Page 171 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

She could barely get a reaction out when Darcy told her he didn’t know what would happen to Roremar now, but the most likely guess was that he’d be executed.

How could he have done this?

It was the question she continued to ask herself, disbelief scrambling her thoughts. Was she in denial? Was personal investment making the facts seem illogical when she’d found him at the scene with evidence? Her stomach churned as her thoughts turned murkier.

“I don’t know,” she whispered to Myrella, holding onto her tighter.

Myrella’s fingers tangled in the duvet, the pale yellow and white pattern too bright for this day. “Nico didn’t deserve this. I know I didn’t know him long, and Fates, I was so difficult about it.” Regret fractured those words. She took a rattling breath. “But I know he deserved the entire world.”

Emmeline’s chest pinched. Bright yellow flowers—Nico’s effort to win her over—sat all around Myrella’s dormitory. On the table beside the bed Emmeline was on now, tucked away in a small alcove. On the dresser beside the door. On the windowsill.

They’d draped grey scarves over the mystlights to dim them for mourning, but it was only a useless symbol. It didn’t dull any of the hurt.

“He wanted to see it, you know,” Myrella said. She reached for one of Nico’s letters she’d kept in her nightstand, now stained with tears. This one was from shortly after they first met—one of the ones he never sent until after Alvan. “He said maybe once his siblings were grown, he’d take a year and explore Gallantia. Neither of us have ever been to the continent, and I was thinking—if things went well—I’d go with him.” Her lips quivered. “I never thought this would be how that dream crumbled.”

“I’m so sorry, Myrella,” Emmeline said for the hundredth time today. She’d been the one to tell her what happened. It had only felt right on a day that was so wrong. She’d repeated that apology countless times.

Her sorrow meant nothing, but what else could she say?

Myrella’s mourning eclipsed the world, each sob feeling to Emmeline like it would cleave the realm apart. Her agony reached into Emmeline’s own chest and ripped a thread right out, seeping across the entire Academy. It was like she’d become entirely unwound, losing a vital piece of herself.

Not again, not again.

Words stuck in Emmeline’s throat, the memory of Roremar’s shaking body and trembling voice echoing through her. Her magic pulsed in her chest, as lost and confused as she was.

Myrella leaned back against her pillows, dragging a finger over a loose thread in her bedding. Her hair was limp around her frame as she traced the ink on Nico’s letter. A small hiccup bubbling out of her.

“I think he loved me. He never said so, but I saw it in his eyes. Felt it in his words. I think he didn’t want to say it because it was too quick and he didn’t want me to be afraid.” Another hiccup. She dragged the back of her hand beneath her eyes. “I wish he had.”

“Don’t regret anything.” Emmeline shifted, pulling Myrella to face her and swiping her thumbs across her cheeks. “Don’t regret the short time you had with him. Cherish it and remember him always, but don’t ruin it by thinking of what you could have done differently.”

Myrella nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks with each blink. “And to think he told me that first night that we couldn’t be together. That he was leaving.” Her voice broke. “I never thought he meant like this.”

“Neither did he.”

“If Roremar really did this, I hate him, Emmeline. I’m sorry to you, but I do.” Her voice was sharp as daggers, fingers curling around the paper in her hand so sharply, Emmeline thought she’d shred it.

The vow was a knife in Emmeline’s gut. She didn’t know what to do with it other than let herself bleed around the edge.

“I know” was all she could say.

But Roremar loved his brother. He devoted his entire life to protecting his siblings, providing for them and ensuring they each had the opportunity to achieve anything they dared to dream. Fates, the entire reason he hadn’t let Nico help him care for the family was because he wanted more for him.

When she held Myrella, though—looked into those wide eyes and wiped away heartbroken tears—when she remembered how Nico’s blood stuck beneath her boots, she couldn’t deny the facts.

She just wished she could make sense of them.

She sat with Myrella for hours, tucked into the piles of colorful pillows on her bed until the sun was setting, the sky outside streaked with pink and orange that felt too beautiful for this day.

“You should go,” Myrella finally croaked.

“Are you sure?” Emmeline sat up, looking for any hint of a lie.

Myrella nodded, exhaustion lining her body. “Falliare excused me from the opening ceremonies of the Revels tonight, but I know he didn’t extend that to everyone.”

“Not to be rude, but I don’t care about that. I’d rather stay here if you need me.”

Myrella cracked a smile. “Thank you, Emmeline.” She squeezed her hand. “But I need to be alone for a bit.”