Page 84 of The Spark that Ignites
“Emmery, I need you to help him.” Vesper’s urgent voice threaded with panic cut through her daze, so different from his usual nonchalance.
Her limbs numbed as she looked between the three of them, finally locking on Vesper’s wide luminescent eyes.
“I need you to heal him. Use your magic,” he pressed.
Emmery blinked at him, her mind a whirling tangle of thoughts and her body merely wouldn’t respond.
“Now!” Vesper snapped.
Wrenching her free from her shock, Emmery sank to her knees to assess the wounds. She held out her open hand to Vesper and demanded, “Give me your belt.”
Vesper ripped it free with a single hand and Emmery clamped it around Callias’s upper thigh, creating a tourniquet. The bleeding slowed but only marginally. Cinching it tighter until it finally ceased, his chest still pumped blood at a rapid pace. It wasn’t clotting and there wasn’t anything she could do except apply pressure. This waswaybeyond her training.
Vesper braced his friend’s ribs and blood seeped between the cracks of his fingers at an alarming rate. Callias grew deathly pale, bloodless, his usual tanned glow fading as panic sucked the oxygen from the room.
Briar’s brows drew together, and she spun on Vesper. “What in Deimos’s name are you talking about?”
His gaze slid to her. “She can heal. I’ve seen her do it.”
“What? Are you sure?” Briar baulked. “That’simpossible. No one has that kind of magic. It can’t—” Her vigorous shake of her head ripped her bound hair loose.
With Callias’s chest hidden beneath his armour, Emmery couldn’t reach the wound. Her hand slid to her thigh, and she cursed. Her dagger was still in her room. “Get this armour off him,” Emmery ordered.
Vesper unbuckled Callias’s armour, trying not to jostle him but each movement drew a strangled sound from his friend’s throat. “Those fucking hounds,” he hissed. Vesper yanked a knife from his belt and cut the straps of Callias’s armour. “Andshedoes, Bri.”
Briar’s scarlet gaze locked on Emmery, hurt twisting her mouth and swelling in her gaze. Deathly quiet, she whispered, “You didn’t tell me. We could have been training all this time—”
Emmery’s stomach clenched. She didn’t know why she kept it from Briar, but clearly it had been an oversight. This magic ... it felt secret.
“Not important,” Vesper snarled. “Emmery,now!” His words clipped short, that princely authority in his voice straightening her spine. “If you don’t, he’ll die!”
Her rounded eyes darted to him. That magical pull was there as it was the day she healed his face, but she didn’t know how to answer it. It existed inside her fingers, drawing her hands, but something held her back. Lingered out of reach. Maybe it was the sheer panic raising the hairs on her neck or the cold sweat sliding down her spine. “I—I don’t know how!”
He grabbed her hand, his skin slick with blood, and closed his fingers around hers but his eyes softened fractionally. “You did it before. You can do it again. I know you can.”
Vesper sounded so sure, but she shook her head, her braid whipping her in the face. Distraught, Emmery attempted to pull air into her seizing lungs. Everything inside her screamed, terror battering her from the inside. “That was ... different. It—it wasonlya cut.”
After dropping her hand, Vesper tore Callias’s armour off and tossed it aside before slicing away the remains of his tunic. His golden skin was barely visible beneath the thick gore, but even a fool could tell it was severe.
Vesper was right. If she didn’t act now, he woulddie.
Briar sucked in a breath, tears gathering in her eyes. “Please, Emmery. You have to try.Please. I can’t ... without him—” It could have been the way Briar’s voice broke as she pleaded for Callias’s life that spurred Emmery into action or perhaps it was the tiny part of her that craved redemption for a good deed. If she could even be redeemed at this point.
But it was like the healing she had done across the gate. Just with magic this time. And even though Callias disliked her, she needed to try. For Briar’s sake. For Vesper too.
She wouldn’t let herself consider failure, though fear and doubt drowned her. Callias’s blood and mangled flesh squelched under Emmery’s fingers as she laid them on his chest. Her stomach churned but her eyelids fell shut as she leaned into that pull of her Hollow magic.
Emmery’s silver threads connected, and her breath burst from her lungs as agony blasted through her, pain destroying her from the inside out. Summoning every scrap of strength, she clamped her teeth down on her tongue to keep from screaming.
Was this the cost Briar spoke of? That day she had healed Vesper’s face she recalled a sting, but this agony mirrored Callias’s.
She absorbed his pain.
Each claw mark. Every bite.
The rows of jagged teeth sinking into her skin. Tearing. Ripping. Separating flesh from bone. Hot blood growing cold, spilling free, sticky and metallic. Vision hazy, her world tilted—
Her vestige pulsed, dimming as she threw her magic into the wounds, offering every silver thread to knit the torn flesh.
