Yes. He affirmed the word again and again.
Yes. Yes, I will do this.
No matter what it took, no matter how many sessions he had to spend laying in his empty body, trying to get his limbs to obey his mental commands, he’d get his body back.
And if he couldn’t…
Well, he knew one thing that would prevent Morkai from attaining his goals. It would be a last resort. A dreadful one at that. But if it meant keeping Cora safe—keeping the three kingdoms he sought to control safe—then Teryn Alante was willing to die.
32
Witches didn’t deal in curses. Cora knew this, knew every bit of information she pored through stood in contrast to her ethics. But if there was any hope in breaking Morkai’s fate weaving, it had to be in one of these books. And yet by sunset, with over a dozen books read and burned, she’d found nothing to fuel that hope. Nothing of immediate value, at least.
Only three of the books had mentioned curses at all, and when it came to breaking them, all had said some measure of the same thing:To break a curse, one must cast the same spell in reverse.
That wasn’t helpful. Cora may have had access to Morkai’s blueprints for the fate weaving he’d cast, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of the complex intersecting lines he’d drawn in his book. Would it be enough to draw the pattern in ink, or did she need blood? Would she have to suspend it in the air, make the pattern weave itself, like Morkai did? And if she was supposed to cast the spell in reverse, didn’t that mean she needed to know which part of the pattern was the starting point and which was the end?
She’d found only one other option, a single sentence mentioned in the most recent book she’d read:A curse may be rendered neutral if one casts a counter curse of equal or greater power to the opposite effect of the original curse.
Yet another unhelpful piece of information. Because—as Cora had already surmised—witches didn’t deal in curses. Even if she knew how to cast a counter curse, how could she make one strong enough to neutralize Morkai’s dark magic? And what would the opposite effect be? A fertility spell?
She curled her fingers into fists as she watched the book burn, witnessed every page crumble to ash in the hearth. That single line of relevant, albeit unhelpful, text was all she let remain in her mind. Everything else, every unsettling spell, every instruction on using dark magic, she’d refused to take in. She may have decided to use Morkai’s books as a means for education in a single subject, but she wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t be seduced by the excerpts scrawled within these tomes, nor would she allow any excuse to save a single book from burning. Aside from those that couldn’t be burned, of course, like the ones with pages laced with poison. But even those were fated to be discarded, not kept.
Even if she never found a way to unravel the weaving Morkai had placed upon her, she’d at least have the satisfaction of watching everything he’d owned be destroyed. That was where her true motive lay. This was less about gaining the ability to bear heirs and more about defeating a sorcerer who held too much power beyond the grave.
The sun began to set just as the last remnants of the book joined the ashes in the hearth. She debated returning to the bookshelf and selecting her next target, but she stopped herself, noting the heaviness of her bones, the fraying edges of her protective shields. As desperate as she was to do more, she knew better than to push herself. After expending so much energy sensing, reading, and clearing, she was at her limit. Her magic needed rest, as did her mind.
She set to the task of closing windows, putting out the hearth fire, and readying the room for the morrow. All the while, she couldn’t shake her growing ire. She’d hoped she’d have gained something from reading Morkai’s books today. Considering what little value she’d gained from the two excerpts she’d committed to memory, all she’d manage to accomplish was a slower pace than the day before.
Her frustration grew and grew as she left the tower and returned to the keep. Every step up the stairs carried the weight of her anger—an anger that hadn’t diminished with her day’s work.
All the better, she told herself.It will carry me through tomorrow and keep me from thinking about…
She cursed under her breath as Teryn entered her thoughts for the first time since she’d begun her day’s work. Her mind had been too occupied to stray to him while she’d been reading and clearing, but now she remembered how his face had looked that morning. The smile that didn’t reach his eyes when he’d told her she was right to ask for space. The distance he’d kept as they spoke. The rigidity of his spine as he’d stood with his hands behind his back, as if forcing himself not to touch her.
Or had he not wanted to touch her?
She shook her head, preferring her previous irritation to what she felt now, teetering on the edge of grief. She reached the main floor of the keep and saw the lamps had been lit in the hall.
Fire, she thought as she passed by the first, willing the element to grow within her, to spark the rage that served as a comforting barrier around her heart.
Fire, she thought again, striding past the next several sconces. She imagined the light dancing up her skin, settling over her core, and fueling her strength of will?—
A startled squeak interrupted her focus, and she found Sera at the end of the hall, face pale as her eyes locked on Cora’s. She lowered her eyes to the floor and dipped into a curtsy. Her voice came out with a mild tremor. “Highness.”
A sense of guilt washed over Cora, but it wasn’t her own. She’d left her mental shields as they’d been in the tower, strengthened only for protection, not sensing. Breathing deeply, she fully sealed them, but not before gaining a full understanding of Sera’s state of remorse.
“I’m sorry I haven’t attended to you today, Your Highness,” Sera muttered, eyes still locked on the floor. She began to fiddle with the ends of her brown hair.
“It’s fine,” Cora said curtly as she reached the girl. “I had no need of your aid.”
A rush of air left Sera’s lips as she finally lifted her face. “That’s a relief, Your Highness, for I couldn’t have been spared to aid you even if I’d wanted to come. Queen Mareleau has been dreadfully ill all day, you see. She can hardly keep anything down.”
Cora began to brush past the girl. “Do what you must. I’m sure the royal physician will take care of her.” She paused. Did they even have a royal physician on staff yet? Surely such an appointment would have been a priority…
Sera lowered her voice to a whisper. “She refuses to allow any of us to fetch him or tell anyone about her condition. I’m only telling you because you’re my current mistress, and I didn’t want you to think?—”
Cora rounded on the girl. “Her Majesty is ill and she refuses to be seen by the physician?”
