My eyes burned as I returned to my husband’s side. I stared down at him with my heart in my throat and took his hand. His face had paled; his lips grew blue.
I wouldn’t allow Dritan to be taken from me. We had a future—so many possibilities ahead of us.
“You did this,” Emmerick accused as he stalked toward Astros. “And now, you will help us fix it.”
Aquas’ kelp-laden skin was pulled taut; he was the most corporeal of the lot. With a grave tone, he pointed at Emmerick and said, “There is no correcting course now. You and the child of Siro did not listen to me—you were to bring him to me, and you did not.”
“So that you could sacrifice him?” Emmerick boomed; his fists remained tight at his sides, and the muscles of his jaw went rigid.
“Come now, Aquas,” a crackling voice emitted from the flaming silhouette of Lira, the Origin of Flame. “All is not lost. The boy still breathes. He is strong like his mother—he fights Caym as we speak.”
Atlas plucked a rose petal from her own arm and winced with a whimper before throwing it in the air. Origin Asterie grabbed her wrist to prevent her from doing it again, shushing her.
“Ah, but without him awake, there is no way into Death’s domain. The damage is done,” Siros retorted. “They have doomed us to this eternal prison.”
The powers around us made a ruckus of disparaging counterpoints. Amara’s horror-stricken expression mirrored the churning helplessness within me, all while Emmerick remained stiff; his anger roiled off him.
“Settle down,” Elara scolded. “Caym wishes us to turn against one another.”
I’d never dreamed of seeing the Source Origins of our land in my lifetime. Never mind watching them squabble like petulant children while my lover trembled on the cusp of death before them.
Anger pulled at my vision, and my jaw clenched.
“Enough!” Emmerick’s shout shook the room along with a flash of golden light and quieted the lot of them. He stepped to my side, settling a large hand on my shoulder.
“She has the relics,” he panted out through his rage. “Tell us another way.”
The Source Origins stilled; all grew silent aside from Atlas, who whimpered, leaves drooping.
“We cannot help you,” Astros concluded despite the labored, wrath-filled breaths of the King beside me. Blood pounded in my ears as the ground spun beneath my feet. The very deities who warped our fates would not intervene.
They would leave us for dead.
Heat built behind my eyes, and Emmerick’s grip on my shoulder tightened, continuing to steady me; I’d never been ready for this.
“Cannot or will not?” Emmerick growled.
“It is impossible,” Astros barked back. “You ask for answers we do not have.”
Lira approached Dritan, tilting his chin to the side with a sharp nail of flame. I braced, though her touch did not scorch him. She gazed down at him like a mother doting on a child. I wondered if the Origin could have a heart beneath the flames.
“There must be a way,” I whispered to her, then turned to the rest of them. “You are the most powerful beings in this world. What must we do?”
Their plan had been foiled.
We held little hope.
My upbringing, my training, my devotion—all for nothing. The prophecy crumbled between my fingers like loose soil.
“I may know another way to reach him,” Emmerick cut in. “Can objects be taken with someone into the realm of the Sethe curse? And which one of you do I need to bargain with forthatto happen?”
Lira’s posture perked up as I turned to Emmerick, mouth agape.
What he intended became clearer now.
He’d curse himself again.
The sacrifice he was willing to make proved he would be the type of man Dritan could look up to. I wished my husband were awake to hear his pledge of loyalty. When he met my gaze, he gave me a reassuring nod and the weakest trace of a smile.
