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“You know I’m ri–”

He cut Mayumi off by roaring, yet his orbs were white and the big guy was... trembling? Mayumi, taken aback, flinched and smoothed her features.

Emerie bit at her bottom lip in distress.

This was... unbearable to watch.

All of them arguing between each other, and revealing just how deeply they cared for their partners, was harrowing. Emerie was getting a vivid peek into their hearts and bonds, and she felt terrible that she and Ingram were the cause of their current grief.

“Yes, you’re right. I get it,” he eventually muttered, before placing his skull back in his hands. “But just the idea of you coming to harm, like Orpheus said, fills me with agony. We are meant to protect you, not the other way around.”

“This is your way of protecting us,” Delora softly said. “Sometimes we have to make painful sacrifices for the ones we love. Sometimes we have to give someone else something precious while we take on the fight and burden.” She leaned into Magnar’s side as she brought his arm around her herself. She turned her head up to his fox skull. “I’ve already done it once, for Fyodor. I want to do it for all of us, but as well as for them again because I’ve been terrified of Fyodor being out there in the world by themself.”

“Fyodor?” Emerie asked.

Delora turned a pained smile to her. “Magnar and I have our own child, but they’re fully grown and didn’t want to stay with us.”

Emerie’s gaze flittered to the painting next to the door, and she realised it was a family portrait of all of them from when it was little and bearing a small skull. She couldn’t make out what kind.

“Little raven,” Magnar groaned, turning her so he could cup her cheeks with both hands. “You are too sweet. The other brides, they are strong and fierce. You are not.”

“You’re right, I’m not very strong, or even fast, but I can be brave when I really need to be.” Delora let out a laugh. “Mayumi said I’m a natural with a bow, and I can take down Demons from a vantage point if I can get to one. I don’t need to survive, but just buy everyone time like I did for you when protecting Fyodor. I’ll probably be the first one back here, I know that, but if I can help at all, I want to.” Then she reached up with a gentle touch to make Magnar dip his snout so she could nuzzle it. “But you will have to stay here, Magnar, or accept that you coming along could mean that I don’t get to come back because you’ll be gone as well. Plus... I really want to show that asshole that I can look at him without trembling in fear, like he promised me.”

Magnar pulled her off her feet as a whine escaped his chest. “I don’t know how to convince you otherwise.”

He held Delora like she was the most precious and delicate thing in the world, and she embraced him as though he wasn’t a terrifying monster.

“So, is it settled?” Reia asked.

“No. I will not allow it,” Orpheus growled. “I have spent all my life waiting for you. I told myself when I finally found my bride, I would not let her come to harm, and yet I have already had youdieand wither into ash in my arms.”

“I will go without you, Orpheus. You can either give me your blessing, or I’ll borrow some of Mayumi’s enchanted rope and tie you to the bed and leave.”

“You forget.” He pointed a claw at her face threateningly, but it felt empty of actual potential for harm. His tone was dark and menacing as he said, “It’s a four-day walk just to his castle for a Mavka. You will return to me by the end of the first day, my little doe.”

Reia shrugged her right shoulder. “I’m sure we can figure something out. I will go, Orpheus, without you. Accept it.”

With a ferocious snarl and his orbs flaring red again, Orpheus turned and stormed away to leave. Emerie didn’t know if anyone else noticed it, but just as he was shoving himself through the threshold, his orbs morphed to a stark white before he slammed the door behind him.

Reia’s lips were tight, and now that he was gone, tears filled her eyes. She looked extremely hurt, and perhaps even a little betrayed by his leaving. She took a single step forward to chase after him, only to stop and clench her hands into fists at her sides.

“Give him some time, Reia,” Delora soothed, as Magnar put her down.

“I know why he’s against it,” she said after releasing her clenched jaw. “I know it’s because he’s tired of seeing pain and death come to the humans he’s kept, but our future is stuck in this fucked-up limbo, and I already can’t take it. He’s too afraid to try in case something permanent happens to me, but he asked for my soulknowingI can’t sit still with the Demons around us.” Then she slowly spun to them with her arm crossed over her stomach, as though it was tied into knots. “He’s also never just... left like that.”

All Emerie could do was sit in silence, and she was thankful Ingram had chosen to do the same.

What could she say?

She never could have imagined this was just as important to them as it was for Ingram. Not because they wanted to make a better world, but because they wanted to make a safer one for themselves.

This had obviously been a discussion they’d all tentatively had before, but they’d never had a Duskwalker offer their life up like this. Emerie knew she was irrelevant in the equation. She was a measly human, and likely wouldn’t be anything more than a piece of bait.

Of course she hoped she would live, but the chances looked slim. Not enough to deter her, but enough that she knew she had to be smart in order to survive.

Weirdly though, as much as that should terrify her... it didn’t.

Maybe if she had thought it was futile, she would have clung desperately to life and figured out a different way to save her own skin. A better, easier path. But, as she looked around the room and took everyone in, while they seemed to have forgotten completely about her presence, something blossomed in her chest.