Page 17 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

“What’s wrong?” Sybil asked. “You have been picking at that stew for ages now and I have yet to see you actually eat anything.”

Emara sighed and took a deep breath. They were finally alone in the dining area, so it felt safe to say, “It’s just…I don’t know.”

“Talk to me.” Sybil placed her silverware down and moved her empty plate away from her.

Emara rolled her lips before letting a breath fall heavily. “I have a lot of moves to make, and sometimes I just find it hard to get my head around everything. It wasn’t too long ago that I found out about who I really am, and everything in this world just moves so fast. What if there is another side to me? A darker side?”

Sybil swallowed. “There is more light in you than anyone I know. You are a good person, Emara. Your darkness? It might be testing you, but you have five other elements that are strong too, and they are all of the light.”

Sybil had a point.

She took a moment before she spoke again. “It hurts my heart to know that my mother would ever love someone like him—Balan. I mean, he’s not just someone from the Dark Army, he’s Vele’s favourite disciple. He’s got to be a monster.”

Sybil’s hand reached out and landed on Emara’s. “Em, maybe you don’t know the whole story. I can’t for one minute believe your mother was in love with someone truly evil.” She paused. “Do you?”

Emara couldn’t answer that question.

Had he tricked her? Had she fallen in love before she knew of the darkness he came from, what he represented?

She raised her shoulders. “Maybe she was just a hopeless fool in love with the wrong person, or maybe it was all part of something bigger. I guess I will never know.”

“I suppose you could always try to connect with spirits and ask your mother to come forward,” Sybil suggested. “You have told me about all the little things that happen so naturally to you, and your gifts from House Spirit. Maybe you should try connecting.”

Emara had considered it. “I don’t know if I am fully ready for that.” She took a sip of her favourite orange juice. “I mean, I have never even had a conversation with my mother, at least not one that I can remember. I wouldn’t even know where to start. And spirits are always so cryptic. Besides, I am still trying to get to grips with all of the empress duties, paperwork, arranging my coven, trying to avoid marriage, and then there is actually mastering my own element—”

“You can never fully master the elements, Emara.” Sybil smiled and sounded so like Naya in that moment.

Emara scoffed. “I know that to be true. I almost set the Commanding Office on fire yesterday.”

“There is nothing like a powerful burst of nature.” Sybil winked. “Especially when it is so very deserved.” A devious smile grew on her cheeks.

Before Emara could respond to Sybil’s charming appreciation for violence, the sound of the hunting siren blasted through the dining hall.

A demon spotting.

Sybil let out a squawk. “I will never get used to that awful sound, Gods above.”

It was a good thing Emara was already dressed in hunting gear, because tonight she would help hunt the creatures that threatened their world. Her coven. Even if their blood trickled through her veins, she didn’t have any second thoughts on ending them. Maybe it was a way of proving to herself that she was light and not of the darkness. If she fought them, maybe that would be a vindication of how she felt inside about her blood.

But there was just one problem about her joining the hunt tonight.

The hunters didn’t know it yet.

And where in the underworld do you think you are going all weaponed up like that?” Artem Stryker’s face was glowing red, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets as he took in Emara’s heavy artillery and full leather attire.

She really shouldn’t enjoy that kind of reaction, but she did.

“With you.” Emara stood at the entrance to the foyer with her weapon belt, made to measure from the markets, strapped to her waist.

“Like Thorin you are,” he declared as he pushed a hand out to stop her. “Are you mad?”

She huffed. “I know there is a space on this hunting mission; you rubbed Torin’s name off the board in the briefing room this morning. I presume he will not be attending the hunt?”

His eyes narrowed. “Empresses don’t belong in the briefing room, Emara. They get terrible, terrible ideas.”

The comment angered her more than she let show on her face.

“Witches don’t deserve to die at the hand of the Dark Army, Artem. But it’s still happening. My coven needs to be protected and you are missing a hunter. I can fill that slot. I demand you take me with you.”

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