Emerie had once asked him to choose.
At the time, he’d said he was unable to choose between her and Aleron. Was he… going to have to?
He peeked at his kindred beside him.
Who do I want more?
He tossed his head to shake it, snorting out a huff. An impossible choice.
His heart was evenly split between them.
“If you want my advice,” Weldir lowly muttered, “choose the human. You cannot take back your life if you choose to leave it behind, and you will learn that not being with her is painful – especially since she will be in your grasp, but utterly unobtainable. However, and I do really mean this, don’t tell her if you plan to stay if she rejects you. That is not fair to her.”
It isn’t? He didn’t understand why.
“You are here for a female?” Aleron asked with his head tilted. “A bride?”
“Yes,” he rasped.
Aleron jumped in front of him to bounce around. “This is fantastic! We have a bride!”
A random and completely surprising growl burst from him. “I have a bride,” Ingram snapped at him. “Find your own.”
Aleron paused and tilted his head. “We cannot share?”
“No. She is mine. Obtain your own.”
Guilt tingled the nape of his neck, but he couldn’t contain the way fury choked him at the thought of Aleron touching Emerie the way he had. Inside, on such a deep and profoundly intimate level. Her smells, her sounds, the very temperature of her skin… all of these were his to experience.
He didn’t wish to share that with Aleron.
“You cannot share a bride,” Weldir chimed in. “Either one of you would be left out of the bond, or you would split the soul in half and destroy it while trying to share it.”
“Then…” Aleron lifted his head to the spirit of the void, in a way that was slow and unsure. “How do I obtain one?”
“Here? Impossible,” Weldir said, turning the fragments of his face that were visible towards his kindred. “However, I am hoping that not all is lost for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have an answer for you right now, but I do suggest you begin interacting with the humans that are here. Perhaps your bride is already among them.” Humour lifted into his tone as he mused, “You may yet steal another soul from me.”
Weldir’s open-ended and cryptic answer shoved both of them into silence as they pondered it.
Had Ingram been right all along?
Is there… a chance for Aleron’s return?
When Ingram first came to the end of the tether, he’d been confused that it was connected to the back of someone who was obviously not Emerie.
The ghostly figure had been masculine by what he could tell of their height, physique, and stance. Even their hair was short and somewhat spiking around their head.
However, it was the high-pitched giggle beyond them that, while distant, was familiar.
The fucking male had been standing in the way!
The tether had been going through his form to reach her.
Hope had warmed his sternum as he stepped to the side, only for it to… wane.
This wasn’t Emerie. At least, not the female he knew.
And the most heartbreaking part of it was that she stepped away from the spirit she’d been speaking to, started walking as they followed, and passed through him as though he wasn’t there. Even though he felt nothing, a cold shiver still crawled through him when she evaporated into his body, only to turn solid behind him.
She didn’t look entirely the same, yet he knew her voice, the shape of her face, her height and figure.
It was just… altered.
He couldn’t help following her, creeping beside her while wishing his hand constantly reaching out to her would make contact. That she would turn to him and smile in greeting. That she would… see him.
Her peel of laughter as she held a basket of food, speaking with her companion, only echoed a yawning loneliness within him. How could she appear so… happy here without him? So carefree, as though he hadn’t mattered at all.
Her smile was bright, her expression cheerful.
How was he supposed to disturb her eternal rest, if it was apparently so pleasant without his presence?
“Why is her face different?” Ingram asked, noting that it looked younger, livelier, and unmarred by her burns. “The Witch Owl told me she would be as I last saw her.”
Was he disappointed she looked different? A little, only because he struggled to register her as the female he’d chosen, the one he’d fallen in love with.
He’d adored every part of her, from her freckles, her scars, and even the sorrow in her sometimes haunted, far-away stare.
“What you see here is a memory,” Weldir explained, causing Ingram to stray from viewing Emerie to give him his full attention. He was headless, making it impossible to see his expression. “I bring the souls here and link them to their strongest bonds, allowing them to play out their fondest memories together. It brings them peace, and it stops them from… screaming.”
Weldir shuddered so violently that his entire essence dispersed. It coalesced into random parts of him swiftly, leaving him like a silk cloth, twirling and floating to reveal different parts of his body and limbs. It was less than before, thinner and becoming harder to see.
Learning this lessened the burning betrayal that had started to singe him. It wasn’t that she did not care for him, she was just lost in her own past – one which he hadn’t been a part of yet.
Ingram swiped his hand through her spirit once more. “If I cannot speak with her, how am I to ask her to be my bride?”
“Here, I can help!” Aleron exclaimed, bouncing forward with his hand out.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Weldir stated, but it was too late.
Ingram paused to watch as his kindred placed his large hand over her entire head from the side. Emerie paused her walking next to the stranger, freezing up completely like she was waking up to reality. Then she turned, looked up at Aleron towering over her with his menacing, clawed hand out, and let out a horrible shriek.
She yanked her companion forward, who slammed into Aleron’s chest, and also seemed to awaken from a trance. The human male gave a roar and practically fell backwards on top of Emerie, who had tripped over her own feet.
For a split second, both had been utterly naked until clothing wrapped around their bodies out of thin air with a puff of smoke. Emerie’s features returned to the ones he knew, her scar lifting to the surface like growing ash.
Aleron yelped in surprise and backed up while lowering himself to the ground.
“What the fuck is that?!” the male shouted, while pointing at Aleron’s bony face.
None of the other spirits nearby noticed anything happening, despite the commotion. They even walked through Emerie and her panicked companion crumbled against the ground.
She stared at Aleron, her chest heaving up and down, before it began to eventually settle. She blinked, looked up, down, and then around. Her gaze fell on Weldir, and her eyes widened in disbelief.
“Where am I?” she asked before bringing her stare back to Aleron. It was like she hadn’t seen Ingram at all. “You’re… you’re a Duskwalker.” She groaned while gripping her forehead. “One minute I was at the castle, then I was talking to…”