“Don’t you understand? If she’d taken the crystal far from your body and destroyed it, Morkai would have died, but so would you. You are tethered to the crystal, the same as Morkai. Your only link to the world of the living is through your body. And if your ethera is freed from the crystal while your connection to your cereba and vitale is severed…you’d have no hope of being whole again.”
Her words sent a chill through him, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel regret. Instead, he only felt more vindicated. “I would have been willing to risk my life if it meant destroying the sorcerer once and for all. If it meant keeping Cora safe from him.”
Her eyes turned down at the corners. “We’ll find a way, I promise.”
Teryn bit back his argument. Hadn’t she also promised he had more than enough time? “Where is she? Where is Cora now?”
“She got away.”
“And where ishe?”
“He’s resting his ethera. He overtaxed himself and was forced to rest shortly after Cora disappeared. However, this is the one time I would caution against practicing with your cereba. Your body…it didn’t respond well to what you did. To the two of you fighting for control.”
Teryn remembered the blood that had seeped from his nose, the searing pain he’d felt when his body was being wrestled away from him. The only thing that had kept him in place for as long as it had was Cora’s presence. That warm tether had remained, pulsing from his chest and anchoring him into his body. Had that been his heart-center? Had it overridden Morkai’s?
It had…for a while at least.
Thank the seven gods she’d gotten away after he lost consciousness.
“You shouldn’t have done what you did, Teryn.”
“Ihadto try. I couldn’t let her believe his lies a second longer. Couldn’t let him kiss her, comfort her—” He recalled the reason she’d sought comfort in the first place. The reason she’d come to speak to him.
A searing ache pierced his heart.
He slid his gaze to Emylia. “Do you know about the curse Morkai placed on Cora? The one preventing her from bearing children?”
She shrank back slightly, shoulders stiff. Her dark eyes went wide, but she said nothing.
Teryn sat up straighter. “Do. You. Know. About. It.”
She gave a sharp nod.
“Tell me.”
“It’s…it’s not something you can change?—”
His voice deepened, his fingers curling into fists. “Stop keeping things from me based on whether or not I can change them and justtellme, Emylia.”
Closing her eyes, she lowered her head. Her voice came out muffled. “I suppose it’s well past time for me to be judged for my sins.”
Tension radiated through Teryn’s ethera.
Slowly, she rose to her feet. Teryn followed, keeping his eyes locked on her hunched form. Her expression was wan, eyes distant.
“It’s my fault,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Everything he’s doing. It’s because of me.”
It took all his restraint to keep his voice level. “Tell me what you know. Please.”
“I can’t. I’m too much of a coward to confess with words.”
“Emylia—”
“But I can show you.”
The illusionthat was Emylia’s temple bedroom fell beneath a sheer blanket of fog. When it dissipated, the tapestries and furnishings were left muted in color and clarity, while the light coming in from the windows seemed to shift between midday and early evening, then back again. When Teryn tried to focus on the details of the room—the pattern on the rugs, the designs on the tapestries—they’d change before his eyes. Whatever illusion he saw now, it had the same ephemeral quality as a dream.
“This is my memory,” Emylia explained, taking up post against the far wall. Her expression remained hollow, shoulders slumped either with sorrow or resignation. “Or how I remember it playing out, at least. Memories are weaker than illusions, but this is as close to the truth as I can show you.”
