Carmine’s heart tensed in her chest. Hers was not one of butterflies and fire, but walls and dread. Emmet should arrive any minute.
She braced herself against the tower gate, feet already sore from a trip nearing repetition. Two of Yar's moons glowed bright in the night, while the other pair hid in the featureless black. An ill omen. Two light and two dark moons meant a sign of disagreement and impasse, if the church of ancients could be believed. Carmine put no stock in back-alley fortune telling, but even she hoped for a positive sign.
“Hi-, uh- Hey.” Emmet passed through the gate. His voice dropped a note lower than its usual tone. He tried to force his expression calm, and in doing so looked like he was on the verge of laughing, or crying.
Despite everything, Carmine let out a laugh, her own nerves threatening to settle. She cleared her throat of mirth and focused on her task ahead.
“Evening headmaster, practicing your teacher's voice?” Carmine asked, her brow raised.
“Ugh, nevermind.” Emmet's voice returned to normal. “I got your note. You wanted to head into town?”
“That's right. There's somewhere I want to take you, and I need to talk to you about the exams.” She picked each word carefully. Anyone could be listening.
“This isn't a celebration, I take it.” Emmet's expression fell slightly, but he recovered with a shrug. Carmine narrowed her gaze.
“Why do you think that?” She knew the situation wasn't exactly difficult to read, but his thought process was as important as his words.
“First off, Addy, Xander, and Kay still need to finish their exams.” Emmet started, raising one finger, then another. “Second, you seemed a little off at the tests earlier and third, I know you. You wouldn't go off celebrating while one of our own is in a hospital bed. This is really about her, isn't it?”
His deductions didn't surprise Carmine. Emmet might be naïve, even verging on gullible, but she would never think him a fool. Tonight she wanted to learn if he was honest.
“Let's walk.” Carmine pushed off the fence and headed into town. In spite of the ambivalent moons overhead, Reefcliff's nightlife rumbled on as strongly as ever. Port city that it was, Reefcliff always had new faces and old friends reveling day in, day out. Its pulse lived in the chatter of crowds, its rowdy taverns, and its wondrous markets. Of all the towns she'd seen in her life, Carmine's favorite was here.
She and Emmet walked side by side in full view of many passers-by. They exchanged greetings and pleasantries on the crowded street, trying to get past merchants hawking wares with embellished fervor. Carmine fought the urge to pick up an ale to calm her nerves. She needed her head clear.
“Any update from Doctor Valentine?” Emmet asked as they went.
“Yes, actually “A trace of good news; Almyra should wake up soon.” She glanced to her side, gauging his reactions. “As early as tomorrow, she could be up and about.”
“That's a relief.” Yet his brow furrowed. “Dad told me about Crysthesis. Have you any idea what we're going to tell her? And how?”
“There's no good way to put it,” Carmine answered with a sigh, “So, I'm just going to tell her, and go from there.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Emmet asked his earnest question.
“Not unless you can reverse time, Emmet. Some things can't be undone.”
“That feels so unfair.”
“You don't know the half of it.” He would learn. By the end of the night, he and Carmine both should have all the pieces to the puzzle. “Emmet, we've known each other a long time now. I'd like to think half a dozen years of friendship and awkward flirting means we can trust each other a fair bit.”
“We weren't that awkward, right?” Emmet smiled wryly.
“We were teenagers: the most awkward beings on the planet.” Nostalgia tugged at her cheeks. “You know we were.”
“Yeah, that's fair. Some of the things I've said make me cringe in the middle of the night. But to answer what you said, yes, I trust you, Carmine, and even considering how closed off you've been recently, I still believe you trust me. You didn't ask me out to reminisce. Please tell me what’s going on.”
Carmine looked ahead, the crowd thinner before her than it was behind. They had crossed the threshold into Oldtown, and Carmine noticed the thinning guard presence even if Emmet didn't.
“Almyra was attacked.” Carmine said bluntly. Emmet's reaction would tell her all she needed. If he tried to turn back to the tower, to safety, then he knew he had cause for suspicion. If he stayed, he wouldn't be cleared, but it'd be a step in the right direction. “The crysthesis sprouting from her wasn't natural. Someone induced it through forbidden sorcery.”
“Is that even possible?” Emmet asked, seemingly genuine concern frowning his face.
“Vale suspected, and I confirmed it myself.” Carmine nodded down the road. “I have some notes that can convince you in Oldtown. I've been doing my own research in what spare time I can carve.”
“So this is why you’ve been so hard to find recently.” Emmet surmised. “This…attack…why would anyone hurt Almyra? She’s got ambitions, sure, but she’s never hurt anybody, never made any enemies that would do this.”
“I have an idea.” Carmine shot Emmet a sideways glance, her walking evidence. “I’ll explain it when we arrive. This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have in the middle of the street.”
“That makes sense.” Emmet passed his gaze over the Oldtown roads, lingering on the notably rougher crowd than the usual folk that surrounded the tower. He made sure to keep pace beside Carmine, closing the distance between them a step.
Carmine took every winding alley between them and their destination. She wanted no tails as she led Emmet to her molded manor. With a subtle force spell, she creaked open the front door. She had to keep up appearances for her questionably loyal assistants. They waited in the dark close by.
“This…is where you’ve been staying?” Emmet frowned at the environs, covering his nose against the stench of mildew Carmine had learned to endure. “Aren’t you worried about getting sick, or something?”
“I assure you, it’s no cause for concern. Even if it were, remember I’ve spent the last 10 or so years apprenticing to a Doctor– Actually as of this morning, I’m one too.” Somehow she'd forgotten that little fact. It was uncanny how the achievement of what she’d studied for the last six years had felt so insignificant it barely lingered in her mind. Focus up, she reminded herself. “Forget about the building. You wanted to know why someone would target Almyra, and I can tell you.” She beckoned him to follow as she headed into the courtyard. At its center, a lone tree grew gnarled and twisted towards the sky to spite the soggy soil that barely sustained. Grass grew in sparse thickets in between patches of weeds and mud. It might have looked presentable once, but now it grew into a miniature bog. Carmine liked it.
She led Emmet beneath the tree's canopy and lit a lantern she had set at its base hours ago. The moment the day's exams had finished she traveled back to confirm her suspicions. The wispy, flickering light struggled to illuminate a ritual circle scrawled into the dirt.
“I replicated the l circle from Almyra's test.” Carmine skirted its perimeter, never daring to step past its threshold. “You have a keen eye for formulae, Emmet, what do you see?”
The Leval scion approach, steps slow and uncertain. With a finger to his brow, he examined the circle in silence. For minutes only his eyes moved, darting across the floor, devouring each symbol. He noticed quicker than Carmine expected. Emmet squatted down, picking up a nearby stick to point at the seeming imperfections woven throughout the circle.
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“The runes have a secondary pattern in them.” He surmised, pointing out the same markers Carmine had noticed when she traced the circle’s imprint. “I see…mentions of draining, a curse perhaps?”
“Keep looking,” Carmine directed. Curiosity tickled her mind; how much would he figure out alone?
“Okay…” he stood and continued his examination. She watched him circle the scrawling, following her caution to avoid its edge. He'd stop suddenly, pointing out runes that didn't belong. “There's a mark for arcanite. Another for siphon. One for…blindness I think.”
“Blindness?” Carmine narrowed her eyes. She didn't see that one at all, even as she drew the damnable thing.
“Look here.” Emmet directed her to a point where three runes intersected. Their overlapping ends created the outline of a rune on the space between them, one Carmine completely overlooked. “Blindness might not be the most accurate word here, given that it's a sensory rune traced in negative space. It may mean some kind of sensory deprivation, but I can only guess the intent of the caster.”
“I…missed that,” Carmine admitted. She knew what to look for having read the Waters of Life, but Emmet still found more. What's more, he revealed it. Skepticism reminded her that, even now, he could be deceitful, but she had to make a choice eventually. She either trusted him, or she did not.
Before she could decide, the stick fell out of Emmet's hand. It rolled into the grass while he barely moved, barely breathed.
Carmine sighed. He saw it. She didn't have to ask.
“Transference.” One word escaped him.
“Yeah.” She confirmed. “Almyra's spirit wasn't just drained. It was transferred–”
“To me.” Emmet sat in the mud. Triumph and scrutiny both deserted him, leaving his face paler than the Vembrian moon. “That test was too fucking easy. I should've known. I should have fucking realized!”
Rage had scarcely crossed Emmet's face in the entirety of their time together, but it twisted him now. Veins bulged in his neck. Tears swelled his eyes. How could they not? His greatest triumph never belonged to him.
She knelt beside him, her hand resting upon his back of its own accord. Words of comfort struggled to reach her lips, but she gave her company. It was all she could give.
“Emmet,” she called carefully. “You know who did this, don't you?”
His sniffling subsided, and he nodded his head. “Before the first exams, my mother called to see me. She started talking about the representatives that would be watching us and delegates from the empire. It was so early, and so boring I– I actually nodded off. Or…at least that's how I thought it...” His reddened eyes looked to her for a denial he knew wasn't coming. “She did something to me, didn't she?”
“I'm sorry, Emmet.” Carmine leaned closer and embraced him. “I sensed it myself. A large portion of Almyra's power rests in you now. But…” Carmine met his eyes, trying to say something that might alleviate his horrible burden. “The knowledge you learned, the risks you took, and effort you put in to your goals, they're still yours.”
“But my success is stolen.” Guilt shook his head. “What will Almyra think of me? I took her future.”
“We don't know that for sure.” She squeezed harder. “Almyra is stronger than you give her credit for, and she has us. All of us. And–” Carmine pulled back, ensuring he met her eyes, “–We might be able to reverse what happened.”
“How?” Hope brought life back to his eyes.
“Symphonia placed the curse, I'm certain of it. Your mom is the only one that knows every rune and will behind it. So, she's going to teach it to me.”
“How? This is her plan isn't it?” He looked at himself in disgust. “She made me more powerful to secure the Leval tower remains in the family, even I can see that. She's not going to teach you the spell just so you can undo her work. I know my mom: she hates waste.”
“We won't give her a choice.” Carmine replied, her voice resolved.
“You're not…going to hurt her, are you?” Concern flashed in his eyes. Even if she'd done terrible wrong, that woman was still his mother. Such bonds weren't broken so easily.
“I won't lie; we may come to blows, but she's the only one that can undo Almyra's curse.” Carmine gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. “I promise, I'm not out to injure her, or anyone else. I just need to pressure her enough so she gives us what we need.”
Emmet's stare scrutinized her face for every intention and emotion broiling beneath the surface. She let him see it all: her anger, her sorrow, her desire to right the wrong done to one of their own. Beneath all of those things, she hoped he saw something more: trust. Despite the chaos and confusion in her own embattled soul, she would never, never, hurt him. Even if his eyes couldn't peer so deep, that wouldn't change.
To answer, Emmet entwined his fingers with her own. Doubt and uncertainty seeded his eyes, fresh additions to the garden of disillusionment Carmine stumbled in herself, but at least they shined brighter in each other.
“How do we do this?” He asked.
“That…will be a bit more unpleasant.” A wry smile crossed her lips. “Your mother wouldn't risk all this for you to fall to random danger. I'm willing to bet she has some monitoring spell on you, in case something were to happen.”
“And something is about to happen, right?”
“That's up to you.” Carmine put a hand on his chest. “I can stop your heart, just for an instant. It will sting, but there's no danger with me beside you. Just say the word.”
“So…I'll be dead for a second?”
“Not technically, your brain would still be active, and all your cells would be alive–”
“I already knew you could make my heart skip a beat.” Emmet gave a sly smile.
“Ah– you–?” Carmine’s entire thought process crashed.
“Sorry, I just needed a moment to prepare myself for the shock.” He tried to be suave, but he couldn't pull it off even when his eyes weren't puffy and red. While he couldn't make her swoon, he made her laugh for a moment, honest and carefree. “When this is all over,” he continued, “will there be time for us?”
Knowing everything she'd done, everything she still planned to do, promising anything was a fool's word. For the first time in her life, she wanted to be a fool.
“I promise.” Carmine answered. She cast her spell, and Emmet's eyes closed into unconsciousness. His heart's rhythm ceased only for a second. An arcane pulse emanated from his body, urgent and quick. A moment later, life beat again in Emmet's chest.
It's done.
She took what little time she had to prepare.
–
Before the hour ended, not one, but two figures pushed open the doors to the courtyard: One, a stern middle aged woman, once-cold eyes alight with rage, and a burly man, the strongest sorcerer Carmine had known.
She figured they'd both show up, she had hoped it would've been just one. Cold sweat broke out on Carmine's neck, but she refused to let it show. Inside, she quaked. No amount of preparation would be enough for the second most terrifying night of her life.
“Headmasters Leval,” Carmine called out from the courtyard's center. Emmet's body lay behind her, covered by his robe. “You've arrived right on time.”