unnerving to see him so serious. Emmery’s stomach sank as he fiddled with the strap on his glove again, seeming to ready himself for the next scrap of information, sure to be worse than the first.
“There’s a prophecy,” he said, slowly, eyes tracing her frame to gauge her reaction.
Worry slithered through her gut as the flames roared, and she squeezed her eyes trying to staunch them. “That’s—ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.” Anger rose and she spat, “This is nonsense. Why are you doing this to me?”
It couldn’t possibly be her. Could it? All she wanted was to be normal. To belong here and live a normal life. And now it was all being ripped away.
Vesper’s eyes widened, tracking the flames climbing her hands. “Take a few deep breaths. Your emotions are heightened from the magic joining your blood.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Emmery stood and paced, unable to contain it all. The lid she had clamped over her emotions was leaking steam, billowing out smoke, and she was boiling over.
“I just need to get this out. Will you listen?” She didn’t acknowledge him, and Vesper snapped his glove clasp. “You can take it or leave it, but I promised someone I would say it. That I would bring you here and set things in motion.” He sucked in a sharp breath, like it would give him strength. “An oracle named Zyphira visited me and told me about the prophecy, but all I remember is a flower and silver and gold. There was a line about burning and sparks igniting and it referenced the origin story of the gods. The Ballad of Beginnings.”
“Alright, but—” she argued, her cheeks hot, “how do you know the prophecy is about me?”
Vesper raised a brow. “Really?” He gestured to her hair and eyes. “Silver and gold.” Then her hands. “You have the khaos flame at your fingertips. It's pretty evident.”
“It could be anyone,” she muttered but she knew in her shrunken heart it wasn’t true. It seemed too convenient to be a coincidence. “What else do you remember?”
