Flames danced in her mind again, and she saw another flash from that dream, how even though she’d saved her friend from the duke’s clutches, Mareleau had burned to ash as soon as Cora had touched her.
I am the shadow you won’t acknowledge. I am the ember you wish you could smother.
She forced the echoes from the nightmare away until the tightness in her chest eased. Reluctantly, she met Mareleau’s gaze. Her friend had gone a shade paler.
Cora shrank back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Mareleau gave her a sad smile. “You’re allowed to mean it like that. I wouldn’t blame you for resenting me for what was done to you.”
Tears glazed her eyes. “I don’t, Mare. You’re my friend. I could never resent you. That…that isn’t me.”
Salinda leaned forward and patted Cora’s knee. While she appreciated the woman’s attempt at consolation, the pity that clouded the wagon was potent enough to smother her.
She forced herself to sit taller, burying her unpleasant emotions until she could speak with calm. “I don’t have a place in this prophecy.”
“You do,” Ailan said, not bothering to add to the sympathy that poured from the others. In that moment, Cora was grateful to the woman. Ailan’s perspective may enrage Cora, but at least the Elvyn wasn’t going to pander to her. “Whether you like it or not, you have become a part of this. I can feel the threads woven around you, linking you to my kin, to me. I never felt them when you lived in the commune before, but maybe I hadn’t been looking then. Even so, my whispers drew me to you from the start, long before I knew why.”
Cora remembered how she’d shivered at the imagined feeling of threads brushing her skin earlier. She’d been recalling how the Forest People had found her and realizing how miraculous that was. Had Ailan been the reason they’d crossed paths in the first place? Had she been following her whispers the day they’d found her stumbling through the woods?
Another shiver prickled her flesh, along with that strange brush of threads again.
“Maybe you’re more than just a decoy,” Ailan said, again without warmth. Without pity. “Maybe you have a more proactive role to play. Whatever the case, I don’t think we are meant to wait for Noah to come of age and act on his own. The whispers tell me the time is now.”
“Now…what?” Mareleau asked.
“Now,” Ailan said, “we find the tear in the Veil. Lead the dragons. And return to El’Ara. Together.”
28
This was the second time in two days that someone had suggested Mareleau go somewhere she didn’t want to go. She stared at the woman with two names. The woman who was a stranger yet somehow also her distant kin. “Why the seven devils would I go to El’Ara with you?”
“Because,” Ailan said, “it’s the safest place for your son.”
“The safest place for him is…” She bit off her words. She was about to say the safest place for Noah was wherever Mareleau and Larylis were, but was that true? Larylis was preparing to face King Darius’ navy. War could swarm Vera and Khero any day now. Wherewouldthe safest place for Noah be?
She stared down at him in her arms, took in his peaceful dozing face. She would do anything to protect him. Anything.
Yet that didn’t mean she trusted Ailan. At least she wasn’t alone in that. Cora didn’t seem any more trusting of the Elvyn, and the other two women in the wagon—Salinda and Bernice—regarded Ailan with unveiled apprehension. Maybe even hostility.
“My brother is coming,” Ailan said. “The fact that I have my memories and youth back means the same will be true for him. He will know it means the Veil has torn, that themorais pouring through the tear. And, because of his son’s efforts, he will know the reason the Veil has torn—that the true Morkara has been born.”
“Morkai knew all about the prophecy,” Cora said, sending a spear of betrayal through Mareleau’s chest. It wasn’t like Cora was necessarily agreeing with Ailan, but she was supporting the woman’s case, if only slightly. “He channeled it through a seer named Emylia, and he reported his findings to his father. Darius was the one who had sent Morkai to find information on El’Ara in the first place. There’s no doubt Darius knows everything now, as he’s already begun targeting our kingdoms—and he did so even before the Veil was torn.”
“Then he’s even more dangerous now,” Ailan said. “He will invade to gain access to the Veil and seek the tear. He’s always wanted complete control over El’Ara, and he will stop at nothing to get it.”
“Then how,” Mareleau said, “do you figure it’s safe for Noah to enter the very realm your brother seeks to attack? Wouldn’t it make more sense for me and Noah to stay out of El’Ara entirely? If he’ll be so fixated on the Veil, he won’t have time to consider some prophesied baby that might one day be his doom.”
“Noah poses a danger to Darius in the present, simply for being the true Morkara. Themorahas chosen him, and Darius will be forced to act.”
“What do you mean themorahas chosen him?” Cora asked. “Isn’t the title of Morkara passed down through named heirs? You were named Satsara’s heir, which would make you the Morkara.”
“Yes, I am Satsara’s heir.” Ailan frowned as if she was surprised Cora knew that. “Yet there are other ways for a Morkara to name their heir, and there are ways other than death to pass the title on. My mother named me heir, overriding Darius’ birthright as eldest, which sparked the war with my brother. He sought to kill both me and my mother, for themorawill still recognize bloodline inheritance, if the Morkara and their named heir die before a new heir is named. When he murdered Satsara, I inherited her role as Morkara.
“When Darius realized we were trapped in the human world, he tried to defeat me. If he’d managed to kill me, he would have inherited my newly given title. And he almost did. Before he could land the killing blow, I thwarted him in a similar way my mother had; I relinquished my title. But not to my named heir, for I had no children yet. Instead, I passed the title to my unnamed heir.”
“What does that mean?” Cora asked.
“Passing the title of Morkara to one’s unnamed heir gives agency to themora, allowing it to choose someone from the Morkara’s bloodline. It isn’t always the nextborn, either. It can be kin further down the bloodline. Anyone. Unless the Morkara names another, themorais free to choose, however long it takes. This protected me from Darius, for he could no longer end my life without risking his place in bloodline succession. If I’d died before furthering my bloodline, themora’ssearch for my heir would have stalled, and it would have been forced to forge a new path. Yes, there was a chance it would simply have worked in reverse and chosen Darius as my heir, but it also could have chosen a new bloodline entirely.
