Page 80 of Shattered Heir
“How could two entire kingdoms forget their ancient gifts?”
“Well, a few kingdoms did not have obvious gifts, like the rest of them, so they kept them to the nobility, but maybe your grandparents knew and would have told Lamont when he became king. I, unfortunately, know a lot, Emma, but I still don't know everything. Your father never knew his gift.”
It seemed weird that something so important had been lost. I couldn't help but wonder how careless that was.
“I think that it is time you told me about this prophecy, already.”
I watched as Ryker ruffled his hair.
“Ah, I thought you forgot about that,” he smirked at me sheepishly.
“I did until just a moment ago when Ash was having another vision. You guys said that there was a prophecy about me.”
“We assume it's about you. We're not sure. It was made hundreds of years ago.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Ryker pulled into my driveway as his phone rang. He said ‘hello,’ and then answered with as few words as possible; then he hung up.
“I am sorry, Emma, can we talk later? I need to go.”
I opened the car door and slammed it in irritation.
“Emma!” Ryker called out to me as I walked to the door. I ignored him and slammed the front door, standing just behind it as I heard the sound of his car leaving the driveway.
He was still keeping secrets from me, it seemed. No matter what I did, I would continue to know little, next to nothing, about my life.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Shad wasn’t attending school anymore. I stopped by his house to train with Keil as I usually did on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Keil was in the kitchen, and his glasses were on the counter, his face in his hands.
“Keil?” I asked as I reached him.
“Oh, hello, Emma. Ready for today's lesson?” he asked with no inflection in his tone or voice.
“Where is Shad? Why hasn’t he been at school?” I asked. He looked up at me with eyes full of sorrow and worry.
“I have failed him,” he said.
I wanted to know what had happened since I had last seen Keil in order for him to have lost all hope.
“He is failing, just as the other soulless have failed, the ones we collected and tried to save. He is fading fast, Emma. I am not sure how much time he has left before he is gone forever.”
I felt pains shooting through my entire being.This is not possible, I am not going to let this be possible.
“No, we can still, I still can, try—” I fell silent. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but look at the ancient warrior, morepowerful than all other Terran beings, who was on the verge of tears.
I left him, raced up the stairs, two at a time. I opened every single door, not sure which bedroom was Shad’s. I had never been inside his bedroom before. I opened a door and saw a room painted blue, a light blue, like the sky. There was a queen-sized bed with navy blue sheets and a machine making noises beside the boy who was in the bed, not moving. I walked slowly over to him, wondering if my being there might make him even worse in some way. I watched from a few feet away as the machine echoed his steady pulse and as his chest rose and fell with each breath.
He is just sleeping; he is fine, I tried to tell myself, because, of course, those words sounded so much better than the truth, which I knew. I took a few moments to look around his room. There stood a full length mirror in the corner, near a closet. There was a dresser and a small writing desk, on which I noticed his book, hisrosebook. And on top of it, I saw a wilted, pink rose. I walked over and noticed that it must have been there for a day or two because it was already drying out. My tears slipped down my cheek, and I wiped them away. Why is there a pink rose in his room? I had forgotten all about checking on what a pink rose meant. I touched it and noticed on the corner of his desk, there was a small card from The Rose Village. I smiled as I picked it up and realized that there were a bunch more of them underneath. I wondered why he needed so many. Maybe he was the one who had taken the stack I had searched for months earlier—before the cave. I noticed, then, a circle around the pink rose, drawn with a pen right on the desk. I picked up the flower and traced the outline, wondering why he had drawn it? What was he thinking? He was a soulless. How could he have remembered that? Had he? I couldn't see his markings any longer because tears were streaming down my face. I sniffled and touched the pink bloom again. Happiness, the pink rose isgiven to signify happiness. Do I make him happy? Happiness was the farthest thing from my mind at that time. Nothing was happy about my current life situation. How have I been able to make him happy?
As soon as I gathered myself and my emotions, I placed the flower and the card back on the side of the desk and looked at the book that was there. It was his rose hobby book, as he called it. I smiled at the memory of sitting in his house, flipping through its pages. There were about fifty or so pages bound in the front. I recalled him explaining to me that they were just journal entries that he had written earlier. Finally, I sat down at his desk and tried to cut at the strings that bound them. Once I finally freed the pages, I turned to the first one.
There was just one thing on that page: a sketch of a rose, lightly drawn, and I could tell that it was old. I flipped the page, and there were words. Some I understood, and some I didn’t. I turned to the next page, and there was a sketch ofmyface; it looked just like me, and beside my face and all around it, there was a border of roses, all sketched so beautifully. At the bottom, it read: “My Darling.” I tried to stop the flow of tears, but I couldn’t. Page after page, there were words in a language that I didn’t understand, along with some writing that I could read. I wished that I could have deciphered all of the many pages and pages of words that he had written. I wanted to know what he had written there, what he had taken the time to record. The door creaked open before I could finish the book. I snapped the book shut and waited for Keil to enter.
“Emma, are you alright?” he asked in a whisper.
“I don’t think so, not unless he recovers from this, Keil. If he doesn’t, if I cannot save him, I know I will never be alright ever again for the rest of my life. Everything is so messed up. Just when I think things might turn around, something else comes up and pushes me back down.”
