His blade soaring toward her throat—
It stopped mere inches away.
Ailan’s gaze darted to the most welcome face she could ever hope to see.
Fanon.
Her consort.
The love of her life.
Fury twisted his features as he marched toward them, his invisible restraints freezing Darius in place.
But her brother’s surprise wouldn’t last long. He could worldwalk free in the blink of an eye.
Ailan took her chance and threw herself at her brother, hooking one edge of the talon into his calf before closing the collar on its hinge.
Darius’ eyes went wide. He blinked. Once. Twice.
With a thrust of her sword, she pierced Darius’ abdomen, pulling it free just as Fanon dropped his skyweaving in exchange for a swing of his own blade. It arced toward Darius’ neck, aiming for a clean and decisive beheading...
Freed from Fanon’s restraints, Darius could now reach for the collar.
It didn’t matter, for it would be too late.
Fanon’s blade would strike before Darius’ fingers even met the tines…
Yet it wasn’t the tines of the collar Darius sought. Instead, he whirled around, closing the distance between him and Fanon. He pivoted, swung his blade…
And cut Fanon’s hands off at the wrists.
His blade fell impotent to the grass below.
Ailan called out her consort’s name, the agony in her voice like razors in her throat.
She was too distraught.
Too distracted.
Too haunted by the blood pouring from the ends of her consort’s blunted wrists…
That she didn’t see when Darius removed the collar from his calf.
Didn’t see when he disappeared.
Or sense when he reappeared, just behind her.
She didn’t even feel the slice of his blade.
Her whispers soothed her with a final caress.
Last Breath has come at last.
57
Themorasurged toward Cora, the force of it nearly pushing her off the rock. It washed over her, through her, fluttering past. She sensed its journey then, the way it flowed through the Veil on unseen, underground webs of magic, bypassing the wardweaving that stopped everything else. Everything weaker. The strongest vein pulsed from a singular direction to the northwest—the tear. Themorawas concentrated there, flowing faster, easier. All the lines met beneath her palms, flooding the rock, filling it, and then spilling over the top of the land like an invisible spring.
Now she fully understood why themoracouldn’t return to El’Ara. She’d understood it intellectually before, after Garot had explained the Blight, but this time she couldfeelit. The way it flowed so confidently toward the rock before stalling and drifting outward in haphazard, sometimes violent waves. Its exit was unhampered by the Veil, but its return wasn’t. Themorasought direction here at the junction of those veins, but it had no guidance, and it was lost without it.Thiswas the importance of the Morkara’s duties.
