Page 52 of The Spark that Ignites (Shattered Soul #1)

T he elaborate pictures mocked her, depicting stories she couldn't piece together. Squinting at the stained-glass window, she begged it to give her answers. To show her something. Anything .

Emmery let her head fall back against the ballroom wall with a thump as she pulled her knees to her chest. What happened at the Tree of Eternal Blood jarred loose a feeling she had kept wound tight far too long.

The unnerving stares from all those people needled under her skin like she was some sort of deity, a noble light in the lowly shadows.

Not a shred of her wanted this burden of power or obligation of the prophecy, and she found herself lost, wandering in circles, no longer seeing the breadcrumbs guiding her back, nor seeing the path forward.

Aera nudged her face under Emmery’s hand, her horns scraping her palm.

She stroked the velvety soft feathers of her injured wing, sadness cinching her gut.

Each day Emmery worked on it but even with Callias’s balm successfully extracting the vile magic like an infectious weed, Aera still hadn’t taken flight.

Maybe it was more of a mental block for the fox. Emmery knew that feeling well.

“What am I going to do, Aera?” she whispered.

The fox nudged her hand again and gave a gentle yip.

Emmery reached beside her to the plate of berries Marlys had prepared and popped one into her mouth.

The sweet-tart flavour sang on her tongue.

Aera nibbled on a berry, spat it onto the blue carpet and batted it like a toy before finally swallowing it.

Subjecting Emmery to those big, round amber eyes, she begged for more.

Briar entered the ballroom, her booted footsteps soft on the carpet. She sank down the wall beside Emmery, mirroring her posture and Emmery wordlessly offered her the fruit plate.

She popped a raspberry into her mouth and Aera stared at Briar, jealousy hot in her watery eyes. When she yipped in protest, Emmery shot her a stern look.

“You’ve already had half the plate, little piggy.” Emmery tousled Aera’s furry head, and the fox gave her an unsavoury sneer, garnished with her fangs hanging over her lips, before hopping from her lap and sashaying out the door.

“She has quite the attitude,” Briar said, the corners of her mouth twitching. “I wonder where she learned that from.”

“Probably, Vesper. He’s a bad influence.”

Briar chuckled. “You can say that again.”

“If you’re here to tell me that what happened at the tree is no big deal, you should save your breath, Briar. Ves already gave me the whole spiel.”

She laughed, a bright feather light sound. “Just Bri. Please.”

“Bri.” Emmery tested out the nickname. “I noticed Ves and Callias call you that.”

“Only my friends do. And my brother, but he much preferred Big Foot.” She gestured at her tightly laced boots. They were in fact large for her willowy frame.

“At least you don’t have old lady hair.” Emmery flicked her silver locks as she fought the warmth stirring in her chest. “So, we’re friends then?”

“Did you doubt we were?” Briar snagged a blueberry off the plate, tossing it into the air and caught it in her mouth. She grinned with purple stained teeth. “Now are you going to tell me why you’re in here brooding by yourself? Staring at this giant-ass window.”

Emmery pushed her palms into her eyes. Her head was starting to ache. “I’m trying to make sense of it all.”

“Do you know the Ballad of Beginnings?” Briar asked. “It’s the history of our people, how it all came to be. I thought maybe Vesper told you. Because of the whole prophecy thing.”

Head swivelling to glimpse her friend, Emmery asked, “Is that what this is?”

“It’s told in the pictures, yes.” Briar met her sideways glance. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Please,” Emmery said. “Maybe it’ll give me some context.”

Briar, clasped her fingers together, stretching them before her. “Now, would you like the regular or theatrical version?” A smirk. “I would highly recommend the theatrical.”

Emmery snuggled into Briar’s shoulder. “Oh, definitely theatrical.”

“Right.” Briar cleared her throat, arcing her hand in front of them. “It starts, ‘Before the beginning, there was magic’, pretty spectacular, right?”

Emmery scoffed. “Not if they were going for realism, but it’s cute.”

“I agree.” Briar laughed. “Anyways, it began when the brightest star fell from the sky and landed in the Whispering Spring.

It emerged from the water in a celestial body of golden flame and wandered the world, searching for many years, before returning in the shape of a woman with silver hair and gold eyes.

She claimed her name was Kahlia and shared with the spring how she longed for a companion and had grown lonely in her travels. The spring answered with an offering.

“So, she followed its orders, collecting the singing silkworm threads and weaving them into a tether.

She then severed her soul into four: the shadow, the spark, the ember, and the reflection.

On one end of the tether, she tied her ember and the other secured to her little finger.

Then she cast it into the spring. The thread disintegrated into the water, but she felt the tug in her chest immediately.

Unknowingly, she created the first implexus bond; the first tethered pair.

“Kahlia went searching for this companion, following the incessant pull in her chest. She travelled across the driest deserts, the snow-capped mountains, and the lushest forests to find the one who answered her call.

When she finally came upon a crater in the earth, she descended, finding a person trapped behind a wall of black ice.

She was weary at first toward this man, but her heart had led her there and she wanted to trust it.

“She spent all her time with the man on the other side and learned his name was Deimos and he had been burdened with the care of the Hollow, where souls rest in the afterlife.

He claimed he had waited all his life for her, calling out for her in his dreams and seeking the one who contained the khaos flame that lapped playfully at her fingertips.

Kahlia shared her dreams too, of love and children, and her inability to bear them as humans do.

But Deimos promised he could give her everything, but he needed a favour in return.

She had to release him and give him the shadow part of her soul.

“So, she agreed to free him and surrender her shadow, but she too had conditions. She made Deimos promise they would bear the Fallen scar on her chest, like the fallen star she once was. He instructed her to return to the spring, split her heart into six, wrap them in flower petals, and bury them. She did as he said, and shard by shard, she shattered her heart and buried them in six flowers; the red-fire lily, the violet-water blossom, the black-lightning iris, the evergreen dandelion, the windblown-white rose, and last the blue-corpse flower.”

As Briar spoke, she pointed at the pictures in the stained glass.

“She watched as they bloomed, bearing six beautiful girls. The babies bore the mark of the Fallen as she had asked, but they also bore another scar. A foreign scar. The one carved into the ice that locked Deimos away. The mark of the Hollow.

“Blind with rage, Kahlia believed Deimos had tricked her, disfiguring her babies and marking them as his own. All the love she had felt for him evaporated as she watched her beautiful, pure babies, tainted with the dark magic of the Hollow. Not only had Deimos scarred the babies, but Kahlia found the same mark upon her chest, with the ability to heal the wounded.”

“But the power to heal? Isn’t it seen as a gift?” Emmery studied her hands as if she could see her magic. It was inconceivable she had the same powers as the goddess.

“Not to Kahlia. She never wanted the pressures of saving lives. Never wanted to ‘play god’ for lack of a better term.” Briar snorted. “She felt the mark brand her. A means for Deimos to claim her as his and nothing more.” That statement sang true in Emmery’s soul. It did truly feel like a burden.

Emmery squinted at the large expanse of window, colours swirling across the pane. “Tell me more about the pictures.”

Briar continued, “You see the women there?” She pointed and Emmery studied the six figures, each beautiful in their own way.

“We call them the Six Sisters. Each of them had their own unique power: Asaella, the Goddess of flame and beasts could shapeshift into a horned white wolf and manipulate common flames. Ellynne, the Goddess of water and mind could bend water and manipulate people’s thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.

Tsillah, the Goddess of lightning and shadow, could draw lightning to her fingertips and wield shadows, like I can.

Morana, the Goddess of wind and mimicry, could manipulate air particles, wind and puppeteer the dead, like Vesper’s magic.

Delmira, the Goddess of earth and shield, could warp the earth, from growing flowers with her blood to causing earthquakes.

She was able to make her skin a shield, hardening it into stone, or creating a barrier out of thin air. ”

Counting five on her fingers, Emmery gnawed on her lip. “What did the sixth sister have?”

“Serafelle is the Goddess of charm and chaos. She could curse or enchant objects and had the burden of chaos song so with her voice she could control creatures, trick them, and lure them in with her siren song. Deimos also gifted her the first Shadowheart mark, like the one you and Vesper have.” Knowing that, the Shadowheart now seemed much more dangerous.

“So, what happened with Kahlia and Deimos?” Emmery asked. “Did she free him?”

Briar nodded. “She had to. They had formed the first blood bargain to exist. The first pactum.”