She was slim with hollow cheeks and black hair streaked with silver. Morkai trembled. “We’ll try again, Em.”
The image stilled, then shifted. The room stayed the same but there was a new body on the bed. Another young woman. This one thrashed and cried as blood streamed from her eyes and nose. With a sudden lurch, she went still. Morkai threw his head back. “We’ll try again.”
Another image.
Another body.
Another.
Another.
Teryn watched the images flash before him, each one more gruesome, more heartbreaking, than the last.
Emylia waved a hand and the final scene froze. “Morkai knew there was no hope until he had the power of the Morkaius. Too late, he’d learned that to bring an ethera back to life in another’s body, one needed blood from the original body. By now, my body was long since gone. Still he tried.”
Teryn swallowed hard before voicing the question he needed an answer to. “You…you tried to do what Morkai is doing to me, didn’t you? That’s why you know so much. You’ve not only been in my position, but Morkai’s too; the trapped spirit and the invading entity.”
She gave a solemn nod. “For the first few attempts, I participated. I was a willing accomplice in trying to take over another’s body. He chose women who were unwell. Women who would have died even without our magical interference. It was a mercy, he’d said. But it was clear that what we were doing wreaked havoc on a victim’s body. I stopped participating before he moved on to healthy women. By then, he’d also begun sacrificing lives to extend his own. It wasn’t his Elvyn blood that made him ageless, but the forbidden Arts. I realized then that the man I’d loved was gone. My refusal to participate in his efforts to bind me to a body made his attempts even more impossible. Years passed before he gave up altogether. Instead, he poured all his focus into finding the Heart of El’Ara and the mother of the true Morkara. He stopped looking for potential candidates for me. At least, for a while he did…”
She waved a hand, and their surroundings shifted yet again. They were now in the tower library at Ridine, the only light coming from the fire blazing in the hearth. Morkai stood beside one of the two chairs facing the hearth, his cane planted beneath him. Cora stood opposite him, in a puddle of spilled tea and broken porcelain. A tea table lay on its side.
Teryn’s heart raced as he strode between them. He knew this was only a memory, but he couldn’t help wanting to protect her from him.
Morkai stepped closer just the same. “I can give you half my heart.”
“Half your heart?” Cora said with a sneer. “Is that what you consider a proper proposal?”
“The other half doesn’t belong to me. But you could. I think my heart would like you. It’s a jealous heart, but it could come to understand.”
Teryn recalled what Morkai had said when he’d first trapped Emylia inside the crystal. How he’d cried out when he’d brought her hand and the stone to the marking on his shirt.
I’ll bring you back. I’ve given up half my heart to do so. It belongs to you now.
“Working with the ethera takes great sacrifice,” Emylia said. “To trap me, he had to sacrifice half of his heart-center—the spiritual aspect of his heart. That’s what made him colder. Deadlier.”
She waved her hand again, but the scene had only slightly changed. Cora was now doubled over, and a shaft of an arrow was protruding from Morkai’s ribs.
“I will give you time to choose me,” the sorcerer said. “And you will. You will choose one half of my heart willingly, or you will take the other half unwillingly.”
The image froze in place.
“Morkai no longer has even half a heart remaining,” Emylia said, “for binding his soul to the crystal with his dying breath stole the second half. He is heartless now, both halves trapped in the very crystal that holds our etheras.”
Teryn frowned at her, unsure why she was telling him this. Was she trying to make him understand the sorcerer? Pity him? But a far more pressing realization rose to his mind. “He said if she didn’t take half his heart willingly, she’d take his other half unwillingly. Does that mean…”
His mind spun. He couldn’t bear to say it out loud.
Emylia did so for him. “Yes. With his goals so close to being realized, he’d chosen his next target. He selected Cora to house my soul. Once he has the power of the Morkaius, he’ll do to her what he’s trying to do to you. With the power he seeks, Cora won’t have a fighting chance.”
Rage tore through him, boiling his blood, quickening his pulse. It took all his restraint to steady his breaths. “Tell me the truth, Emylia. What do you want? Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” she said, but her voice was empty. Tired. “I don’t want to come back, Teryn. I just want to be at rest.”
Teryn studied her for a few silent moments. She’d lied to him. Kept vital facts from him. After what she’d shown him, what she’d confessed to doing, he was even less sure he could trust her than he’d been before.
And yet, she was his only hope. He needed her to unravel the weaving in her memories, seek the pattern Morkai had used to strengthen the crystal’s density. Only then did they have any chance of getting free.
Unless…
