Married To Darkness-Chapter 403: Emma Is From Wyf-Haven

The painting you made yesterday morning.

Salviana blinked, frowning.

"You painted six people," Jean whispered, her heart pounding, "three male, three female...and then you crossed out two of them."

Realization hit Salviana like a hammer, her stomach twisting painfully.

Her hand went to her throat, and she shook her head slowly.

"No," she said hoarsely.

"No, it doesn’t mean, "

"But what if it does?" Jess whispered, face pale.

"What if it was a sign?"

The group hovered on the edge of despair, the idea sinking in , that maybe Thalia and Heappal were already beyond their reach.

"No," Salviana said fiercely, voice thick.

"We’re not giving up on them. We can’t."

Alaric nodded grimly.

"We’ll find them," he said, his voice low and absolute.

"Dead or alive, we’ll find them."

A murmur of agreement moved through the group , small but fierce.

They had already lost too much.

They wouldn’t lose more if they could help it.

Lucius straightened, brushing sand from his trousers, ever the picture of cold calculation.

"Before we march off blindly," he said, "I have to ask, "

He turned to Alaric, one brow lifted.

"Do you still have what we went to the pirates for?"

Alaric met his gaze and nodded once, pulling something from beneath his cloak , a heavy, shrouded bundle wrapped tightly in dark cloth.

The mirror.

Even wrapped, it seemed to hum with a faint, deadly energy.

Lucius gave a tight nod.

"Good. We’ll need it."

But Salviana wasn’t looking at the mirror.

She was looking at her husband , at the way he stood so still, so composed.

At the storm she knew was brewing behind his steady onyx eyes.

She touched his hand lightly.

"Come with me," she whispered.

Alaric followed her a few paces away, out of earshot of the others, into the shadows of the scraggly trees lining the beach.

Salviana faced him, her green eyes bright and searching.

"Tell me the truth," she said quietly.

"Did you kill Jaron?"

Alaric stiffened, just slightly, a motion so small anyone else would have missed it.

But not Salviana.

She knew every nuance of him.

He stared at her for a long moment, the breeze tugging his dark hair around his face.

Then he cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing her skin, and leaned in close enough that only she could hear his answer.

"No," he said softly, looking her dead in the eye.

"I didn’t kill him."

The words were firm, absolute.

And a lie.

A lie to keep the woman he loved from falling apart.

A lie to keep the weight of guilt and fear off her fragile shoulders, because the world was already set to crush them both.

Salviana closed her eyes, relief flooding her, and threw her arms around him.

Alaric held her tightly, pressing his lips against her hair.

"I swear it," he murmured.

"I would never intentionally cause this. Not to you. Not to us."

She nodded against his chest, believing him because she needed to.

Because anything else would destroy her.

For now.

The morning was raw and biting, the sky above a heavy slab of gray, pressing down on the group as they prepared to move.

They had no food, no proper supplies, only themselves, a threadbare plan, and the urgency of survival.

"We have to cover our faces," Alaric said grimly, yanking the hood of his cloak over his head.

"If word of the bounty has spread this far, one wrong glance could get us killed."

Scarves, bits of torn cloth, anything they could find, they wrapped their faces until only wary eyes peeked out.

Salviana tied her long hair back tightly and pulled a strip of dark fabric over her mouth.

Lucius, always sharp, adjusted Jean’s scarf for her, muttering, "Pumpkin. You’ll choke yourself before anyone else does."

Jean shivered under the attention but managed a thin smile.

"This way," Emma said Suddenly, glancing around nervously.

"What way?" Samion frowned.

"I think we can make it to my house. It’s on the outskirts. My mother... she still runs the pearl shop by the harbor. If we can reach her, she can get us some clothes, maybe a cart to sneak out."

"Risky," Lucius muttered.

"Very," Alaric agreed.

"But it’s the only lead we have."

Emma looked around at them, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her tunic.

"I know it’s not much," she said, voice small.

"But my ma... she’s tough. She won’t turn you in."

Alaric placed a hand firmly on her shoulder.

"It’s more than enough," he said.

So they moved.

Nine souls slipping through the tangled, skeletal woods, boots crunching faintly over frost-hardened ground.

The trees stretched gnarled fingers toward the sky, and the mist coiled low around their ankles like a living thing.

Every crack of a branch made them stiffen, every bird call sent eyes darting into the underbrush.

Jaefel and Samion moved ahead, acting as scouts.

Jean stuck close to Salviana, hands clenched in the folds of her cloak.

"I don’t like this," she whispered.

"It feels... wrong."

"It’ll be alright," Salviana murmured, although she didn’t quite believe it herself.

The weight of the wrapped mirror hidden under Alaric’s cloak seemed to pulse with a quiet menace, as if even it was waiting for something terrible to happen.

Somewhere ahead, Emma guided them with a confidence that faltered only once, when they came upon a clearing where the trees thinned and the ground grew rocky.

"We’ll need to cross," she said, glancing at Alaric.

"It’s open. If anyone’s looking, they’ll see us."

"We’ll move fast," he replied.

"And keep low."

Without another word, the group sprinted across the clearing, heartbeats thudding like war drums.

Wind tore at their clothes.

Lucius kept glancing back, hand near the blade hidden beneath his coat.

No shouts.

No alarms.

They reached the other side.

They pressed on.

The smell of salt thickened in the air , they were nearing the coast again.

In the distance, faintly, the first crooked roofs of Wyf-Haven came into view, blurry through the mist.

"We’re close," Emma whispered.