The Emerald-Opal Heir - 11

The Reader

As Emmeline stood before Baelle for the third and hopefully final time, she was not scared. 

The darkness curled around her shoulders, an actual smoke courtesy of Calli. She could see well enough to make out Baelle’s figure among the crowd of people, the goddess’s back turned. 

Emmeline’s heart was beating a mile a minute in her chest, pounding a frantic rhythm. This was it, this was the end. 

She drew one of the many knives from the bodice of her dress, the metal ice cold against her skin. The sound was undetectable to everyone except for Baelle. Emmeline caught the goddess moving slightly, enough to hint that Baelle knew they were here. 

Emmeline rushed at the goddess, her knife poised to plunge into Baelle’s chest. The blade was aimed perfectly and it was nearly impossible to deflect. 

I am not afraid, she told herself as the tip of the blade touched Baelle’s back. 

Then the room exploded into fractals of emerald light. Emmeline’s knife shattered on impact, bursting into a million little pieces that cut her hands. The daggers in her dress exploded, shredding through the fabric and parts of her skin until scarlet leaked into the purple cloth. Emmeline could hear the high pitched tinkling of water goblets falling and knew that all of the metal in the room was gone now. 

She reached inside herself for the gifts from the goddesses, searching for the switch that controlled her magic, trying to shield herself. 

Baelle was using Beckett’s magic. He wasn’t here anymore, Emmeline had seen him leave, hadn’t she? Had he returned? 

“Come to play, have we?” Baelle’s voice echoed off the walls, sending chills through Emmeline. Her chest ached where she’d once stabbed herself with a pen to try and stop Baelle, and her head pounded with the suffocating sensation of the slaver’s dust. “It took you long enough.”

Emmeline crawled to her feet, body stinging from the broken daggers. She was weaponless now, especially with her gifts refusing to respond. 

Panic hummed a familiar tune in her veins, filling her with useless adrenaline. 

The crowds of visitors were gathered on the walls now, giving Emmeline and Baelle a wide berth. Calli’s smoke had long since dissipated, leaving the entire room clear. 

Emmeline locked eyes with Baelle, daring the goddess to look away. She wondered if Baelle knew she was bluffing - if Baelle knew that Emmeline was defenseless and her friends weren’t coming to her aid. 

It’s all a show, she reminded herself. This was a performance to Baelle. It was Emmeline’s job to make sure the audience hated it. 

The air near her hand solidified into an obsidian sword, a weird ability that Emmeline still didn’t have an explanation for. Someone in the crowd made an audible gasp as Emmeline twirled the weapon in her hands the way she’d once seen Forrest and Wiley do it. 

Baelle looked unimpressed and didn’t even bother drawing a weapon. She held out her palms and Emmeline ducked on instinct, narrowly avoiding two bands of silver light. 

“Look at her run!” remarked a gray-haired lady from the back of the room. Emmeline could guess by the sheer amount of arrogance in the voice that she was Baelle’s other demigoddess friend. “What a little coward!” 

Baelle shot off another round of silver light and Emmeline slid on the remains of a decorative sword, losing her balance. She tumbled to the ground, stunned. 

It was what Baelle had been waiting for because green light leapt from Baelle’s palms and wrapped itself tightly around Emmeline, a pulsing coil of unbreakable light. It pinned her to the ground, squeezing so tight she could barely breathe. 

A fight broke out in the crowd somewhere, but whoever was coming to her aid was too slow. Baelle was approaching quickly, her steps as rapid as Emmeline’s breathing. 

Goddesses, this was how she was going to die. 

Baelle bent down so that she was at Emmeline’s level, her dark eyes glittering gems of onyx. Onyx. Ink. 

Emmeline whipped her eyes shut and searched for that magic which had earlier called the sword. She could feel the energy of the goddesses humming through the air, offering her strength. 

“Little Reader,” Baelle sighed, placing her hands on Emmeline’s temples. The touch made every bone in Emmeline’s body scream, as though the goddess had a touch of poison. She almost lost her grip on the magic she was using. “You are a stain of ink on the perfect picture of the world.” 

“Ink stains never disappear,” Emmeline hissed, feeling the blade she was creating finally solidify in her hand. 

And then she sliced her weapon straight towards Balle’s face. 

At the same time, whatever magic Baelle was gathering launched itself into Emmeline’s mind, ice cold. She could feel it freezing in her thoughts, making it nearly impossible to think. The cold sensation crept over her memories, completely encasing them in ice before they cracked and crumbled away. 

Baelle clutched her now bleeding face, stumbling away as Emmeline slumped to the floor. She needed to scream, to tell someone she needed help. The goddess was running away now, but she wasn’t dead and Emmeline needed to go after her and … 

There were warm hands on her arms. She shied away from the touch, expecting one of Baelle’s guards to be dragging her away. 

“It’s me, Em.” 

Her head throbbed at the name and she pulled herself away from him. It felt like she should recognize him but her thoughts were racing too fast for her to make sense of them. 

Another voice fluttered above her head. “Baelle managed to land a hit. I didn’t recognize whatever magic she was using, but the sooner we get out of here the sooner I can figure it out. Don’t let her get knocked out.” 

“Clara, work some of your Blessing on her,” responded the first voice. Clara? A burst of red flashed in her vision and somewhere in back of her mind she heard a memory splinter. “Forrest can escort the two of you out while we cause a distraction.” 

“I’ll see if I can get her to walk,” said a third voice. More fingers grazed Emmeline’s temples. She felt the telltale tingle of magic as the warmth sank beneath her skin. It wasn’t a fire, but it was a warm breeze that chased away some of the winter wind in her mind. It thawed some of the ice blocks, but did little to eliminate the shivers raking their way down her limbs. 

Feeling returned to her limbs enough that Emmeline could move them. She tested them carefully, pushing herself to her feet. 

A red-haired girl and a boy with a gray streak through his hair stood before her as a group of others she couldn’t place darted off into the panicking crowds of people. The girl offered Emmeline a hand, hoisting her to her feet. 

“Are you okay, Echo? Forrest can probably carry you-” 

Emmeline staggered backwards at the flood of memories that rushed through her mind, a torrent too strong to fight against. She saw the girl lying on the ground with blue lips and the name Clara was whispered over and over again. A picture of the boy also flashed through her mind, hugging a girl with clear blue eyes. He held a sword and though his lips never moved, she could hear Forrest repeated along with Coral. 

“I can walk,” she protested weakly, her knees knocking together as she took a step and nearly crumpled to the ground again. 

“Here,” the boy - Forrest - offered, holding out his arm. Although Emmeline could only recall bits and pieces of the time she spent with these two people, there was this well of trust in the pit of her chest, buried away. She leaned in to him gratefully, her heart telling her that it was okay and that he wouldn’t hurt her. 

Together, they limped forward, the girl called Clara following closely behind them, her warm hand never leaving Emmeline’s arm. Little tingles raced up her skin at every touch. 

Forrest stopped abruptly, and Emmeline stumbled over her own feet, nearly careening face first into the floor. Forrest whipped out his sword and lunged forward, leaving Emmeline to lean on Clara for support. 

“Hurry, while Forrest clears a path,” Clara said, dragging Emmeline along. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Emmeline caught Forrest quite literally pushing people aside, occasionally slamming them into each other with the flat of his blade. They were too shocked to do much of anything except let Emmeline and Clara slip past them. 

Humiliation painted her cheeks red as they ran. How cowardly she must have seemed to everyone in that room, unable to land any more than a single strike on Baelle. Now she was being practically carried out like some pathetic child. But every time Emmeline tried to increase her pace, she only grew more light-headed. 

Occasionally, memories surfaced in her head. Emmeline shoved the visions to the recesses of her brain for later, determined to recall everything she’d forgotten. 

Clara huffed with the effort of running with half of Emmeline’s weight, and Emmeline could hear her own breathing become ragged. They were turning corridor after corridor. Her eyelids threatened to close at any moment. Guilt tugged at her heart, begging her to turn back for Forrest who’d never followed them out. 

She was so distracted by the millions of pictures flashing through her mind that she completely missed when Clara stopped moving suddenly. 

Emmeline glanced upwards, looking for whatever had caused Clara to pause. 

Her eyes fell on a familiar prince, his crown askew on his sweat-drenched head. His pale eyes were wide and his mouth fell open. 

The girl from earlier was noticeably absent. Emmeline, not thinking straight in the slightest, slurred, “Where’s your pretty little friend?” 

Beckett’s cheeks flushed with color, and so did Clara’s. 

Emmeline had a vague memory of the two of them sharing lots of inside jokes and … she felt the phantom of a cold metal knife plunging into her back. 

Beckett’s betrayal. It flared among the floodwaters of her mind, drawing her closer. 

Anger with the heat of a thousand suns caught fire inside her, burning straight to the pit of her stomach where all of her power dwelled. 

She couldn’t even form words at this point, her body at war with itself. 

All Emmeline knew was the pure rage that she’d kindled inside of her and she grabbed hold of it and, with all of her strength, threw it at Beckett. 

Some sort of blackness erupted from her chest. It resembled the ink from a pen, swirling and dancing through the air but never forming words. The ink moved fluidly through the air, whirling towards Beckett. 

His expression was one of pure fear but Emmeline didn’t care. 

I can take him out now. Maybe I can’t take Baelle right now, but the loss of a prince will be a great one too. 

Beckett held up his trembling palms to face her. The lines on his arms glowed green and silver and the light spread to his palms. Emmeline devoured his fear, consuming it and using it as fuel. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it was wrong and she was acting irrationally. 

So when Beckett’s magic finally lashed out and struck her with a flash of emerald light, Emmeline was glad when the darkness pulled her under.