Page 102 of The Heir

“No,” Shad said to Cade but looked at me. With one last look, Shad smiled at me.

I will be with you again, Emma. Nothing will take me away from you, permanently. I promise you that, not when I have you to come back to.

He turned toward his brother. I heard the cell door unlock, then open, and, finally, shut with another click. I looked up and watched as Shad drew out a map with care and detail. Cade shoved the folded paper into his suit pocket and brought out the crystal.

He walked over to Shad, whose eyes were upon mine, and I begged him a thousand more times not to do it, not to go through with it because of me. I made a thousand more wishes on stars that I couldn’t see, anything I could think of to keep him from leaving me. I prayed to God, to the Ancients, to the Creator who Shad revered, whoever would hear me–that they might save him and bring him back to me. He smiled one last time and whispered,I love you, darling, my Emma,into my soul as his melody was drained from him.

I was shattered glass.

I was shattered, splintered, fractured glass on that cold, damp cave floor. I was a broken thing, an unmendable, unfixable object, lying upon that floor. As I gazed upon Shad, as I watched Shad become drained of his soul, of his melody—and he became a Soulless; it was as if I had watched a part of me, even half of me, die.

He collapsed onto the floor, and Cade mused as he tucked the crystal that was on a necklace inside his shirt, Shad’s melody trapped inside it.

“There, painless. Or well, semi-painless?” Cade said as he motioned to a guard to open my cell. I slumped down to Shad’s side, hating Cade more and more with a burning fury every moment that passed. Shad felt cold to the touch, and I looked into his eyes. The gold was gone. The sunshine—the warm, melted honey, my sunlight–Gone. No smile clung to the corners of his mouth. He looked at me with no emotion, and I looked past him to his brother.

“Your own brother, how could you?!” I screamed, hearing Shad’s precious melody radiating from Cade.

“Unfortunately, it runs in the family, love; nothing personal—or well, that's a lie; it is quite personal,” he said as he walked out of the room with Shad’s melody, I heard it singing to me, calling to my soul one last time, reaching for my heart—before the melody was gone.

Shad and I were then alone in the cave after Cade’s quick departure. I watched as Shad sat up slowly, hand on his heart. We looked into each other’s eyes, and I realized the truth as to why it was painfully silent, not even my melody could hum a tune for the loss of Shad’s soul. I cried and helped Shad stand. He doubled over as soon as he was up, and the sound that escaped his lips and reverberated from off the walls was a moan and a scream, one of a deep, torturous pain that made me achewith him, my own soul ached deep, too, moaning as if it was tearing itself to pieces alongside of him. As he finally stood to his full height, he walked to the edge of the cave in silence, and into the tunnels where we had entered only hours earlier—or had it only been minutes that had passed since we arrived at that place, both souls intact? The one small lantern Cadianso kindlyleft for us flickered in the darkness, casting strange shadows across the cave walls. I picked it up as I followed Shad through the cave. We were silent, as if discussing it or even saying anything would make it even worse than it already was. We found our way through, passage after passage, somehow. I could only see his back in the flickering light of the lantern, which I held. I wanted to talk to him, to say something, but what does one say? I wanted to hold him and cry over our loss, and then promise him that I would never leave his side. Whatever all of it meant, we would survive it, get through it, together; wewouldget through it together. As a light spilled into the opening of the damp cave just ahead of us, I knew we had reached the opening. The sunlight hit our faces, and I blinked away the brightness. My vision adjusted to the sun. I knew it had all been my fault, and that realization stung me.

If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn't come, Shad would not have sacrificed himself for me.

He looked at me as I came up beside him. I grabbed his hand and squeezed, wanting him to know that I was sorry, that I was with him. As I looked into his eyes, there was still only blackness there. No golden glow, no small smile, trying to escape his lips. He looked down to my hand, grabbing his, and he shook my hand away as one does a mosquito. My hand went limp, falling heavily at my side, and I watched him walk through the forest and disappear into the trees, and I felt a hole punch through my heart. The ache was so strong, so powerful that I stood there frozen to the spot.

I didn't know how long I stood there, but slowly, that snake of despair and sorrow from my past coiled once again around my heart, and I gasped for breath, clutching my chest. I couldn’t feel my heart anymore, only sorrow and pain. I slumped to the ground, not caring about the jagged rocks beneath me, cutting into my flesh. Shad was wrong; I wasn’t strong enough to get through it. I could never survive such misery again.

As despair grew within me, I heard a single note from Shad’s melody lingering, tinkling against my own.

I will figure out how to get Shad back—how to restore his soul, I told myself.

Numb, I stepped onto the forest path, watching as blood dripped down my legs from the unforgiving rocks that I had kneeled upon only moments before. The black, slimy snake curled its way up, deep inside of me, teasingly ready to strike, taunting me again as it had before. But I was mad, and I was determined to fix it all. So, I dared it to sink its venomous teeth into me, dared it to push me, and to my surprise, it recoiled, loosened its grip, and just slithered away.

You see, misery, grief, pain, and despair, together, are a snake, a cold-blooded, slimy, black snake. But hatred—hatred, you see, hatred is something else entirely—it is amonster. A monster so powerful that it overpowers even misery, thrashing about, leaving nothing in its wake, and as that monster clawed and roared within me,loveleft me, and all I could do was hate—feel hate for the one man who was the cause of all my misery, who had won that day—the man who I would ruin if it was the last thing I ever did.

As that monster of hate made its way even deeper into my consciousness, it replaced the snake of my misery, and I started to scream.

The End . . . for now.

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