Page 239 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Nico’s blood everywhere.

Darkness pressed in on its heels, the sounds and scents and feel remaining, but Roremar couldn’t see a thing⁠—

He couldn’t remember a thing before seeing Nico⁠—

The abyss of missing memories rose up, walls towering high. They choked off his air, his sense of self, and Roremar sank to his knees.

“It’s the trial, it’s the trial,” he tried to remind himself, voice trembling.

He squeezed his eyes tight, but instead of getting rid of Nico’s image, it was Lola begging for his help as a faceless Fate dragged her away.

Roremar shook his head, and it was Emmeline hanging from the temple, Dryvius’s message spread around her with bloodied wings.

HE WILL HAVE HER.

How had he gotten here? Where was he?

His skin felt like it didn’t belong to him. His bones were foreign. Out. Out. He had to claw it all out. Maybe then he’d remember.

Roremar scrambled back, scratching at his chest, tugging his hair. His breaths came in quick pants.

Another blink and he saw Leo, hugging him tight and telling him he loved him. Leo stumbled back, hands pressed to his chest. “How am I supposed to do this, Rore?” Blood poured between his little brother’s fingers, and Roremar couldn’t remember how it got there.

Then, it was Vivi and Siena, their laughter echoing in the darkness but unseeing eyes wide.

“No, no, no,” Roremar whimpered over their cold bodies.

You never faced it, a familiar voice said. His father’s voice. You put your focus elsewhere, but you never faced it.

And Roremar realized as he cowered in the dark, being unable to use his mind wasn’t the sole fear being attacked. That was only the beginning.

This trial was digging up the things Roremar hid within the lost memories, feeding them and breathing life into them. Turning them on him.

All the amnesia moments, all the worries he wasn’t brave enough to combat, and all the grief he’d run from were dug up and forced on him.

What had Emmeline said earlier? We punish ourselves by holding on to the pain.

Roremar had been punishing himself for years. He’d distracted himself from his grief or buried himself beneath the blame, but he never waded through it.

And now, if he couldn’t, it would eat him alive.

I’m so disappointed, his father said.

“No,” Roremar whimpered.

Disappointed.

Disappointed.

Disappointed.

The word drilled into Roremar’s bones, flashing between his siblings’ faces.

But Deacon was the one who told him he could be two things at once. That they all were. He wasn’t bad because of his Fate tie; it wasn’t a dirty secret to harbor.

You have to survive tomorrow, Leo had pleaded earlier.

Don’t let the ones who are really responsible win, Emmeline had begged.