Page 85 of The Spark that Ignites
If this was the cost, she would pay it. She wouldn’t fail.
Briar whispered under her breath, voice full of wonder, “Impossible.”
Time passed.
Crawled.
Dragged endlessly, as the mind-altering pain ravaged her.
She numbed to it, maybe from shock or her feeble mind failed, but either way, it was only when Vesper clasped her hands that she touched back down to reality, returning from where she vanished into the clouds.
Vesper said in a hushed voice, “That’s enough.”
But she couldn’t pull back. She couldn’t stop.
Emmery’s eyes shot open. There was too much mutilated raw skin to be healed—the overwhelming urge to fix this, to fixhim,overtook her as if it was her sole purpose in life.
“You’re going to overextend yourself,” he urged, gripping her shaking hands. She fought against his hold, but all the strength had been sapped from her bones. “You need to stop, Emmery.Stop.”
He yanked her away and relief struck her instantly, knocking into her chest. Her breaths sawed in and out, her vision fraying with each roar of her pulse. She fell back, too weak to keep upright.
Vesper kept one of her hands as he gently swept his thumb along it. Back and forth. Back and forth. Soothing. Leaving a trail in Callias’s blood. She centered on that touch, holding onto it while her body threatened to float away.
“Cal?” Briar cooed still kneeling at his side.
Callias’s eyes shuttered before unbridled shock widened them. He glanced down at his chest, at Emmery, and then his gaze locked with Briar’s. That shared look ravaged Emmery’s heart—the undeniable, unfettered love contained within it. Crimson soaked Briar’s navy hair as she laid her head on his chest and Callias’s eyes fluttered shut. And for a long moment, they stayed like that, and Emmery tore herself away, unable to watch this tenderness between them.
When Briar finally pulled back, she tracked each of Callias’s laboured breaths as if it were the only thing tethering her to this world.
Vesper rose to a crouch and squeezed Emmery’s hand, drawing her back to him. “You did so well ...thank you.” He bowed his head. “I’m in your debt.”
Carefully slinging Callias’s arm over his shoulder, Vesper stood and hauled him from the room, grunting under the weight of his friend.
Briar grasped Emmery’s bloody hand, growing stickier by the second as it thickened and dried. Though she held her, Briar stared longingly at the doorway Vesper had dragged Callias’s unconscious body through. “Are you alright? Do you need me?”
Emmery shook her head though she barely felt the movement. “No. Go be with him.” The words numbed like her body had as they left her lips. Mechanical. Almost rehearsed.
Though she gave her a reluctant look, Briar left her sitting alone on the blood-soaked floor for some time, staring after them. Somehow, she had done it and, yet a weight clamped down on her chest. Emmery hugged her knees, willing the heaviness away but ... it lingered. Haunted. Seeped inside her like some permanent thing in her veins.
But it was later that night after everyone had gone to bed that she gripped the bathroom sink, swallowing down the bile climbing her throat.
Her trembling fingers were red but not from washing in scalding water for hours.
No, the blood had stained them.
Even the metallic odour remained, fresh in her nostrils.
She had healed people before, but this was different. It was her magic alone that saved him, and it would have beenherfault if it failed.
If he ... died.
No stitches or bandages could have stopped that bleeding. For that moment, she held his life in her hands, and she wasn’t worthy to hold such power. At the thought, Emmery’s stomach roiled.
She darted to the toilet, heaving, her belly empty from her untouched dinner. The pain plagued her, that blinding white shock as it struck her all at once. The trauma that didn't belong but now lived in her body. The payment for this burden she carried.
Emmery heaved again, wishing that the emptying of her stomach would provide some relief. That she could purge this feeling from her flesh. From her soul.
And even after hours of scrubbing her skin raw, Emmery could still feel Callias’s phantom blood between her fingers.
