Page 76 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

“You did the best you could to control them,” Arlo agreed, offering him a small smile.

A thought struck Torin hard. “What did you see in your vision that had you on your knees?”

Silence filled the room again.

Kellen took a long breath. “It’s hard to explain. It sometimes comes clearly to me and other times it’s murkier. Like when I had the vision of the darkness taking Emara at the Amethyst Palace, I was compelled to tell her about it, but we couldn’t work out what the darkness actually was. I just knew something had a plan for her to be taken. And then she was taken by our own kind—”

“Wait, hold on.” Torin threw up a hand, squeezing his eyes shut. He reopened them slowly, already seeing red. “You knew that Emara was going to be taken, that her life was in danger, and didn’t tell anyone?”

He must be mistaken.

“I warned her—”

“You warned her?” Violence stirred in his soul.

“It was my idea not to tell anyone. Do not blame him,” Emara interjected. “I couldn’t tell anyone without exposing Kellen’s secret and I refused to do that. I should be the one that gets your wrath, Torin. Not him.”

Sweet fucking underworld. Was today going to kick his dick in any more? “Well, I suppose that makes it okay then, since it was your idea.” Torin could feel the vein bulging in his neck. He turned and walked to the mantle, placing a hand on it and feeling like his world was exploding. “Fuck,” he hissed before swinging back to face them all. “You were almost transported to the fucking underworld, Emara. Kellen, she could have died. People did die. Fuck!” He kicked over the wooden chair that sat close to the fireplace, splintering it. “And you are telling me we could have prevented that? You’re telling me that I could have prevented you from being tortured and almost dying? Are you kidding?”

“Hey!” Emara yelled, her eyes scarily dark. “You do not get to raise your voice and shout about something that I decided was best for me.” Emara pointed at him. “You can’t be angry at us for something that didn’t even happen. What’s done is done. I made the choice to keep it from you. Let it go.”

Torin grunted, his eyes widening in rage. “Oh, I can be angry if I want, angel. But I am not just angry, I am pissed. I am furious. You should not be hiding things like that from me. Things that endanger your life—any one of you. What you two did was utterly reckless and absolutely senseless.”

“Senseless?” A spark of fire burned in her dark irises. “Don’t you talk to me about senseless, Torin Blacksteel. Not when you have been fighting in the pits of the underground for no reason.”

Naya gasped. “You haven’t.” Her eyes lit with concern and rage.

Torin ignored her, his eyes still locked with Emara’s.

Artem Stryker cleared his throat, reminding everyone he was in the room. “I must agree with Torin on this one. You cannot expect us to think that we shouldn’t have known that information, Emara. I am your guard. We were placed in our positions to avoid that happening to you. Our job is to protect you.”

“Well, it wasn’t your decision to make.” Emara’s jaw locked. “It was mine.”

Torin let out a breath and took a step back as anger and fear coursed through every muscle. Shaking his head, he had the urge to wreck something. When his eyes met hers, he saw her on the floor in that room in the Amethyst Palace with a chain around her neck, screaming. Tears on her face. No hope left. Fear and blood.

Anger turned his bones into steel that melted as he took in the beauty of her face. “I almost lost you. I could have done something to protect you, to stop how they—” His voice broke off as flashes of what they did to her pushed past the barriers in his mind.

Silas had slammed her head into a mirror and beaten her. She had fought, but she had struggled. He remembered the blood on the floor, the ring he was supposed to have given to her lying with Magin as his soul left this world. It could have been her. It could have been Emara who had died that night.

Torin felt that beast that often awoke when memories of her screams invaded his mind. It burst out of his cage, and he let out a roar.

Everyone flinched.

Emara’s eyes softened after hearing his voice break, and she moved towards him. A cool breeze skated over his face, cheeks, and chest as she walked closer. “I know that night was hard for you too, and I am sorry, but you didn’t lose me. Can you focus on that? Focus on the fact that I made the right call.”

“That was not the right call and I don’t care what kind of glitter you sprinkle over it to shine it up,” Torin seethed, but the cool air soothed him again. “You were taken, Emara! Taken! Almost killed—or worse, sent to the underworld. I wouldn’t…I couldn’t even—”

Breath escaped him, his words lost to the hurt and rage that swirled into one huge mess in his mind.

“Brother,” Gideon’s voice pulled him out of his mind, “we are digressing from the true matter at hand here. I know you are pissed, but we can work that out later in the training room, yeah? Right now, if Kellen saw something that was worse than the vision before, I think we ought to listen to it. Don’t you?”

He was always so level headed. That was why he needed Gideon to be his second-in-command—when he could get a minute to fucking ask him. His brother was calm, reasonable, and not a fucking hothead with murderous tendencies. He was probably the better man for commandership, but the Gods just had to go ahead and make Torin the first born.

He blew out a breath and relaxed his clenched fists.

Torin nodded at Gideon and then turned his gaze to his youngest brother. “What have you seen, Kellen? It’s important that we know.”

He hesitated for a few seconds, his eyes fluttering closed. “It was dark at first, but then I saw water, a gorgeous blue lake. I am certain it was the Lake of Rhiannon. But that’s where it gets murky.”

---