Page 4 of Emylia

She worked for hours—her hands tireless, her spirit unbreakable—and within days, the man walked away—scarred, but breathing. A miracle stitched together by her hands. Before that night, I wasn’t sure the Gods were real. But watching her… I stopped doubting.

Magik had to exist.

She was proof that divinity still breathed in this world, even if the world had thought it lost it.

Which made everything crueler.

Because for all her power, all her miracles— the woman who had defied death a thousand times could do nothing when it came for the man she loved most.

I saw it in her posture. In the lines that carved into her brow. In the way her shoulders curled inward—like she was already collapsing under the weight of losing him.

She blamed herself. She wore it like a brand. And it was killing her long before death came for him.

Her jade eyes never left him—staring, as if she could hold him here by sheer will alone. Once, those eyes had been filled with laughter. Now, they brimmed with grief. The same grief tearing through my own ribs like splinters. Like the hollowing aftermath of something so intense it left nothing in its wake.

Her fingers trembled as they brushed back a dark lock of hair. It slipped over her shoulder—absently twisted around her fingers. A nervous habit she’d picked up when he first fell ill.

“Until Aziel rides his golden chariot to the gates of the Goddess, and delivers me back to you, my love…” Her voice was barely a breath. A raw, broken thread. “I will wait for you.” Fresh tears slid down her face.

Mine mirrored them.

“I’ll wait… for the rest of eternity, just to be with you again.” My father’s voice was now nothing but air. Barely sound. But it broke her anyway.

“Please don’t leave me, Atlas.”

It had been so long since I’d heard her speak his real name. Not a pet name. Not a softened thing. But him.

Atlas.

The word trembled on her lips. It cracked as it passed through her teeth. It carved another fissure straight through my already shattered heart.

“You have my whole heart, my love,”he rasped. Each word a struggle. A goodbye that was carved in pain and despair. “Ever since the day I laid eyes on you.”

“I don’t want to do this without you,”she cried. The words folding in on themselves.

Pleading.

Begging him to stay.

To fight.

To defy death one last time.

“You don’t have to,”he whispered. And with the last reserves of strength he had left—he reached for her. His hand shook as he pressed it over her heart.

“I’ll always be with you. In here.”

His hand fell from her chest.

Too heavy now.

Too tired.

One last smile curved his lips—exhausted, weathered, and still somehow… beautiful. Then his eyes fluttered closed.

His chest rose.

Fell.

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