Page 70 of The Spark that Ignites
“Of course, you do,” he grumbled, rubbing a hand down his face. “You both enjoy vexing me.”
Emmery stood and paced the library, eyeing the painting of a lake of blood that sent a chill down her spine. There were several others, including a snapshot of the Sacred Lands, but it was the family portrait that caught her eye. The older man withshoulder length black hair, shared the same sharp features and cut jawline as Vesper. Dressed in a decadent jacket, cape, and trousers the same colour as the ballroom carpet, he was certainly the king. Surrounded by a deep purple vestige and adorned by a star flecked obsidian crown, his image screamed authority.
Vesper stood alongside with his haloed vestige and an unusually serious expression. On his arm was a thin female with curling black hair to her waist and a vestige the same lavender as her eyes. This woman’s features were nearly identical to his but softer, delicate—more feminine. Thezvezda,cavae, andShadowheartpeaked out of the deep plunge of her black dress.
This was undoubtedly Izora Merikh.
“Gods, your sister was beautiful,” she whispered as Vesper filled the space beside her.
He snorted, shoving his hands into his pockets. “She got the looks in the family.”
Emmery elbowed him. “Don’t be jealous. You’re pretty too, Ves.”
“First you sleep in my bed, flash me, give me a nickname, and now you’re giving compliments. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were coming onto me, Emmery.” She elbowed him again, harder this time. Laughing softly, he rubbed his side and nodded at the portrait. “You know, my hair was black like hers before I used my magic.” His expression hardened as a beat passed. “Izzy’s been gone so long now, I can’t even remember her voice. Or her laugh.”
Her heart squeezed. “It was the same after my mother and sister died. I couldn’t even picture their faces. All I had left was a painting my mother had done of us.” Biting into her cheek, she added, “Loss is a strange thing.”
“Sometimes I forget she’s gone. I want to tell her something or something reminds me of her, and I look for her but—” His voice caught. “But gods, we weresodifferent. She was alwaysso charming and calculated and with her magic she got away with everything. And I was so—” He shrank into a sitting chair as if he had lost the strength to stand, scrubbing his face with both hands. “I was so ...angryat the world. After seeing all the injustices my father tried to stop. All the starving children and Scarlets forced to sell their bodies—it sort of ... broke me. But Izzy had a plan. She took everything in stride and wanted to make the world a better place and now she’s—” His throat worked as he looked up from his hands. “She’s justgone, Emmery. And she left this festering pit inside me.”
Emmery joined him in an adjacent chair, her stomach knotting. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one with demons and that dark hollowness. She sucked in a breath before saying, “Grief’s song doesn’t fade. It doesn’t dwindle or lessen. It ... echoes. Expands. Especially if you contain it. If you try to shrink it, it only grows. And if it falls quiet, if you let the stillness and silence fool you, it will sneak up and deafen you later, Vesper. You have to make room for it, or it’ll ... rip you in two.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, feeling her words resounding inside her, clanging against every bone, every tendon, every fibre of her being.
“I don’t know how,” he said softly. Slowly. Sadly.
Honestly, Emmery didn’t know either. Maela’s death had eaten her alive. Feasted on what little remained of her after losing everything. And she let it. Even after all these years, it still consumed her.
A silence spread between them as Emmery mulled over the question she had been dying to know. “I know we made a deal about sharing stories but since we’re friends now—would you tell me what happened to her?”
Vesper tugged a hand through his hair, mussing his neat style, the princely demeanour unravelling by the second. “Izzy was ... murdered.”
Emmery studied the portrait again, her stomach twisting. They had more in common than she thought. Vesper wore his grief in his eyes and carried it on his shoulders. And she recognized it. It was the same grief she had lugged like a ball and chain for as long as she could remember and her arms now ached from the labour of it all as his surely did too.
“By her betrothed of all people,” he continued. “She left one night and ... never came back. I still don’t know why. And this—” He pulled a bracelet shimmering with countless blood rubies. “This is all I have left of her. I—never even saw her body. There was no funeral. No burial or burning. Apparently, there wasn’t enough ... left of her.” Vesper turned the bracelet over in his hand several times before tucking it back in his pocket.
Emmery’s gaze darted between the blood ruby on her own ring, the bracelet, and the portrait where it lay seemingly sewn into Izzy’s skin. “What is that?”
“She never took it off. It was given to her in place of a blood oath for the engagement. It was enchanted to not be released until death.” Vesper gripped the chair’s armrest. “We carve all the important things into our skin. Pactums, blood oaths including those for allegiance, love, fate, and marriage. My father was foolish not to guarantee their union with one.”
Her stomach churned. “So, the marriage was not for love?”
“Honestly, they rarely are.” Vesper gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. “It was a favour from a life debt. King Thellonius, former ruler of Asaella, owed my father. It was supposed to bring peace and union between our territories. What a joke that was. My father was more concerned with liberating the Hollow and Scarlets than my sister’s happiness. So, he sold her hand like it was nothing. Like it was merely a piece in his plan.”
Emmery folded her suddenly jittery legs beneath her as she settled into the chair. “Was she engaged to—”
“Thellonius’s son.” Vesper’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the armrests, but when she peaked at his hands, he yanked his sleeves down. “People call him the King of Thorns.”
Emmery raised a silver brow at the way he spat the name as if it were a forbidden swear. “Odd nickname.”
“Before he ...hurtIzzy—” Vesper swallowed as if bile crawled up his throat. “He started wearing this crown of thorns and it ... grew into his skin. Damaged his brain or, gods, I don’t know—but he’s not right.”
Vesper’s hands balled into fists as a flush crept up his neck. “I didn’t know him well since he spent most of his time in the north, but he was ... different after. We met a handful of times, and he was civil, but he was also calculated and cold, I could decipher that much. I figured Iz would have no problem with him since she was so cunning, though I never wanted her to marry for allegiance. I always hoped she would find love. It was a bloody stupid, idiotic wish.”
Emmery gnawed her lip. Having her spouse chosen, not for love but loyalty to her kingdom, was a fate worse than death. Her stomach lurched at the thought of being betrothed to someone so vile and cruel, he would take the life of his future wife. “What’s the King of Thorns real name?”
“Destonne O’Daire.” Vesper grimaced as if the name were a rotted fruit on his tongue, though Emmery’s stomach wriggled in a way she couldn’t explain. “He’s the King of Asaella. Well, he is since he took Thellonius’s life.”
“He ... took his own father’s life?” Emmery rubbed her temples trying to straighten the information in her head. Gather the threads and weave them into a complete picture. “So, this Destonne—” She swallowed around his name on her tongue. “He killed both Izora and his father. Why?”
“I assume it was for power. He wanted the throne and once my father died, the pactum nulled between my father andThellonius, yet Izzy wouldn’t stand for their agenda crumbling to pieces after they worked so hard. She wanted to make a difference so badly.” Rage simmering in his eyes, Vesper unbuttoned his collar, yanking it as if it strangled him. “I told you, he’s not right. Not sane.”
