Page 95 of The Spark that Ignites
Throat burning with tears, Emmery croaked, “Mae?”
Maela lifted her head, her familiar warm whiskey eyes wide. “Hello?”
Face stoic, Vesper cleared his throat. “My name is Vesper. I’m here with your sister. She wishes to speak to you. I’ll relay her words.” He spoke slowly, his voice a mask of calm.
Maela’s eyes flared. “Em?” Her little voice shook. “She’s there?”
Fearing her heart may collapse, Emmery rubbed her stinging eyes. “Maela, Gods. I—I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” She cleared the tears from her voice. “Are you safe?”
Vesper repeated her words, fixated on Emmery as he spoke.
“Mama and I are safe. It’s good here.” Maela’s red curls bobbed. “But I miss you. We miss yousomuch.”
Emmery's whole body trembled. “Mae, I’m—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I let you down. I didn’t mean to—It was all my fault. I dideverythingwrong. And you—you weresobrave, and I was ... such a damncoward.” Venom tainted her words. “I was supposed to protect you—” Vesper repeated after her, his face twisted in confusion.
Maela held up a hand to halt them. “It’s not your fault. You did everything you could. Please don’t blame yourself.” She smiled one of her impossibly infectious grins. “If I could do it all over again, I would for you.”
Maturity sang in her words as if the afterlife granted wisdom beyond her years. It hurt to know that it was maturity she was never able to gain through life itself and only in death.
Emmery studied her sister. They were almost strangers at this point and so much time had passed. Not that Maela was different, but Emmery was. A lifetime without her sister had changed her. It had hurt her. Beaten and moulded her into the rough, scabrous thing she was now.
“You’re with mama?” she asked Maela and Vesper repeated the words, his voice growing hoarse.
“I am,” Maela replied. “We’re happy and we both love you.”
At least she wasn’t alone. “I miss you two so much.”
Maela frowned at Vesper. “I’m supposed to pass on a message. Em, Pellius wanted to tell you he misses your nightly prayers. But that he heard them. Every single one.”
Emmery’s heart stuttered and the world seemed to slow around her, only the chilled wind grazing her skin and moonlit glow lighting the garden keeping her centered. “W–what?”
“He told me to tell you that though he never answered, he was listening, and he granted every one.” One of her genuine smiles bled through and pierced Emmery’s heart. “Also, that there’s no need to pray for us anymore. He says that it’s yourtime now and that gods have much more to worry about. That you would one day know what that means.”
Swallowing hard, Emmery said, “Things have been ... different, to say the least.” She cleared her dry throat. “Did you know I’m part of some prophecy? That the gods have plans for me? I’m supposed to ...savethese people. Save magic. And I don’t—I don’t think I can do it, Mae. You know me ... I’ve never been—” She studied her hands. “Strong enough.”
“Actually, momma did tell me. Pretty sure I knew before you did.” Maela gave a cheeky grin. “And you, Em”—her grin widened—“are so much more than you know.”
“I need you here. Ineeda reason to fight. Without you,” she said and shook her head, tears clouding her vision. “Nothing has meaning anymore. I don't know how to be without you even after all these years. It still hurts. Every day I wake up and you’re not here, ithurts, Mae.” As Vesper relayed those words, his stoic expression cracked, and her pain reflected in his gaze.
Her sister's eyes softened. “I’ve never really been gone.” And too soon, Maela’s edges frayed into the night. “I have to go, Em. He’s calling me back. But I love you. More thanallthe stars in the sky.”
Vesper swiped the back of his hand across his eyes as he repeated her words, “I love you too, Mae. More than all the fish in the sea.”
Before Maela disappeared in the night, she asked, “Em, did you read my last note?”
“No, I—” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t.”
Maela’s body dissipated, but her voice echoed in the night. “Read it, Em. It’s important.”
“Don’t go.Mae.” A sob slipped free, racking Emmery’s worthless body, her voice rising with bitter desperation and she couldn’t fucking breathe as if it was all happening again beforeher eyes. Like she was losing her all over again. “Please—” she cried.
But it was useless. Emmery stared at the space her sister had occupied, her shattered heart rattling with each feeble rasp of breath. And for all she knew, how it lay shattered in her chest, she may never feel anything again.
Vesper stared at her from across the circle. She stared back at him. Just how they had done that day in the cottage before they made their pactum. But this time, they were no longer strangers, and she’d revealed the rawest part of her past. The thing that had eternally damned her soul and haunted her each day. The reason she was irreparably broken.
Instead of breaking the silence, he moved to Emmery’s side, pulling her against him and much to her surprise, tears stained his cheeks. There was a shared pain between them. A loss and heartache that never seemed to heal. And it was the kind of pain that brought people together, that made their bond stronger. A shared understanding one can’t explain. One that couldn’t be sympathized, and only empathy could truly create.
Emmery crawled into Vesper’s lap, burying her face in his neck, and wept until the morning sun peeked over the snow-capped mountains.
