Page 63 of The Spark that Ignites
“I hope so,” he said. “These dreams sustain me but when you look at me like ... well, likethat—” The air constricted, tension and heat and magnetism pulling them together. Forming a gravity. All she could do was lose herself in those green eyes as Shade leaned down. “Being here with you—you’re my sanctuary.”
Seeing Shade and being with him was like seeing the sun for the first time and she had long been buried underground. Her gaze dropped to his lips. If he did kiss her, would she feel it?
Emmery craned her neck, stretching on her toes. His nose skimmed hers, eyes fell shut and their breaths mingled, the smell of sweet mint flooding her senses. She sighed into him, Shade’s lips brushing hers—
A sharp pain cracked through her chest, leaving her gasping. A flaming knife to her chest. Acid in her blood. Her heart lodged full of lava, slogging and slowing—
Emmery doubled over. She clutched her middle as it crumpled her body, but no matter how violently she fought against the burn, it soared through her veins.
Something was ... wrong. So, so very wrong.
“What’s happening?” Shade’s voice was frantic, his eyes wide, hands hovering over her like she may break. “Emmery ... what’s going on?”
She fell to her knees and a whimper escaped her lips, wrenching from the ravaging agony. His panicked voice rang through the field as she faded away in his arms.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hooves beat the ground in a staccato rhythm as Emmery slitted her swollen eyes. Propped like a ragdoll between Vesper’s legs, her head lolled against his chest with each of Balthasar’s footfalls, the steed’s nostrils flaring with their thunderous pace. Her cheeks burned, forehead damp, and body numb yet ... chilled. Soot and the stench of charred flesh clung to their clothes. She blinked, trying to piece together reality.
The memories trickled back.
She had ... collapsed in that meadow.
Vesper dismounted, but her distant limbs wouldn’t respond. Too weak to stand, she let Vesper scoop her into his arms. Aera leapt off the steed’s hind quarters and chirped for Emmery’s attention, circling Vesper’s legs.
His erratic heartbeat thundered in her ear as he stalked forward, his voice low, rough. “You'll be fine. We’re almost there. Just hold on.” His panicked tone was anything but convincing.
All sense of time distorted—her mind spinning like a turbulent wheel. Emmery blinked through her blurred vision, her eyes finally focussing. “Where are we?”
Sharp pain twisted his face. “This is—was my home. Ellynne. But I should warn you, I don’t know the state of it.”
Great stone walls severed the clouded black and blue sky. A mottled bruise like her current state of mind. Vesper carried her across a wooden bridge, over a babbling moat, to a colossal black gate. It seemed to screamdo not passbut he pressed his hand to the iron bars, his eyes closing. Emmery twined her arms aroundhim and let her head fall into the crook of his neck. He gritted his teeth; shoulders tense as the gate creaked open and they squeezed through. Her breath caught, all pain and numb limbs forgotten, banished by adrenaline.
Devastation. Complete and utterdevastation. The word sank in her chest like a heavy stone in water.
This place was once a home. Was once Vesper’s home. And now—
Time blurred, dragged and yet raced by, as they passed demolished buildings, heaps of charcoal, unidentifiable rubble, and endless ash piled high, everything irrevocably burned, charred the lifeless black of death. Ruin coated every surface.
The impact of whatever blasted this town left no semblance of life.
Emmery squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of tiny skeletal fingers clasped in their mother’s. A final embrace before Death claimed them. Soot and dried gore smeared an unfinished chalk drawing.
Vesper’s heart stuttered as if he had known them. “We’re almost there,” he rasped.
His pace quickened as he stumbled through the streets, tripping over himself. Not once had Emmery seen his steps falter but his wide eyes darted from the wreckage to the skeletons, back to her anguish painting his face.
Aera dodged Vesper’s erratic gait as they passed through what Emmery imagined was once the market to the quaint kingdom. Illegible signage and fragments of stands lay in pieces, shattered glass strewn across the ground.
Soldiers’ empty armour, swords, and helmets warped by heat, scattered their path, melted crests of stargazing wolves decorating each chest piece—the dream of a kingdom now lost.
They ducked under a portcullis rendered useless, blown off its chains. The untouched fortress, evidently far enough fromthe blast to endure any damage, was opposite King Silas’s plain castle in every way, with its great black peaks, needle sharp spires, flying buttresses, and intricate details carved into the arches. It reminded her of a castle fit for a vampire king. Guarding either side of the rounded doorway were stone wolves—one baring its teeth and the other howling at the sky above.
A tear trickled down Vesper’s cheek, and he angrily swiped it away, though his chest shook a single inconsolable sob. Her heart broke for him.
No, not broke, but shattered into a million tiny pieces.
There were no words to say. No way to make this better or soften the blow of loss held within these walls. Emmery had known loss, first from her mother’s death, then her sisters, but the loss of one’s kingdom and family brutally swept away in a sea of fire, was a pain she couldn’t even begin to imagine.
