Page 303 of Emylia

From everything I'd lost and everything I could never get back.

From the ashes of the girl I'd once been.

From the ruin of the girl I'd just become.

From the girl I had just eradicated in a single moment.

"What about Mom? I have to bury her." The words cracked out of me, so raw it felt like my ribs would splinter.

I looked back at her lifeless body—my mother—gone.

Cold.

Empty.

Her life ripped away with the ease of a breath—like it cost them nothing.

"Emylia, we can't," Maalikai said, his voice barely breathing. "If we don’t leave now, they'll find us. They'll kill us."

I squeezed my eyes shut. If we didn’t leave this second—we would die too.

If I wanted retribution—for her, for all of them—I needed to survive.

Survive today.

So I could kill them all tomorrow.

But I couldn’t—I couldn’t leave her like this.

I stumbled toward Akaela. Pressed my hand against her bark. Siphoned until the tree groaned with the force of it.

Not carefully.

Not gently.

I ripped the power from her—like grief tearing from my chest—and commanded the earth to move.

The ground split open. A shallow grave, trembling beneath her. Waiting for her.

I didn't stop.

Couldn't stop.

I pulled the metal from the soil, my hands shaking, molding it with blind desperation. An intricate casket, shaped to fit the woman who had been my world.

And still it wasn't enough.

I called the water—summoned it like a scream—and froze it over the metal until it gleamed like diamond. Until it shone like something precious enough to hold her.

As long as Akaela lived—so would she.

Her magik.

Her memory.

Her love.

It was the only thing I could give her. The only thing I had left.

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