Bound by Prophecy (Descendants Series) - By Melissa Wright Page 0,56

white shirt. “They made me go take a shower.” She looked sick at the memory of leaving me, shot in five or six places, and then swallowed hard. “And then Brianna saw you.”

It seemed to be an explanation, though at first I couldn’t understand why. This amount of damage, surgeon or no, should have taken much, much longer to heal. And then, slowly, her words fell together. Brianna was downstairs, she had a lot of work to do, but everyone was fine.

I stared at her.

She nodded.

I closed my eyes for one long moment, remembering the words they’d shared in the tunnel before our escape. Brianna had said she bore her mother’s gifts. Plural. An image of the wounds Emily had left on my arms came then, and the way they’d healed in minutes instead of days. Without the benefit of sleep.

“Brianna is a healer,” I breathed. I should have felt it in her touch, should have known.

“No,” Emily said, confused.

“But…” I glanced down, feeling nothing but well. “How…”

She grimaced. “Brianna didn’t heal you, Aern.” She placed a hand over my palm. “She fixed you.”

I sat still for so long, Emily’s head tilted, as if she wasn’t certain I was behind my vacant stare.

When I blinked, she spoke again. “She made those connections, Aern. The ones our mother taught her to.” I opened my mouth with a horrified protest, but she stopped me. “Not all of them, not the ones with the influence,” she explained. “Just to help you all heal faster.”

“Oh, Emily,” I breathed. “She should never have done that. Brendan, the others, if they know she has this—”

She held up a hand, stopping me again. “It isn’t like that, Aern. They already suspected she had a gift, but they don’t know. They don’t truly understand.” She glanced around the room, and I could tell she was speaking with caution. “They simply think she can help them recover faster. That’s all.”

Her eyes spoke more than her words could. None of them knew she was a prophet. None of them knew she could affect their sway. They didn’t know how their mother had died, that Brianna could give them Morgan’s power. That Emily was the chosen.

She let me process the information for a very long time, sitting silently before me, hand still resting patiently within mine. After everything that had happened, everything that could still come about, she was here.

The scope of it all fell into place. I was one of them, one of the monsters she’d been warned her whole life to stay away from, to protect Brianna from, and she had risked everything to save me. I yearned to draw her closer, to touch her face once more, gods, to press my lips to hers. But it was a betrayal.

I gripped her shoulders, placing her several inches back from where I sat. The action troubled her, but I held firm. “Emily,” I said, “there is something I have to tell you. I should have told you long ago.” My chest tightened. This was going to crush her. “It was about Brianna.” I rubbed a hand over my forearm. “But now it concerns you.”

She waited, distress playing across her features.

“The reason Morgan wanted Brianna—” Gods, how did I explain this? “The way that he needs her…”

Emily nodded. “The prophecy. They would create a union.”

“A bond,” I said. “An actual, tangible link.”

She moved closer. “I know, Aern. I understand. But Morgan will never have me.”

I stiffened, completely thrown by her words. By the idea of Morgan… “No,” I said, pushing her back. “That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

She stayed this time, waiting for me to finish.

“Not Morgan,” I explained. “The Division. The reason they want me, the reason they’ve been after me for so long”—I found my gaze wandering, focusing on anything but the expression on her face—“is that they’ve read the prophecy differently.” My throat went dry. “They think that the union, this bond, can be created by any heir to the dragon’s name. By either Morgan…” My eyes met hers. “Or me.”

She sat silent for an eternity of seconds, then said, “I know.”

I stared at her. And then, “What?”

“I know,” she said. “My mother told me, some time ago.” She shrugged. “I just didn’t think it would be me, is all.” Her voice dropped lower. “But it is me. And I’m glad, Aern. I’m glad that it is me, and that it’s you.”

A rush of emotion, too fast, too broad to sort into anything, surged through me, and