Her chest constricted, but she breathed the tightness away. Shifting her gaze to the morning light streaming through the window, she called upon the element of fire.
Light. Heat. Warmth.
Passion. Anger. Rage.
Life force. Strength. Transmutation.
The sunlight heated her insides, evoking her anger. It surged from her chest to her palms. With renewed vigor, she finished lacing her bodice and tied off the ends. Then, closing her eyes, she strengthened her connection to the other elements.
She rooted her feet to the stone floor.
Earth. Safety. Protection.
Took a fortifying breath, in then out.
Air. Thoughts. Intellect.
She acknowledged the element of water—feeling, emotion—but it was already too strong. She needed less water right now. Less emotion and more strength of will. Steady logic. Keen insight.
Calm settled over her. It wasn’t the most peaceful calm, for she still didn’t know how to express herself to Teryn. A night of agonizing over the situation hadn’t given her any answers. Perhaps there weren’t any. None that were easy, at least.
But she knew what shecoulddo. What shemustdo.
She’d funnel her rage, her attention, and her energy into the only suitable recourse: clearing Morkai’s tower. And maybe—just maybe—if she was willing to take a risk and do something just a little reckless, she might be able to find the information she needed to break this damn curse.
Teryn hated sitting still.He’d forgotten this feeling. Forgotten the anxiety that had plagued him in the wake of his father’s death. The time between Centerpointe Rock and Cora’s official release from Verlot had been pure agony when he hadn’t been moving. Doing. Fixing. He’d felt some relief after Cora had been given back her title, and every moment since had been filled with distraction—first helping his brother step into his role as king, then focusing all his efforts on reuniting with Cora.
Now sitting still was all he could do.
And it was torture.
He’d kept his ethera aligned with his body for hours on end. At least, he assumed hours had passed. His ethera didn’t feel the passing of time the way his body had been able to. There were no hunger pangs, no bodily urges. His primary relationship to time now was his growing anxiety.
“Breathe, Teryn.” Emylia’s words made him want to clench his jaw, but the mild buzzing resistance his ethera generated lacked the satisfaction he was used to.
Which gave him no choice but to listen. To tune back in to the feel of his breath, the rush of his blood, the rhythmic pulse of his heart. Despite his irritation over Emylia’s constant reminders, she was right. The strength of his connection to his vitale—the one bodily sensation he could consistently feel—always calmed his nerves. With his soul lying in perfect harmony with his body’s shape, his spiritual heart-center aligned with his sternum, his ethera’s eyes aligned with his body’s eyes, his soul’s feet nestled within his body’s feet, he could almost pretend he was whole again.
“Good,” Emylia said. “You’re going to try some subtle muscular movements again.”
A spike of panic flared inside him. He’d tried to control small muscular movements already and failed miserably. According to Emylia, if he had any chance at reclaiming his body, he needed to not only strengthen his connection to his vitale but also to the thin thread that linked him to his cereba. The only reason he even had that tiny link was due to his connection to his vitale. While Morkai reigned over Teryn’s conscious movements, Teryn maintained a sliver that controlled his automatic functions like breathing, blinking, and swallowing. Emylia had surmised that if Teryn could intentionally create small movements related to these automatic functions, he could learn to control larger ones next.
He hadn’t managed so much as a flinch the first time he’d tried, which had resulted in him flying into a panicked rage and losing his connection to his vitale entirely.
“You must start small and be patient,” Emylia had said. “You will get there.”
That same anxiety filled him now—of being inside his body, yet unable to move it. He tuned back in to his breath, his pulse, his blood, and felt the panic melt away.
Emylia kept her voice slow and gentle. “Now shift your attention to what’s outside your body. Focus on the sensation of the blankets against your back. Feel the pillows cradling your head, brushing against your cheek.”
He followed along, noting the various levels of resistance generated between each object and his ethera. It didn’t feel quite the same as it should, but he tried not to dwell on that.
“Now focus on a single finger on your right hand,” Emylia said. “Pour all your attention there. Feel the pressure of your fingertip against the blankets. The connection between the finger and your hand. Then your hand to your arm. Arm to shoulder. Shoulder to neck. Neck to spine. Spine to mind. Then follow it back down to your finger.”
Teryn did as she said, following his awareness of each part of his body. Or was it just his ethera he was noting? He supposed it didn’t matter. Emylia moved him through the exercise again and again until he felt a strange hum in his ethera, filling the space he was focusing on, rippling from his mind to his fingertip.
“Good,” Emylia whispered. “Now send a single surge of awareness from your mind to your finger. Don’t try to figure out how. Just trust. This is an automatic function. A flinch. You maintain that link. You can send energy through that circuit. That’s all you’re doing now. Are you ready?”
He breathed in deeply, felt his lungs expand. Felt the resistance between his back and the mattress shift with the movement. Felt the subtle sway in the energy from his mind to his hand, then back to his mind. He settled his attention at the top of his head. Then, with a rush of single-minded intent, he sent his awareness down his neck, his arm, his hand, and into his finger. The energy echoed back his intent with a flinch of movement.
