| “ | I took another step, followed by another. Each one more difficult than the last. I strained against the drumming of my pulse, but no other sounds emerged from the darkness. It was as if I’d conjured the earlier noise from fear. | ” |
–Emilia | ||
Emilia Maria di Carlo is the Goddess of Fury and Queen of the Seven Circles ruling together with Wrath, the king of Hell. Additionally, alongside her sister, Vittoria the Goddess of Death, they rule over House Vengeance.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria were created by the Crone thousands of years before the events of the Kingdom of the Wicked. The twins predate the Seven Circles and the Wicked and little is known about Emilia and Vittoria's lives as goddesses. They are believed to have been far crueler rulers of the underworld than the Wicked who now reign over the Seven Circles and had been known as the Feared. Emilia recalls that she and Vittoria had been cold and had greeted humans and souls with cruelty as they entered their domain.
After the dark princes and their Circles appeared in hell, Lucia fell in love with Pride and became heartbroken upon realizing she couldn't remain happy with him forever. Lucia's mother, the First Witch, had asked Wrath to force Pride and Lucia to end their relationship, but when he refused, turned to Emilia and Vittoria to help to seek vengeance against House Pride and House Wrath. Agreeing to the plan, Emilia and Vittoria went into the Circles each pretending to be the same person, with the goal of seducing Wrath and Pride, and have them destroy each other's House of Sin believing they had been in a relationship with the same woman.
However, during her ruse, Emilia and Wrath fall in love with each other for real. On the night of the Feast of the Wolf when Emilia was meant to trick Wrath into going into Pride's bedchamber while him and Vittoria were together, Emilia told Wrath everything. As punishment of their plan, her and her sister were stolen away by the witches. The streghe used dark magic to curse Emilia into a human body, given mortality and a new heart, and had her memories blocked. When Vittoria attempts to rescue her sister, she is given the same fate.
The twins are given false memories of a life where they are witches growing up in Palermo, Sicily as daughters of Nicoletta di Carlo and her unnamed father and the granddaughters of Nonna Maria. As well as a crush on a human boy named Antonio. Their family owns a family trattoria, or restaurant, called Sea & Vine. From childhood, Emilia and Vittoria grow up working in the family restaurant. By eight years old, Emilia was already skilled in the kitchen. Emilia dreams of owning Sea & Vine herself when she grows up and eventually have enough money to buy the building next door and expand their business.
Throughout Emilia and Vittoria's memories of childhood, they were warned of the demons of Hell and how to see signs of their appearance. Nonna Maria would often tell stories of the princes and taught them minor magics on how to protect themselves if they were to ever be confronted with one. Growing up, Emilia possessed one half of a cornicello set, a protective amulet, that her and Vittoria were warned to never take off or let touch or the demon princes would come. One night, Vittoria took off her amulet and Emilia held it while still wearing hers and a hellhound howled in the distance. They never again spoke of that night, but since then Emilia possessed the power to see people's auras.
Kingdom of the Wicked[]
Emilia finds her sister's body in a back room of the monastery, a figure looming over her who we later find out is the demon prince Wrath. Both Vittoria's heart and her cornicello are missing. While her family mourns, Emilia seeks revenge on the person who murdered her sister. She starts by searching how to unlock the dark magic that binds Vittoria's secret diary closed. She seeks another witch in Polermo, Carolina who is the mother of her best friend and is known to practice dark magic, on how this can be done and is told to summon a low-level demon for answers. Emilia performs the demon summoning spell in a cave just outside of the city using the supplies she had gathered and the gold, snake wrapped dagger she had picked up on the night of her sisters murder and unknowingly summons Wrath, a prince of Hell. Due to her limited knowledge of how to use magics and understanding of Latin, the protection spell she added to the summoning accidentally binds them in marriage, both of them now marked with matching lavender crescent moons and stars tattoo that marks their betrothal. Wrath realizes what happens immediately but Emilia doesn't until later. Using her power to see aura, she discovers that he was the man she found with her sister.
After briefly attacking him, she learns he wasn't the killer, and instead he'd found Vittoria like that already. Emilia keeps Wrath trapped in the cave within the bounds of her spell while she looks for more answers, stumbling across some of Wrath's brothers Envy, Lust, and Greed. They all express an interest in allying her to their Houses, but she declines.
In her search for her sister's cornicello, Emilia is injured by the Viperidae demon Greed had guarding it. She gets away from the Viperidae by shoving Vittoria's cornicello in one of its eyes, but not before it bites her. Wrath escapes the cave in just enough time to find her and save her life, but he does so by Marking her. Wrath and Emilia form an alliance. Neither of them want to see more witches die, for their own respective reasons, and so they will find the killer together.
After she recovers from the Vipderidae venom, Wrath and Emilia go to meet Anir, Wrath's second-in-command. He tells them Valentina Rossi is the next witch selected to be Pride's bride. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive at the Rossi home, Valentina has already been murdered. Anir accidentally reveals that Emilia and Wrath have begun the marriage bond. Not knowing Emilia's ignorant of it, he tells her that when she bound Wrath to her, she started the marriage bond. Wrath explains to her that the Latin phrase she used to summon him, "Aevitas ligati in aeternus protego," meaning "bound forever in eternal protection," means "bound forever" as in holy matrimony, not like a guardian to their ward as she'd intended.
Emilia finds La Prima Streghe's grimoire in the catacombs of the monastery. After agreeing to become the witch bride that Pride seeks, Emilia meets Wrath in the cave by the ocean where she originally summoned him. Wrath gives her the contract that signs away her soul, and Emilia signs it in her blood. Wrath then uses transvenio to bring her to the Wicked Kingdom. At this point, Emilia believes she has sold her soul and her hand in marriage to Pride, breaking the marriage bond she inadvertently started with Wrath.
Kingdom of the Cursed[]
Once reaching Hell, Emilia and Wrath travel through the Sin Corridor: a long, winded path down the mountains that tests newcommers affinity to the houses. It influences Emilia's emotions and subjects her to visions that alter her perceptions. Nearing the end of their trek, Emilia falls ill, the combination of exhaustion and the frigid weather leading to her contracting hypothermia. While recovering, Emilia and Wrath discuss sin, desire, and the magic of the Wicked Kingdom. Wrath tells her that “if she’s interested in sex but fears passion or intimacy, she may experience a higher rate of sexual desire until she works through her personal issues regarding it.” She struggles to break out of the cultural norms she was raised with in the human world that are not upheld in Hell.
Emilia uses the library in House Wrath to learn more about magic. She immediately realizes that Nonna Maria had taught her and Vittoria only the bare minimum of earth magic. They'd learned how to cast simple spells aided with herbs and objects of intent, charms of protection, harmless spells that hardly required much skill. Nonna had also taught them a Latin phrase or word every now and then. Nonna spent most of her time teaching the twins the ways of demons, but then stunted their education regarding their own abilities. She never taught them offensive magic, apparently determined to keep that bold kind of magic away from them at all costs. Nonna never explained where their power came from or how it worked. The twins were also taught to pray to all the goddesses instead of aligning with one goddess. While in the library, she meets a demon named Fauna.
Emilia attends the dinner hosted by Wrath to introduce her to his court. After the feast, Emilia uses her anger to create a tiny ball of rose-gold flames. Emilia demands Wrath give her a knife to protect herself, Wrath agrees to give her one but only if she also takes lessons in using it and lessons in magical influence.
Emilia later forces a confession out of Wrath, as he's kept her at House Wrath and constantly refused to bring her to Pride. Wrath tells her that Pride is not her intended, and never has been; instead, Emilia is betrothed to him. Wrath explains that he gave her the Demon's Mark because it was the only way he could save her from the Viperidae venom because it allowed him to take the venom into his body through the magical bond. The Demon's Mark "tethered them flesh to flesh" and was his acceptance of the marriage bond Emilia unknowingly created when she summoned him. She is confused and angry at this news. She had been willing to have a marriage of convenience with Pride because it granted her access to his House and a better understanding of how his wife's murder might tie in with Vittoria's. She believes marrying Wrath won't help in her mission.
Over the next few weeks, Emilia travels to House Envy upon receiving an invitation. Emilia learns that Envy is interested in three divine objects, two of which he now possesses, the Temptation Key and La Prima's grimoire. He is still searching for the Triple Moon Mirror. After leaving House Envy, her powers are blocked by a curse after she steals La Prima's grimoire from his personal library. Emilia comes to believe that the witches in Sicily were murdered for reasons that had nothing to do with the devil seeking a bride, and everything to do with revenge.
As Emilia spends time in House Wrath, she and Fauna develop a close friendship. Emilia begins having what she thinks are visions but are actually memories. These vision-memories occur when she and Wrath are in "passionate situations." After an assassination attempt on Emilia, she confesses to Wrath that she's worried she's cursed. She worries that she's cursed and everyone she loves is in danger. She asks Wrath if she's the villain, one who's so vicious and terrible she was punished to forget. She asks if maybe the witches who were murdered had started to remember and that's why they were killed. Wrath replies, “Maybe they all dabbled in pursuits they shouldn’t have. And she’s the one picking up the pieces of their mistakes.” As part of her training with Wrath against demonic influence, Emilia learns that Antonio has been kept prisoner in House Wrath. Wrath and Anir bring her to Antonio. Emilia is incensed to see that he is comfortably staying in a room and not suffering for what he's done. Antonio tells her that the Matron has been giving him tonics to break the enchantment that's been cast on him.
As Wrath predicted and warned, Emilia has been nominated as this year's guest of honor for the Feast of the Wolf. As the guest of honor, her biggest fear or a secret of her heart will be wrenched from her as the sacrifice. It will happen in front of all the princes of Hell and their subjects. Emilia is terrified of this happening.
Emilia attends the Feast of the Wolf with Wrath. It is being hosted at House Gluttony.
Emilia later finds out Wrath's true name and identity, and using a magic object, learns that Vittoria is actually alive and in the Wicked Kingdom and had been playing Antonio. Vittoria taunts Emilia to follow her to the Shifting Isles. Emilia and Wrath reconcile and decide to consummate their marriage.
Kingdom of the Feared[]
Wrath and Emilia are once again interrupted when she is pulled into the Spirit Realm by Vittoria and Domenico. Later, when they return to House Wrath, Emilia's power erupts while she is in the bath, clearly growing as she becomes more powerful.
The pair are called to House Greed following the murder of Greed's third, where Wrath is then pushed to declare Vittoria an enemy of the Houses, as his brother's believe her to be behind the killing. He is careful with his wording, however, leaving Emilia open to assisting her sister should she wish. The two then orchestrate a ploy so the members of House Greed won't suspect she has gone anywhere, causing a scene in the gambling room as a result of Emilia playing Wrath's possessive and angry nature. Back in their room, they consummate their marriage, and Wrath uses his power to help her remember parts of who she is: the Goddess of Fury.
Wrath crowns her in the Sin Corridor in front of his brothers, Vittoria, and Domenico. She is now Queen of the Seven Circles, princess of House Wrath, and the goddess of the underworld and the Shadow Realm.
Throne of the Fallen[]
Since Emilia's coronation, rumors have circulated that Wrath has barely seen his court. The two of them have been too busy having sex and stoking each other's fury like deviants. They do take a pause in their activities when Emilia visits her sister's House and Wrath visits House Envy.
Appearance[]
Emilia is wholly beautiful, with rich, dark brown, wavy hair, thick lashes, and warm chocolate colored eyes. She stands at a height of 5’3. Her olive colored skin has been bronzed by the sun and her ancestry. She always wears her amulet necklace, a silver cornicello. Beginning when she was young, Emilia began weaving orange blossoms and plumeria in her hair to set her apart from Vittoria.
After summoning Wrath, a lavender tattoo of twin crescent moons laying sideways within a ring of stars appears on her outer forearm. After meeting Envy, snakes now twine around the crescent moons, forming a larger circle around it. On the third day of Wrath's summoning, her tattoo changes to include wildflowers winding around the serpents. The snakes now have shimmering, even scales. Besides wildflowers, vibrant frangipani blossoms appear after Wrath saves Emilia from the Viperidae venom. The next day, wildflowers now twist and tangle all the way up to her elbow. As part of saving Emilia from the Viperidae venom, Wrath Marks her. It's an almost invisible mark on her neck. It's a tiny, shimmering snake in the shape of an S, and her skin feels colder than the surrounding area.
After beginning to break her spell-lock, Emilia's eyes glitter a pale rose-gold, indicative of the power she's awakened. Her House dagger is slender, with wildflowers carved into its hilt, and a shining silver blade. Wrath gives her a leather sheath so she can keep it strapped against her thigh.
Personality[]
Emilia is determined, stubborn, skeptical, and tends to be overly cautious. She loves stories, legends, and novels; especially romance novels. She is caring, kind, and empathetic. She is incredibly brave and courageous, never letting her fear stop her. Emilia is unwavering, even in the risk of death. She is willing to do anything for the people she loves. She abhors being seen as vulnerable or weak. She and her sister were both enchanted by the stories of the Wicked growing up. She is skilled at sneaking around undetected. Emilia is satisfied with "safe, clean, fun," preferring to read about adventures than go on them. She develops a ruthless charm. Emilia is a realist, but not a defeatist. Since interacting with demons, Emilia has learned to question anyone connected to the demon realm and to be quite cynical. She also learns that if she asks enough questions, she'll eventually catch someone in their well-constructed lie. Emilia believes that "everyone who's working or providing service that's a comfort ought to be thanked." She longs for the power to defend herself and her loved ones.
Abilities[]
Beginning at age eight, Emilia can see people's luccicare, or auras. The luccicare of humans are usually purple, while Wrath and his brothers' auras are colors corresponding with their namesake sin. As a strega, Emilia can use magic through spells for various different things and purposes, such as summoning demons, moving objects, and lightly influencing emotions, along with casting truth spells to bend an individual’s will to hers. Some spells come easily to her, as if through body memory. Some spells she had to learn and almost always forgot. As a witch she can also cast charms and imbue objects with magic.
Emilia is an immensely powerful vengeance goddess of Hell, the Goddess of Fury. She possesses a multitude of mighty magical and physical abilities. Her namesake sin, like wrath, is rooted in passion. Her magic is fire, which takes the form of fiery blossoms. Once she became the full Goddess of Fury again, it is presumed her magical affinity for spells grew enormously—from Wrath stating she could “only cast minimal spells as a shadow witch.” While in the Seven Circles, Emilia eventually developed the ability to summon rosebuds and wildflowers made out of rose-gold flames. This ability is shown to grow, eventually enabling her to control and manipulate the intensity and size of her flames as well as the type of flowers as she wills it. She learns how to extinguish some flowers while increasing the intensity of the flames on others. At first, she uses her anger to create her flaming flowers. While it crackles like real fire, it doesn't burn her. After realizing who she is, the Goddess of Fury, but not yet awakening her full power, her flames gain the ability to physically burn and damage things with searing heat. Once she reawakened as the restored Goddess of Fury, Emilia was able to tap into her Source fully—an endless, limitless power of flames and magic. Her magic is powerful enough to destroy realms. She is capable of creating a raging inferno of rose-gold flames. Her magic is an ancient, rumbling power. It becomes increasingly more "ravenous." Emilia feels like she can barely hold it at bay as it tries to be set free "to ravage and destroy."
Even after she gives up her magic, she retains her immortality. This makes her ageless, and gives her supernatural speed, strength, reflexes, and senses. it also gives her almost instant healing abilities. Having enough power for the both of them, Wrath gives her half of his power and magic.
Relationships[]
Wrath[]
At first, Emilia and Wrath hate and distrust each other. Wrath is incredibly secretive towards Emilia, and she repeatedly assumes the worst about him. They reluctantly become unlikely allies to solve the witch murders. They both want to solve the mystery and stop any future murders, but for different reasons. While Wrath is unable to lie to Emilia outright, he often works around this with half-truths and silence. As they continue spending increasing amounts of time together, they are increasingly physically attracted to one another. This attraction causes tension between them, and it’s kindled by shared danger and threats. Their relationship is fractured when Emilia learns Wrath didn’t tell her that the summoning spell she cast on him forged a magical betrothal between them. Their relationship further deteriorates when Emilia learns Wrath isn’t telling her the whole truth about his motives for helping her. To discover this truth, Emilia uses their mutual physical attraction by kissing Wrath to distract him and knock him off guard. This confirms that Wrath is only one soul away from gaining his freedom. Emilia decides her only option to protect the human realm and to continue learning more about Vittoria’s murder is to sign herself into a new betrothal with Pride. Wrath feels hurt by what he views as a betrayal and keeps to himself that Emilia’s betrothal with Pride is not superseded by theirs. By bringing her to Hell, Wrath collects his final soul.
While journeying through the Sin Corridor, Wrath tells Emilia her “anger is like his own personal aphrodisiac.” Despite telling her that he won’t help her, Wrath saves Emilia from hypothermia. While recovering, but still a bit delusional, Emilia tells Wrath that sometimes she thinks she wants to be his friend, despite his betrayal. Believing to be betrothed to his brother, Emilia battles her feelings towards Wrath against her belief that she must remain committed to her future husband. While staying in House Wrath, and despite their feelings of betrayal towards each other, their romance rekindles in the form of lustful passions. Emilia begins abandoning the propriety of the human realm. Emilia has never reacted to someone in such a carnal way. Their feelings for each other are “desire in its purest form.” Wrath and Emilia are repeatedly drawn together. She describes her longing for him as out of control. Anir says that Emilia fighting with Wrath is good for Wrath, as is his being challenged by her. Wrath battles feelings of jealousy when others express interest towards Emilia. Emilia enjoys their verbal sparring, and Wrath appears to share this enjoyment. She says she gets “a perverse sense of peace arguing with him.” Emilia continuingly gets frustrated at Wrath for keeping information and secrets from her. She also repeatedly finds herself thinking about how intriguing and attractive Wrath is, much to her annoyance. Her anger is a raging inferno, the matching opposite of Wrath’s ice-cold anger. As wrath and fury are his sins of choice, he likes her temper. Wrath is Emilia’s mirror. Wrath eventually reveals that their betrothal was not broken when she signed the contract between her and Pride, and thus she was never engaged to marry Pride. She and Wrath are still linked through the magic of her first summoning spell as well as by his Mark he placed on her, which is unbreakable even by death. Emilia begins to wonder if she could live with a marriage with someone who doesn’t love her but is at least physically attracted to her. Then Emilia learns from Fauna that Wrath is willing to give up the security of his House and the added power of having a co-ruler, and to suffer through the rumors in his court, all so Emilia can have the one thing he covets above all else: choice. Thus, he is unwilling to force her into their marriage bond. As Fauna says, “he must respect Emilia enough to damn his own court.” During the Feast of the Wolf, Emilia finally admits to herself that she wants Wrath, and in more than just a lust-fueled way. It’s clear that Wrath knows Emilia incredibly well. It appears as if he never got rid of any of her belongings after she was stolen from him, even after twenty years. Wrath begins to fear his growing emotions towards Emilia, as he can’t love as part of the curse. Emilia learns that part of the curse keeps Wrath from being able to tell her certain things, which helps her forgive some of his previous actions. Emilia realizes that she loves Wrath and wants to accept his proposal and complete their marriage. Upon telling him that she wants to accept their marriage bond, she says that she is choosing him as his husband. “There is no one she’d rather confront her demons with, no soul she’d travel through Hell with, and no one else she wants standing beside her.”
Wrath and Emilia consummate their marriage by having sex. They then freely give into their lust and physical attraction to each other. When they’re alone, a lighter and more playful side of Wrath is revealed. They love being together. Wrath uses his power to help Emilia remember who she really is and supports her when she frees herself from her mortal bonds and is once again the goddess of vengeance. When the curse breaks, Wrath is noticeably lighter now that he is truly free. They know each other’s bodies and hearts as well as their own. Emilia is the only person in Wrath’s existence that’s been unimpressed and undisturbed by his titles. They clearly love each other, and their love is more powerful than just about anything, even curses and death.
Vittoria di Carlo[]
Vittoria is Emilia's twin sister and fellow witch. The two of them grew up sharing a room in their family's home in Italy. Of the two of them, Vittoria is described as more rambunctious and risky, often making claims of casting spells and witchcraft in the presence of mortals and finding humor in the fact they believe she is joking. Vittoria and Emilia were very close, and up until her sister's appeared death, Emilia believed that the only secret between them was that she could see luccicare, as she never told Vittoria about that ability. It becomes clear that this is false, as more and more of Vittoria's secrets come to light through Emilia's investigation into her death. In the weeks leading up to it, Vittoria acquired a summoning spell and made a deal with Pride, agreeing to become his bride in order to break the curse that kept him trapped in Hell. She also interacted with Greed, and werewolves, which Emilia didn't know existed. Vittoria's body is found in the monastery, mutilated and missing her heart. It's revealed that the culprit was Antonio, Emilia's first love, and one of the fratellos of the monastery. Emilia's love of Vittoria makes her stronger. Vittoria reveals that she is in fact alive.
Antonio Vincenzu Bernardo[]
Antonio and Emilia grew up together. Emilia has been infatuated with him since they were children, and is deeply disappointed when he joins the brotherhood, which involves a vow of chastity and making it impossible for him to ever marry. Despite this, Emilia still pines after him. The two of them have a friendly relationship up until Emilia learns it was him who had been murdering the young witches, including her sister Vittoria. Emilia is heartbroken over his death, and believes he deserved a better ending.
Claudia[]
Claudia is another strega, and Emilia and Vittoria's closest friend. The girls grew up together, and consider themselves sisters. After being selected to prepare the deceased by the brotherhood, Claudia used to share stories with the twins about how mummies came to be part of the monastery.
Fauna[]
TBA
Trivia[]
- Vittoria often makes a concoction she and Emilia call limoncello wine. It is mix of blood oranges, limoncello, red wine, and prosecco inspired by sangria. It is also Emilia's favorite drink. She and Emilia love cassata, a sweet ricotta sponge cake usually served during Easter. They would have it on their birthday.
- Alexei says Emilia's blood "smells like spiced wine."
- Orange blossoms and plumeria are her favorite flowers.
- Emilia is left-handed.
- Emilia and her sister are Aries.
Gallery[]
