The chaise lounge was a foreign landscape, its cushions holding none of the familiar scent of tomes and lyrium that clung to Emmrich's chair—but it smelled like her. Like flowers, grass, and the ocean. Emmrich lay sprawled across it, staring up at the ceiling, the plaster a blank canvas for his misery. The candles he had lit days ago were now nothing but melted stumps of wax, their light and warmth drained away, stranding the room in a dreary, azure twilight.
His facial hair, usually trimmed into a thin, refined moustache, had erupted into a wild silver thicket along his jaw, and he had barely eaten, spoken, or slept. As he wondered what she would make of his sad, dishevelled state, a crippling ache seized his chest—a cold, tight knot of guilt and fear. He pressed his palm against it, as if he could physically push the feeling away, but it was useless.
All he could do was replay their last conversation, his own cruel words echoing in his mind.
"I know what I'm getting into," she said with such enviable confidence.
"At your age?" he scoffed, his voice dripping with the condescension of a man who thought he knew better.
Now she was gone. Trapped in the Fade.
"This is all my fault," he wheezed, the thought a relentless drumbeat in the silence. "I was so stubborn, so foolish, and now... I may never get the chance to... to..."
The pressure in his chest squeezed violently, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think past the suffocating weight of his own failure. His fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, gripping so tightly his knuckles turned white.
His other hand flew up to cover his eyes, as if to block out the world, to hide from the unbearable truth—but to no avail. A shudder wracked his frame, and his composure finally shattered. A horrible, guttural sob split the air, heavy and broken. Another followed, then another, until the room became nothing more than a tomb of pitiless walls that mocked his pain.
