She couldn’t stop her mouth from lifting at the corners. “I didn’t know you were such an optimist, Your Majesty.”
Mareleau lifted her chin. “Apparently all it took to improve my mood was to hear about the dire hand you’ve been dealt.”
Cora rolled her eyes. “I’m glad my plight has brought you such amusement.”
The queen stepped closer, her haughty composure back in place. “You know, you aren’t horrible. I don’t hate you.”
“And you are tolerable yourself,” Cora said dryly. Then she softened her tone. “I’m glad you don’t think children should be pawns. You’ll make…an okay mother.”
Mareleau smiled back at her. It was probably the first smile she’d ever received from the queen. But her face crumpled so suddenly, Cora hardly knew what was happening. Not until Mareleau did the absolute last thing Cora expected her to do...
She threw her arms around Cora…
And hugged her.
Mareleau was so much taller than Cora that she found her face nearly buried in the other woman’s bosom. Still, she was too shocked to move.
The queen heaved with sobs. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice strangled by hiccups. “I’m just really…emotional lately and I can’t control it. I don’t even like hugs.”
“Neither do I,” Cora muttered. And yet neither broke away. Instead, they stood a little closer, held each other a little tighter. Maybe they both needed an embrace with all they were going through, and they were simply tolerating the comfort of the last person they wanted it from. Or maybe it was more that they’d found an anchor in the other. A mirror. For in this world of cruel games and royal burdens, Cora and Mareleau were perhaps the two people who understood each other the most.
38
This time, Teryn didn’t need all night to make progress. The first hour he lay in the space of his body, he managed to flinch every one of his fingers on both hands. The second hour, he moved his left leg. That had woken Morkai up enough that he’d rolled over and shifted Teryn’s body on its side, but Teryn wasn’t daunted. Instead, he adjusted his ethera to fit the proper bounds, aligning his hands, feet, torso, shoulders, and face, filling his form the way his soul was meant to.
Now it was time to work on the task he’d come to consider his highest priority: forming speech.
He breathed deeply, feeling his lungs expand, the air moving through his nostrils. His heart beat a steady rhythm while his pulse sang with his blood. He lost touch with the passing of time, focusing instead on the perfect harmony between his ethera and vitale. The singular connection that ensured he was—undoubtedly—still alive. That this body was still his.
Once he was fully settled into this awareness, he poured all his focus into repeating the feat he’d only barely accomplished last time. Shifting the course of his breath, he exhaled out of his mouth. His lips parted to release the warm air, and he breathed again. As the air left his lungs, he felt it tingle against the sides of his throat, the roof of his mouth. A hum of energy rose around him, surging through his blood, merging his body and ethera. The energy was as tangible as the vibrations from a string quartet, a beautiful melody that elucidated Teryn’s control. His capabilities. Now all he needed to do was shape that energy into movement and sound.
Teryn.
His name wove through this melody and stitched itself into his consciousness. He didn’t let it break his concentration, even as he searched his mind to identify the voice. Was Emylia talking to him? No, she’d returned to the bounds of the crystal and had left him to practice alone. Besides, this voice filled him with warmth. With purpose.
It was Cora.
At the door again.
“Teryn, I know it’s the middle of the night but…but that also means you’re in there. I know you are.”
I am, he thought, but it wasn’t enough to think it. He had to speak it.
A new sense of urgency—of need—filled him. Cora was right there, on the other side of his bedroom door. All he had to do was tell her.
“I’m not leaving until you open this door. I’ll get Master Arther to unlock it if you won’t do so yourself.”
Teryn directed his attention to the inside of his mouth, the placement of his tongue. Slowly, his tongue lifted, the back of it connecting with flesh at the roof of his mouth, and his lips formed anOshape.
“I don’t even know how badly you were hurt.” Her voice came out with a quaver, a sound that nearly cleaved Teryn’s heart in two. But instead of breaking, he used it as fuel, gathering his pain, his desperation, and sending it out in a surge of energy through his vocal cords.
“Please. Ineedyou right now.”
“Cora!” The word left Teryn’s mouth in a shout. A bit uneven, perhaps, but it was clear.
He’d done it.
But in that same moment, Teryn’s body bolted out of bed, and Teryn was no longer in control of it. No matter how he tried not to feel disappointed after such a success—even one so short-lived—it was impossible not to. Especially when Morkai’s eyes slid to the door.
