“I can hardly blame her.” Things were horrible here, and it felt like they would be always.
“If my mother thinks she can keep my children from Malovia, well, she needs to think again. This is their home. They need to grow up here.”
Arthur coughed into his hand and added, “I think you need them, too.”
Seeing Kalina and Kazim would bring a bit of light back into my world again. A dim light, but one that would feel like the sun, compared to the blackness I was shrouded in.
“How does it feel?” Arthur asked quietly.
He didn’t have to ask that question, because he knew. “It feels pointless,” I admitted.
Arthur took a breath to respond, but I cut him off. “Can you honestly tell me it gets better after this?”
“No. The pain doesn’t go away. You just get used to it.”
Silence stretched between us. I didn’t know why, but words started pouring out of me, because I felt like Arthur was the only one who’d be able to understand.
“I’m not like Finlay. I can’t move on now that Emma’s dead,” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to find someone else to love like he did.”
“Nor I,” Arthur admitted heavily. “He’s attempted to convince me otherwise, but as far as I see it, that road’s long ended for me.”
Terror flooded through me at the long expanse of life that I still had ahead of me. I couldn’t live like Finlay, choosing to love another woman after I’d lost the only one who’d meant anything to me, and I couldn’t live like Arthur, a lonely bachelor for the rest of my existence while I lingered on like a ghost, waiting for death to claim me.
Both options were forbidden to me. I wouldn’t take them. There had to be an alternative. If Emma was right, and wetrulyhad the power to choose our own fate, I needed to prove it to myself now.
I chose Emma. I wanted her back, and damn the gods, death couldn’t have her. She was my destiny, and I would not live out the rest of my years without her.
“Tell me there’s a way out of this,” I pleaded.
Arthur said nothing. Tygrys let out alarmed mews. He made circles in the air, before he yanked at Arthur’s tie as if to tell him something urgent.
“What is it?” Arthur asked. Tygrys hovered to a bookshelf, then pulled at the spine of a large tome. Tygrys used telepathy to hover the dusty old book to the desk before Arthur, where he dropped it before us. The spine spread out to an illustrated page of a man kneeling before a beautiful woman. The very book appeared to be hundreds of years old.
Arthur stared at the book, then shook his head. “Malyludwyand their photographic memories.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” I asked.
Arthur’s gaze was mingled with indecision. He bounced nervously at my side, and said, “Ethan… there may be something we can try.”
Something warm and pleasing flowed through my veins. It abated my grief, giving me a spark that felt nearly like hunger, or perhaps, the satisfaction of that need. I’d lost it completely, so I wasn’t sure what it was, until the beloved feeling settled in my heart again…
Hope.
I pounced on Arthur. I bunched my hands in his sweater vest, shaking him roughly. “You’re telling me there’s a chance we can bring her back?!”
“A fool’s hope,” Arthur rasped. “Nothing more.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I growled.
“Because— because I didn’t want you to go through the same pain I did!” Arthur admitted gravely. “I didn’t want to give up after Vara died, and it consumed me to the point of madness. I told Emma about this, but never mentioned it to you. The ceremony didn’t work for Vara… and if it doesn’t work in Emma’s case, then it’s going to make her death all that harder to accept.”
“I willneveraccept this,” I raged. “What do you know?”
Arthur paused. “It’s just a children’s story. But if it holds any weight… there might be a way to reverse this.”
I slowly let him loose. Arthur took a step back as he asked, “Have you been told the romance of Evanam and his mate Oriana Faire?”
I knew the tale. Hadn’t thought about it in years. I couldn’t recall how it went. “I have. What must I do?”
