I take it he found you?Margo’s reply came almost instantly, a heart picto blinking at the end.
Then Ursula’s message followed, almost overlapping it.I bet you’re busy.
Emmaline barely had time to frown before another picto flashed on the screen. It was a troll doing something… she tilted her head, squinting…
“Oh.” Her eyes widened as the pieces clicked into place. “Well, that is just troubling, Ursula.”
Despite herself, her lips twitched, the smallest curve of a smile breaking through the growing despair.
And the ice in her chest melted just a fraction.
Shaking her head, she pulled up her signature sun picto in response before closing the speak-easy.
Her friends—Goddess, she was grateful for them.
Even if she wasn’t ready to see them, the simple reminder that they were there, that they were still her people, was enough to make her breathing come a little easier. It was enough to remind her that, despite everything, she wasn’t alone.
Emmaline poured herself a cup of tea, her movements slow and mechanical. The rich scent of silverleaf and moon fennel wafted into the air, wrapping around her like a favorite blanket. With unsteady hands, she lifted the cup and made her way onto the small balcony that overlooked the towering trees to the west of the Vale. The ancient canopy stretched endlessly before her, mist clinging to the upper boughs like a treasured secret, the midday light filtering through in soft, golden beams.
A single tear welled in her eye before slipping free, trailing down her cheek.
A lump formed in her throat, and her grip tightened around the cup.
“Please,” she whispered. The words felt fragile, nearly lost to the June breeze.
“Show me the path forward, Goddess.” She exhaled, closing her eyes.
“I know I don’t deserve it, but please…” Her chin tilted down to her tea, and she watched as the steam rose in delicate spirals. “I know it was my own foolish delusions and poor decisions that got me here.”
She looked out into the forest beyond as if it might hold some answer to her pain. “But please… show me how to fix this. None of this is his fault.”
Only silence answered.
Her fingers clenched the ceramic mug. Maybe there was no fixing it. Maybe she should just turn herself in to the Patrol. End it. The thought of seeing Deyric again at the castle made her insides wrench with a deep, unbearable pull toward him that shouldn’t exist anymore.
Why?Why did her heart still yearn for him like this if she’d broken the bond?
A fresh wave of nausea surged, the same sickness that gripped her every time her traitorous mind flashed to his emerald eyes, to the raw betrayal in them when she’d said it a final time.
Her throat burned, bile rising, but she forced it down. And then—
Caelith.
The thought of seeing his smug face this week, of standing beside him at the Solstice Ball—fear surged. But then, just as quickly, it shifted. Darkened.
“He takes what he wants.” The fright curdled into something else, something venomous. “No thought of anyone else.”
The memory came unbidden of his fingers plucking the strand of Deyric’s hair from her shoulder and the way he had smirked as if claiming some small victory.
Had he simply been jealous? Annoyed that her attention, herfixationas Lady Isolde had called it, wasn’t entirely on him anymore? Or had it been something worse? Had he wanted to destroy something else important to Deyric? Another way to wound him, to own him after what he had done to his sister?
Her stomach churned. Then, before she even registered the movement, she threw the cup.
It soared off the balcony, tumbling toward the cobbled path below—
Shite.
She snapped a loop of magic after it, trying to catch it midair before it shattered, but she was too slow. A distant crack echoed up to her, the sound sharp and final.
