Page 9 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

If he could see it better he could fix⁠—

Fates, he didn’t know what he could fix anymore.

His breathing quickened.

Why had Dryvius killed Nico? What had they even been doing beneath the Trade House? Was Nico a target or was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to help Roremar as he always did?

Roremar analyzed every interaction, relived all he could remember. He had to put it together. Had to know.

His chest ached as the memory built and built, a tidal wave rising over him. The knives in his chest dug deeper. The bruises on his wrists from Nico trying to force him off throbbed, the ones he kept pressing to ensure they wouldn’t heal.

He was supposed to protect him—protect them all—and instead, he’d⁠—

He couldn’t—how⁠—

Roremar’s skin was clammy. The cabin spun.

Lurching, he crawled to the corner of the room and heaved. It was barely more than water and bile since he hadn’t been given food since…yesterday?

The small space reeked. It wasn’t the first time he’d been sick since being locked in here. Whenever his mind wandered to Nico for too long, when the cyclical nature of his thoughts became too dizzying, his stomach pitched.

Roremar dropped his forehead against the wall, body trembling.

He should be dead. Everyone would be better off.

But despite how much he deserved execution, he still had one reason to live—one Fatesdamned star he couldn’t let go of even though his mere presence would ruin her.

Don’t you understand, you’ve already ruined me?

Kiss me, Roremar.

In between the endless darkness, there was her.

Emmeline—her lips against his when she’d finally, finally, let him kiss her. When she’d given herself over to him at that last pleading moment, dropped her final barrier, and told him everything words couldn’t convey.

“My beautiful torment,” he whispered as his head spun and the memory played again and again.

He wished the Fates would have frozen time in that moment with Emmeline. But living knowing she was out in the world—knowing what it was like to kiss her, to watch her come undone—and not be able to have her? That was the kind of torture he expected of the tragically romantic, fortune-spinning bastards.

He laughed, madness pressing on his mind with each thought of her. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, seeing her in the exploding colors behind his lids. Emmeline DeLeoste was imprinted on Roremar’s spirit. Her stubbornness, her bravery, her strength. Her laugh, her beauty, the fucking feel of her as she trembled against him, as she clung to him and begged for his life.

He was designed to want her, had suspected that for a while now. She was the beacon that kept him breathing. There’d never be another.

Just as there wouldn’t be forgiveness for killing his brother.

Why Nico?

Why now?

What happened in the darkness?

Roremar sank into the questions, letting each empty moment and every bout of longing shred through him as he deserved.

It was all better than the one fact he’d been avoiding. The eerie, unnatural silence he couldn’t explain.

Since the seeing chamber—since Nico—Roremar hadn’t heard Dryvius in his head once. Not so much as a whisper or a rumbling laugh from the Fate Realm.

And it terrified him to consider what that might mean.