I dipped my head. “Eris was as terrifying here as she was in the throne room. All wild unpredictability. Too raw, too incomprehensible, too fueled by magic and thinly covered rage.”
“What did she do?”
Ember’s prompts were the lifelines I needed, the exact right questions to keep me on track. My throat bobbed, and my heart pounded in my chest as the memory replayed. “She appeared in a storm of darkness. That childish giggle was the first thing I heard. The second was a threat. ‘This had better be good, Champion of Order. It’s going to cost you either way.’”
The cavern looked much the same as I searched it, avoiding Ember’s eye. Then, I’d had a torch with me, but Eris’s storm of magic had doused it, leaving only darkness in her wake. The red glow of the pendant Ember held cast an angry light across the space. I felt anger now—at my choices, at my actions—but it wasn’t my predominant emotion.
“She let me speak, let me make the case that waiting served no one, that I might as well challenge her and get this over with.” I cleared my throat. “She laughed at me.”
The way Ember coughed, I wondered if she, too, covered a laugh. Not the most appropriate time, but a worthwhile response nonetheless.
“Some part of her must have understood my concern, though. Understood that I asked for this because Themis would be untenable to the city if I took power. If her hold on the city were cemented through the life of a Champion, Eris would lose.”
The memory that stood out the most was the single twitch, a near-raising of her brow, as if she were surprised Iunderstood the implications. I don’t think she’d realized until then how set against being used I was.
Of course, she’d used me in her own way, for her own means, but because it was in service of Ember’s ultimate rise to power, I found I didn’t mind as much.
“She wouldn’t change her plans, but she could change my value to Themis. That was all she said before the darkness enveloped us both. When the smoke cleared, something was different. My entire being longed for something that I couldn’t quite understand.”
Finally, I did glance at Ember. I was unsurprised to meet her gaze. She, too, understood that feeling now. I knew she’d felt it a handful of times since she’d been cursed. I knew because I’d felt it in those same instances. The emptiness that only the nearness of the other could fill.
Ember dropped my gaze and looked at her interlaced fingers. “If she cursed you before extracting a price, she must not have planned to kill you.”
“She knew my mother had followed me. Knew she was in the tunnel before I did. I think Eris knew what my mother would do.”
The final memory lodged in my throat. Every word up to this point had been like swallowing shards of glass. How much more did the goddess need? The sharp taste of something acidic coated the back of my throat. It wasn’t Ember’s emotions as I was now used to. My body convulsed, dry heaving, to expel the words.
Heat flooded me, and the featherlight touch of Ember’s hand on my shoulder steadied me. Gentle strokes with her delicate fingers urged me to complete my story.
“Eris cursed me first. In her mind, a granted boon, so that I couldn’t argue over the cost later. When my mother steppedinto the room, gooseflesh raised on my arms, and my body shook. I already knew the ending.”
My body tried to replicate the physical feelings now. The circle Ember’s fingers drew on my back paused the shaking, giving me space to breathe. If only she knew that my breath came easier when she was near.
“It was like they had already negotiated. My mother knelt beside me.” Now, my body shook even with Ember’s soothing strokes. I no longer knew what was memory and what was not. “Mother kissed my forehead and told me I’d done the right thing. That she was proud of me.”
Ember’s finger brushed my cheek. I didn’t understand until I caught sight of the water on her thumb. She caught my tear.
“Mother spoke of the act, of my foolish attempt to summon Chaos, like she’d known all along what I would do. She spoke like…” I grasped for a comparison, something Ember would understand. “She spoke in riddles like Alaric, like she’d plotted my future and had always known she would pay this price.”
Ember shook beside me. I turned to her, realizing how true the words I had just spoken were.
“And then, with no more than a sentence about the cost and a look of pure disappointment from Eris, my mother was gone.”
The silence thickened between us, but Ember didn’t push me away, didn’t give me space. Her gloved hand cupped my cheek, prepared to catch stray tears as they fell.
“Her involvement cost her.”
“And you resolved not to let anyone else participate.” Ember stated it as a fact, not a question. One she’d likely stewed over multiple times since her childhood and again since Alaric’s death. She’d been too young to push people away physically with her mother’s accident; she’d still needed them to survive, but she had certainly taken her emotions off thetable. After Alaric’s loss, it was like she stole away with every emotion, every person who made her feel, and tucked them deep inside her where no one and nothing could get to them.
Ember caught another falling tear, and she met my gaze. “What was her name? Your mother?” She asked, as if my mother’s identity was a precious thing—like speaking the name aloud would make a difference. Like maybe her sacrifice wasn’t a waste.
“Marianne. Glanmore, I guess.” My shrug was apathetic.
“Marianne Hart,” she whispered with another light swipe of her thumb across my cheek.
I closed my eyes, like maybe hearing that name held power. Maybe it wasn’t just hearing the name but who I heard it from. Ember honored my mother’s sacrifice. She seemed to understand the choice I’d tried to make for myself and the pain it had caused.
She’d said earlier that Alaric’s loss wasn’t a one-time pain to focus on but a constant barrage to survive. Like Ember, grieving my mother had taken me a lifetime. It would never end, but this wasn’t just about her death. It was about the cost of my decisions. Costs that continued to stack up.
