Page 43 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts

She faced him, her hand lifted. The magical melody filled the cavern, echoing off the stone walls.

“What’s happening?” He frowned, scanning their surroundings.

Amelia’s blue irises changed to ghostly white. The faint lantern light sharpened her features. “I need to make sure no one hears the following, because I feel like screaming! What is yourproblem? Why can you be so at ease to lounge around herefor all eternity?”

“Am I to blame for your misguided expectations, Amelia?” Who was she to judge him, anyway?

“The Queen has Mikhail. Why don’t you stop with the snide remarks and help me save him?”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “Still on about that? Do you seriously think Mikhail is alive? I’d bet she had his head severed the first chance she got.”

Amelia bared her teeth in frustration. “Mikhail isalive. I felt it.”

Her naïveté irritated him even more. “Youfeltit? Did you see him? Or did you divine this through some mystical beans? Because, as I recall, your Oracle abilities are so feeble, I doubt you could manage a genuine vision.”

She clenched her hand into a fist as if she were getting ready to hit him. “Screw you!” she snapped, storming down the stairs.

Constantine had no choice but to follow. “You didn’t use to swear so much.”

“I didn’t use to have a necromancer for an escape partner, who drives me mad,” she shot back.

“Why not just leave me behind, then?”

She kept descending, with him trailing behind. At the foot of the stairs, Amelia faced him once more. “You wonder why I don’t leave you? Because you’re one of Mikhail’s closest friends, and he would never abandon you.”

She started to turn away, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Amelia, be realistic. Why would the Queen keep him alive? I bet you’ve seen enough of her cruelty by now. He’s a beast in a cage who would rip her apart if he escaped. Even if he’s alive, even if she’s absent, she’d never make it easy for you to save him.”

He didn’t want to be right, but ever since Kathrine had told him about Mikhail’s capture, he’d grieved for his friend. It hadbeen the final blow in his spiral to rock bottom. And how naïve he’d been to think he’d already hit it months earlier.

But Amelia’s expression wasn’t weighed down by loss. Instead, it held a quiet hope. Her voice rose, steady and strong against the cold stone walls surrounding them. “If what I sensed is true, Mikhail is in a far worse state than ‘a beast in a cage,’ but he’s alive.Alive! And every second we waste arguing only prolongs his agony.”

As much as he wanted to share her conviction, the bitter experience of his life refused to let him believe her. Life wasn’t a film script with a miraculous twist that saved the hero at the brink of death.

The light in Amelia’s eyes hoped for a different story.

Constantine had thought his heart had hardened into ice over the past weeks, yet whatever lay in his chest wouldn’t allow him to argue further with Amelia. As a final gesture to Mikhail, he would do this for her – accompany her on to find out the truth.

“Are you certain?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Very well, then. Let’s find him.”

***

Constantine

They’d reached the Circle of Arius. Both agreed it was wiser to hide and wait for the pair of reptilians in the distance to pass rather than risk using the magical melody on them.

“Where exactly is this ‘laboratory’?” Constantine whispered, crouching behind the corner of a stone wall.

Amelia lowered herself next to him. “The witcher said it’s south of the last houses on the outskirts.”

“Why do you trust him so much?”

“Because he has no loyalty to the Queen, and because he delivers results – for a price.”

They continued along a winding path beside the sleeping houses. On one side, the palace towered above the night like the Queen’s relentless spy. On the other, Antambazi sloped downward, its rugged terrain revealing tangled paths and weathered stone dwellings. “Why didn’t you tell Mikhail about your issues with necromancy?” Amelia asked.