Page 211 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

Roremar narrowed his eyes, but Emmeline placed a hand on his chest, thumb tracing circles over his heart as she spoke. “That blame doesn’t absolve the grief, though. We think it’ll help to have someone to put responsibility on—to be angry at—but it only makes it worse because when we blame ourselves, we don’t allow ourselves to process the loss properly. We punish ourselves by holding on to the pain.”

Roremar never wanted to process his father’s death. He wanted to feel it.

If he was being honest, in the past ten years, he’d never tried to process what he thought he’d done. He hadn’t even told anyone. It had been a question in the night, one that rotted him, tricked him, and played games with his mind.

Emmeline went on, “Even if we don’t blame ourselves, the grief doesn’t go away, but it gets a little easier each day. Then, some days it’s inexplicably harder. Punishing yourself, though? Turning away from it? That isn’t the answer.” Voice cracking, Emmeline whispered, “Don’t let the ones who are really responsible win.”

It was that final plea that had him saying, “I’m trying, but I don’t know how. How I’ve been used…it’s a really hard thing to keep straight in my mind.”

“I’ll help,” she swore. “If you let me.” And something in his chest warmed, the tether to her they’d both suppressed for too long pulling him above water as he laid out all the dark truths staining his soul.

Fates, I don’t deserve her, he said to himself.

And from the way Emmeline’s eyes widened, a gasp slipping through her kiss-swollen lips, he knew she heard it. Through this rare bond that stitched them together, the Fates having chosen them for one another.

It explained how he’d always instinctually known what she was feeling, how he could read her expression no matter how hard she tried to hide it, and how he’d felt her distress from across Lyra when she was in trouble.

They stood in awed, charged silence for a beat longer, both of their breath speeding, heartbeats loud in the quiet seeing chamber.

Somewhere in the manor, a clock rang out the seventh hour. Emmeline shook her head, and reality slammed into him.

With a soft smile and a press of her lips to his, Emmeline laced their fingers and said, “I just promised myself to you. That wasn’t for the hour or the night. It’s for eternity, Reckless.”

“Trust me, Huntress. I know.” He squeezed her hands. It was so natural to slip into this ease with her. “Wherever I go after tomorrow, our souls, our bodies, our fates are entwined. One doesn’t exist wholly without the other. And if I do happen to die in that arena, we will find one another again, no matter what galaxies I have to scour for you.”

Emmeline lifted her chin stubbornly. “I don’t want another body or galaxy. I want this life with you.” The vulnerability in her words, finally asking for what she wanted after so long alone, nearly had him crashing to his knees.

He’d known all this time this side of her was waiting, which meant he knew the magnitude of her admitting these words to him. It was a gift for her to be so unguarded.

“I’ll tell the stars about every lifetime with you,” Roremar breathed, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Promise me, you’ll fight for this one to begin with,” Emmeline whispered.

Roremar held her stare as he nodded. “I promise.”

And he meant it. Because of how she fought for him when he didn’t deserve it, because of how she loved him, and because of this tether pulling him to the surface, for the first time, Roremar felt like maybe he could do it.

He walked her to her suite, and as he slipped out the balcony door so he could get back to his cell before someone came to escort him, Emmeline place a hand on his wrist. “We need to be careful.”

“I promise,” he repeated.

Emmeline grinned. “Then how do you feel about playing a game tonight, Reckless?”

Part Three

Fertility and Betrayal

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Emmeline

The ballroom of the Council House was a glittering masquerade. As if everyone’s greedy schemes would be hidden by something as simple as the delicate, jeweled-and-feathered masks slipped across their faces. It was comical that they tried, Emmeline thought as she once again sat atop a dais at the head of the room.

Even from her removed position, it was evident who were nervous families, clinging to their competitor in the tournament, hoping they wouldn’t die tomorrow, and who were the rulers responsible for their torment.

The families’ fear mingled with the stringed quartet, their melodies coated in haunted, plaintive fortunes instead of revelrous mirth. Fountains of sparkling wine bubbled in a swaggering display of wealth; the swishing of skirts as women spun across the floor was less romantic and wistful and more like they were marionettes jerked around by their strings unwillingly.

And yet, not one of them stood up to Rocarri.