Page 108 of The Spark that Ignites
“He had me at the throat. He wanted to own me. And I was so desperate for love ... I sold my soul for the promise of it.”
Vesper quieted as he listened though rage radiated off him. But his gentle embrace curbed her pain, and he softly squeezed her hand, lending his strength.
“Since magic was forbidden, he used it as leverage and threatened that if I left, he would send a message to the King and ensure my death. That Maela would suffer too. And I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t abandon her if something happened to me. So, I became his plaything—he touched me when he pleased, beat me on bad days, shared me with his men—”
She choked as all those vile images battered her again. The rough hands, bruises, degradation, and the men taking pleasure in her torment. Leaving her body was the only way to make it through—imagining she was anywhere else as they claimedthose pieces of her. All those dark nights, lying on the floor, her cheek pressed to the cold floorboards and not even tears brought release.
How she wished she could burn away her skin so no part of her touched by him remained—touched by any of them.
To burn the memories from her flesh.
Since then, she had promised no one would ever own her again. She would rather be alone than ever risk that sort of torment.
“It was years. And I just ... gave up hope.” She squeezed her eyes shut as Vesper rubbed a comforting hand down her arm. “I still don’t know why he wanted me. Maybe it was the fact I had this power, and he could take it from me. I think he hatedKennaand doing this to me was ... some sick twisted way to seek revenge. His mother was killed byKennawhen he was a boy. It must have fucked him up.” Emmery shook her head into the pillow. “But then he started paying special attention to Maela and ... I wouldn’t risk him getting his filthy hands on her. She was just achild, Ves.”
Her stomach flip flopped as the memories resurfaced, dusty but brimming with old pain.
Vesper fisted the quilt.
“What I hadn’t realized was Nathaniel had no intention of turning me in to the King. He knew hurting Maela would be worse and he didn’t want to lose me. So, he ensured I would never leave him after one of his spies discovered our plan.”
Vesper’s breath bloated with rage. “What did he do?”
“He—he ...burnedMaela. Seared the scars into her with a hot knife. Branded her ... so if I ran, he would report us both. And he made me ... watch.”
With her arms pinned by two of Nathaniel’s men, Emmery had been helpless. She had watched numbly as they held Maela down, begging and bartering in a horse cry for them to lether sister go. Any way to make them stop. That she would doanything. But they had merely laughed, and Emmery would never be able to unsee that scorching metal sizzling Maela’s skin. And she couldn’t tear her eyes away as her sister screamed and screamed andscreamed... until her tiny voice gave out and she fainted.
Hours later, Emmery had no words as Maela collapsed on the bathing-room floor, shaking, crying, and her bloody, bubbling chest heaving. All she could do was clean the deep, permanent burns. The ones that meant she would never live a normal life. Only after Maela finally slept did Emmery let herself feel again. And she’d spent the whole night with her arms clinging to the toilet bowl and her stomach emptied as her sister’s shrieks echoed in her head. They still did in her nightmares to this day.
Vesper hissed, “That sick fuck branded your sister as ...punishment?”
Tears burned in her throat, but she managed, “He did. And stupidly, I didn’t listen. In fact, I was even more determined for us to get out. I planned to burn away her scars, to erase what he had done, so we could start a new life. Somewhere safe from him.”
“Why didn’t you seek help, Emmery?” Vesper asked. “Gods, I’m sure there was someone who could have—”
“I couldn’t. If they found out why I wanted to leave ... we couldn’t take that risk. And he was so powerful and rich, people respected and feared him. And it wasn’t only my life but Maela’s too and I—I wouldn’t risk hers.
“It was the night my sister was off to a friend's house for dinner that everything happened. I didn’t know he had intercepted her. And ... I didn’t make it in time.”
Emmery had sprinted through the streets that night, her heart pounding her ribcage, and icy fear gripping her limbs as she stumbled over herself.
Her sister’s terrified face flashed through her mind, and her desperate high-pitched screams, a sound that remained chiselled into her mind and carved into her heart echoed endlessly. Maela had pleaded for them to understand she wasn’t a demon. That the scars were burns.
The guards didn’t care. An order was an order.
“And it was all to make me pay. Nathaniel ... broke me. He hurt me more than I thought I ever could hurt. He—he—” Fresh tears spilled down Emmery’s cheeks full of sorrow and anger and pain she had kept contained for so long. It washerfault.
Fool,coward,monster. Her mind sang the words in a taunting tune.
“I had every intention to push through the crowd and take her place, but my brave, selfless sister, caught my gaze and shook her head.” Maela had mouthed a few words, only for Emmery:I love you more than all the stars in the sky. It had destroyed her. Tore Emmery down the middle and shredded her soul. “The guards had tied bags of stones to her limbs. And then ... they pushed her off the bridge ... and she—she sank under the water.”
Emmery’s body shook with a sob, a deep ache that had festered inside her all this time as Vesper’s had with his sister’s loss. “I watched my baby sister drown. Because I was such a ...coward. Such a fool for trusting Nathaniel. Such a monster for letting my sister die for me. For allowing her to endure a punishment she didn’t deserve and was never meant for her. That should have beenme. I could have saved her, and I let her ... die.
“And I—I can’t take it back. Any of it. My choices, my ignorance, my fear. It all led to her being taken from me. And I can’t fix it, Vesper. After all this time, I can’t fix it, and it eats away at me every day and I can’t—”
Emmery swiped angrily at her tears streaming down her face and pooling on her pillow. “It fucking haunts me.”
Vesper didn’t speak but his hold tightened.
