Page 99 of The Ember and the Emerald

On and on I fought. For her. For our mother. My father. Even Elowen’s. For Hakeldama. For everyone.

With every swing of my blades, I expected the Ember to fire up. To consume me at long last. To explode with light and crystallize the monstra once and for all. Though I felt its power, an engine running smooth and hot, powering my strength, it did little more than glow.

I didn’t feel my wounds until the last monstra fell. I stood among the carnage, panting, certain the war wasn’t over. It had only begun.

That was when I met Reese. Gentle hands. Soft voice. Kind eyes. He claimed to be a villager and cleaned my wounds. Helped my sister. In the coming days, we became friends.

The Ember never ignited, no matter how many battles I survived. Reese told me I didn’t have to carry the burden alone. I believed him. Trusted him. But he was monstra and at Ian’s command, he slid a blade between my ribs. Slow, precise, intimate.

There in the Ring of Truth, my body convulsed, lungs burning.

Reset. Another life. Different home. Same ache.

Elowen trained me harder this time, her voice clipped, her eyes watchful.

“Do not mistake kindness for safety,” she warned. “There’s always a motive.”

The first battle—again. Elowen avoided injury, but I did not. I met Anders in the marshlands…and he introduced me to his twin, Jasher. Humor like armor, laughter like hope. Jasher fought beside me. Bled for me. Hiding who and what he really was.

I fell for him. And he led me into a trap, ensuring my death.

No pause. No mercy.

One life collapsed into another, too fast, too brutal. For a string of those lives, I had no contact with Jasher. Not face to face, at least. Perhaps he’d been among the throngs I slew. Perhaps not. Then we met again. And again. Initial contact happened sooner each go-round, as if we were drawn together by a force greater than ourselves. But always in the end, he did exactly as my dad and Elowen had warned. He betrayed me.

“I’ve begun remembering our past loops,” Elowen told me one day, pacing just like I did when trying to work a puzzle. “A pattern has formed. You meet the one named Jasher. You love him. You die.”

For a few loops, she killed Jasher at every opportunity.

Now, she paced before me, frenzied. “If he dies before you meet him, you follow within a week. If he dies after…we war.”

War. Yes. Sister against sister, life after life. The big bad ruled unchecked. I never dealt with Sin or Malkom. Always they maintained their distance from me, as if afraid and waiting for the right moment to strike.

In a few loops, Elowen oversaw my demise herself, if only to start over again.

More pain ripped through me as I relived death after death. Fire, poison, steel. Screams tore free, and the real me fell, knees buckling.

Hands gripped mine. Jasher, anchoring me. Or attempting to. I resisted.

Every life, I had lost sight of my mission, breaking my vow to my sister.

Every life, I had loved the wrong man.

Every life, I had died with regret.

Finally—finally!—understanding settled heavy in my chest. There would be no more chances. Elowen was right; the final tide of my lives was rising fast, relentless, curling toward its inevitable crash. When next I died, the Ember died with me.

No more chances.

If I failed again, my parents would perish. My sister, too. My niece—the oh, so infuriating Iris—would grow up hunted in a world I should have saved.

“Moriah.” Jasher called to me from the abyss.

The haze burned away, and once again, he came into view. He was both more and less monstra. Bigger wings, longer claws, sharper teeth, but my Jasher’s face. Agony coated his features as he held me close.

A part of me longed to fold myself into his embrace. To soak in his comfort and offer my own. But anger and suspicion erected a concrete wall around my heart.

The elixir I’d fed him at the start of our journey had done exactly as advertised: revealed the truth of who he was. The killer who’d betrayed me over and over without remorse.