From The Ashes We Rise: Chapter 26...
So I've only just figured out I can edit these documents and post new chapters from my phone. Aren't I a clever one :') enjoy anyways :)
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Emma tossed and turned in her sleep, tangling herself in the covers, plagued by nightmares. Her body was covered in a light sheen of cold sweat, curly strands of hair plastered to her forehead with the moisture. Her eyes flickered back and forth erratically beneath their closed lids, lips twitching to shape soundless words, a name, a cry for help.
She jolted upright, eyes flying wide open. She was outside, in the grounds of the Edgley mansion, under the moonlight. She'd recognise the landscape anywhere. Except something was different.
She pushed herself to her feet and brushed dirt from her legs, frowning. She was in a pyjama vest and flannel shorts. Her feet were bare and it was getting towards winter, and yet she was content without a jacket.
The rubble. That's what was different. There was none, all of it was gone, the houses still intact, all signs of the Reckoning completely erased.
Tall, spiralling towers of glass rose high into the night, their tips seeming to reach for the stars glittering in a shroud of deepest black above, interspersing the quaint houses, looking so out of place. The moonlight sparked off their smooth surfaces like fire on lapping waves, casting rainbows on the ground here and there. Emma turned to look at the house behind her, only to find that it too had become a glass spiral, smooth and shining and beautiful. When she turned back to look at the expanse of Haggard surrounding the mansion, all the average buildings were gone. Only the glass towers remained.
A heavy silence had settled over everything, reminding her of how the first swathe of fresh snow deadened sounds at dawn. No birds chirruped, no cars rushed by, nothing howled or skittered through the shadows, no one spoke.
And yet despite the silence, the grass, now silvery and up to her knees, swayed gently in a breeze she couldn't feel, each strand swinging through the air in unison. It was strange to be stood there in the dancing grass, to feel it swishing over her shins, surrounded by impenetrable quiet in an alien landscape of crystal towers and velvet skies. She'd never felt further away from Haggard than she did in that moment.
And yet she wasn't afraid; there was only an empty, aching lonelines settled deep in her bones. She didn't care where she was, how she'd gotten there, or how pretty it looked. She cared only that Art was dead. If only she'd thought to look for him sooner. Perhpas he might still be alive...
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A sound, finally a sound in that noise-less, abstract environment caught her attention. It was her name, whispered on a breath, issued by lips that should no longer be able to speak.
"Emma..." She wheeled round, trying to follow the direction of her name, eyes darting left and right over the moon-bleached scene surrounding her, but she could find no source.
"Emma..."
She started running, not knowing why she felt the need to run, but doing so anyway. Running to the only place she ever wanted to be. She skirted round the side of the tower that was once the Edgley Manor. She ran right to where she though Art's grave would be.
When she saw it was no longer there, she dropped to her knees in the stupid swaying grass and sobbed. She wanted to wake up.
"Emma." She raised her head sharply and her heart dropped into her stomach. He was there, standing in the grass, clothed in his tattered shirt and torn jeans, bruised, scarred skin showing through the shredded fabric. He was pale, and his eyes held the grey film of death, but the blood was gone, his hair was soft and shiny like always, no longer matted to his head, there was no dirt on his skin, and he was smiling so softly.
"Art," she whispered, barely able to breathe. The lacerations that had killed him were now scars, thick white ridges on his skin rather than open wounds, surrounded by bruises that were yellowing, the edges beginning to fade.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her, his feet carrying him soundlessly through the tall grass. He knelt beside her, just out of reach. She wanted him to take her hand, to tilt her chin up and smooth away her frown with his thumb. He didn't.
"I...I fell asleep."
"Ah," he said sadly, his eyes unfocussed. She frowned and waved a hand in front of them. When she recieved no response, she gasped.
"You're blind!"
"Unfortunately it's a curse of those trapped between earth and wherever we go after death. I'm doomed to existing without sight."
"Why are you trapped?" Art stayed silent for a long time, before silently raising his arm, like he was searching for her. Emma let him find her fingertips, and he sighed when she twisted her hand through his, like a great weight had been lifted from his chest.
"I've missed this. Touching. Speaking. It feels like so long since I last spoke to anyone. Being dead, a day feels like a year."
"Why are you trapped, Jonathan?" He caught the tone in her voice and knew avoiding the question wouldn't be possible. He took his time before replying.
"Grimm didn't want me dead," he said eventually. "Letting Melancholia kill me was an overreaction, one he regretted the moment I died. He's keeping me here until he can get hold of Eyren. He thinks Valkyrie's son will find a way to bring me back from here."
"And can he do that? Bring you back, I mean?"
"Yes. What my father doesn't know is that I already know how it could be done. But it involves binding my soul to his. In doing that, he could control me, even make me as bitter and evil as he is. I'd be powerless to stop him."
"How...how would he do it?"
"He needs a symbol that only one person I know has access to. That person is China Sorrows."
"If he got the symbol from China, how would he use it to bring you back?"
"The symbol must be drawn on us both. Which means he'd have to dig me up and carve it into my chest." Even dead, Art still managed to look vaguely sick at the thought. "From what I know, for me it will be more than extremely painful."
"What if...What if someone else were to do it before Grimm could? What if someone that wouldn't make you evil was to carve that symbol into your skin?" she asked hesitantly. He frowned, but answered anyway, grey eyes staring off at nothing.
"Then they would save me. But if I was cut, they would bleed. If I was struck, they would bruise too. Our aches and pains would be shared. To take one life would be to take both. That is why only Grimm would risk it; he's confident that he will never be killed, and if he succeeds in converting me to evil then I too would hold the same confidence." Art tilted his head. "Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered," she said quickly.
"Emma, please tell me you don't plan on doing this yourself..." he asked. When she didn't answer, his grip tightened on her fingers in alarm. "Emma there are so many things that could go wrong with this. If the symbol is drawn wrong it could kill you. You could be stuck here too."
"But I'd be stuck with you, Jonathan, and that's enough for me." His alarm softened, a gentle smile pulling up one corner of his mouth. His hand moved up her arm to her shoulder, and found her cheek, cupping it carefully. He leaned in, smelling of snow in the winter, ice on the surface of a frozen lake, and his lips brushed hers. So soft. She felt his other hand on her arm, the scar across his palm, the skin so smooth and...cold...
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Emma woke up shivering. It was dawn, the sun bleeding into the clouds in the distance, staining the sky orange, and the morning was chilly. She frowned and sat up, feeling short spines of slippery grass beneath her hands. The morning dew had soaked through her pyjamas and left her curly brown hair damp to the touch, raising goosebumps along her bare arms and legs.
She could still feel his lips on hers, his hand on her cheek, her arm, the scar on his palm brushing the back of her hand. Without thinking she ran her fingers over where his hand had been over hers, and gasped when she found her skin was icy cold. A handprint the colour of a fresh bruise had appeared in exactly the place where Art had touched her. It even had a faint white line where his scar lacerated the centre of his palm.
For the first time, she registered where she was. She was outside, sat beside Art's grave, with tears streaming down her cheeks. It had been a dream, she was sure of it. Art was buried in the ground beside her, she'd helped to bury him there herself. And yet she couldn't shake the feeling that somehow her meeting with him in her sleep had been real. How else could she explain the handprint?
She stood shakily, a plan forming in her mind. She needed to find China.