Princess of Ruin

Chapter 10 - Realizations Pt. 1

I was flopped out on the couch, watching a movie on my computer when I heard a crash coming from the bathroom. Pressing pause, I hauled the heavy blanket off of myself, disrupting several bags of chips in various states of consumption, and carefully made my way towards the bathroom.

“Emery?” I called hesitantly, knocking on the door. “Are you ok in there?”

“Fine,” she called back, but her voice was strained in the way that told me she was in pain and trying in vain to hide it. 

“I’m going to come in, ok? It really doesn’t sound like you’re alright.”

“No, don-” Emery’s protest was cut off when I pushed open the door and stopped dead. 

From what I could tell, Emery had indeed fallen. But she hadn’t gotten very far. The white-haired girl was crumpled on the carpet right in front of the shower, dripping and stark naked. Her feet were hovering just above the ground, and her forearms were pressed against her pale chest awkwardly so that her hands weren’t touching her. 

“Emery,” I said very slowly, voice quiet because of my sore throat, as my eyes scanned over a criss-cross of scars in varying shades of grey that covered her body. “What’s on your hands and feet?” Emery, for once, appeared to be panicked. Her little chest was rising and falling rapidly as she stared at me like a spooked rabbit, blue eyes wide.

“I am not supposed to tell you that,” she responded after a few moments of awkward silence. 

“Em,-”

“Could you hand me my gloves, please?”

“Emery, what the hell is going on?”

“Aria-”

“Why are your hands black?”

“Aria, please-”

“Why do you need those gloves all the time?”

“Aria, I’m begging you-”

“What’s with the wound on your side?”

“Aria, I swear I will-”

“Why won’t you tell me anything?”

“ARIA,” Emery snapped. “Would you please hand me my gloves so I can properly consider explaining things to you?” I fell silent and picked up the leather gloves, running my fingers over the soft surface. It was a very odd experience to see them in my hands instead of on hers. 

“Here,” I said quietly, placing them in her outstretched hand. She pulled them over her blackened fingers and then carefully grabbed the towel bar to pull herself up, one arm still pressed over her chest. I noticed that Emery was barely putting any weight on her bad leg as she reached for her bathrobe and quickly wrapped it around her body. The bathroom was filled only with the quiet sound of her tying the belt around her waist and Emery’s wheezing breaths.

“Right,” she began. “If you might clear the way for me to leave the room so I could clothe myself, that would be fabulous.”

I coughed, flinching at the pain in my throat. “You promise you’ll explain everything to me if I do?”

“Yes,” she said in a tight voice, not quite looking me in the eyes. I stepped aside and let her limp past me, watching as she moved while managing to somehow avoid touching her toes to the ground. But Emery had only just passed by me when I heard her breath catch in her chest and she halted. We both fell silent for a moment before a massive popping noise sounded, and Emery went down with a loud cry. 

I yelped, just barely managing to catch her before she hit the floor again. “Are you ok?” I asked rather hysterically. Her gloved fingers curled into my sweatshirt to help keep her upright, and I found myself marveling at her surprisingly strong grip. 

“Fine,” she hissed. “You’re not touching any part of my skin, are you?” 

“No, why would you-” I began, giving her a confused look. Emery’s pale face was scrunched up in pain, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe.

“Marvelous. Help me to the sofa, will you?”

“But I don’t want to get you sick,” I said, feeling rather ridiculous as I said it. My fever-riddled brain was incapable of dealing with all of this, and I just wanted to back away from the situation. 

“I am physically incapable of catching an illness. Your argument is invalid,” Emery gritted through clenched teeth as I swept chip bags onto the floor and laid her down on the couch. 

“I’m calling the infirmary,” I said, reaching for my cell phone. 

“That is wholly unnecessary,” Emery protested. She made a feeble grab for my phone but then broke into a fit of coughing. 

“Nope.” I danced out of her reach. “I want to know everything that you’ve been hiding from Mikela and I, and for you to do that, you need to not keep collapsing every few moments. So I’m calling the nurse to come check you out and help you with whatever the hell this is.” Emery fell back, seemingly defeated, her wet hair splaying across the cushion. 

“Fine,” she huffed. “Do as you please.”

*

Twenty minutes later, Nurse Jackie bustled into our apartment, looking rather annoyed as she sat down on the coffee table. “I thought I told you to take it easy, Emery,” she snapped as she pressed a hand against the girl’s forehead and frowned. Emery had gotten a fever only a few minutes ago, and it seemed high enough to rival my own. Perhaps that fever was the reason none of this was seeming too especially strange to me.

“I have been,” the white-haired girl said, exasperated, as she pressed a wet washcloth I’d just handed her against her forehead. “I am not quite certain why this is happening.” The nurse gave me a quick look and then glanced back at Emery. “She may as well know. She has already seen my hands.”

“Emery,” Nurse Jackie said very sternly. “Did you use your ability?”

“A bit. By accident.” The nurse let out an exasperated sigh and put her hands on her hips. 

“What is your ability, Emery?” I asked, nursing my cup of lemon-and-honey tea. Displaced from my nest on the couch, I was now perched on one of the chairs, wrapped in a heavy blanket. 

“I shall explain a bit later,” she promised. “Nurse Jackie, could you fetch me a new cloth? My fever is not coming down.”

“Why don’t you just take some medicine?” I asked as the nurse went to the sink. My throat tickled, and I let out a little cough.

“My body will not accept it.” I sat back, deciding that I’d contemplate the meaning of that when I was feeling a bit better and when Emery was feeling a bit less cryptic. If that could ever even happen.

“By the way,” the nurse called from the kitchen. “I’ve called your guardian, Emery. She’s on her way here now.” The effect those words had on Emery was immediate. Her eyes flew wide open, and she began attempting to roll off the couch, but she let out a hiss of pain before she got especially far.

“Absolutely not,” she protested. “I am feeling much better now. I do not need a visit from her.”

“Oh, am I finally going to meet the mysterious Elle?” I asked excitedly. Emery had mentioned her offhand a few times, but she’d never actually really explained anything properly, and I was a naturally curious person.

“No,” the white-haired girl snapped in a very tight voice. “She is going to kill me, you know.” The comment was directed at Nurse Jackie, but I raised an eyebrow all the same. 

“She’s expressly forbidden from doing that when you’re under my care.” My eyebrows lifted even higher as the nurse handed Emery a new washcloth, which the girl snatched away with more vigor than strictly necessary.

“Then she will attempt to mother me,” Emery muttered. “She will ask me how I am doing, and I will have to answer her, because my leg is not exactly cooperating at the moment.”

“Then maybe you should return her calls more. And what’s the problem with her mothering you?”

“It is very off-putting! You try having someone attempt to kill you half the time and then act as though she loves you the rest of it.” I took another sip of my tea, mentally storing all of this away so I could tell Mikela when she got back from town. If I could even remember, that is. 

“Is that so?” a voice asked from the doorway. I turned, surprised. I hadn’t even realized that the door had opened. But that surprise only doubled when I saw who had entered. The mug of tea fell from my hands and spilled all over the floor, liquid seeping into the bottom of my blanket. 

Emery let out an exasperated sigh, looking more annoyed than I’d ever seen her. “Aria, I present to you Elena Harlow, Queen of Ekta, otherwise known as my guardian.”