That she didn’t see when Darius removed the collar from his calf.
Didn’t see when he disappeared.
Or sense when he reappeared, just behind her.
She didn’t even feel the slice of his blade.
Her whispers soothed her with a final caress.
Last Breath has come at last.
57
Themorasurged toward Cora, the force of it nearly pushing her off the rock. It washed over her, through her, fluttering past. She sensed its journey then, the way it flowed through the Veil on unseen, underground webs of magic, bypassing the wardweaving that stopped everything else. Everything weaker. The strongest vein pulsed from a singular direction to the northwest—the tear. Themorawas concentrated there, flowing faster, easier. All the lines met beneath her palms, flooding the rock, filling it, and then spilling over the top of the land like an invisible spring.
Now she fully understood why themoracouldn’t return to El’Ara. She’d understood it intellectually before, after Garot had explained the Blight, but this time she couldfeelit. The way it flowed so confidently toward the rock before stalling and drifting outward in haphazard, sometimes violent waves. Its exit was unhampered by the Veil, but its return wasn’t. Themorasought direction here at the junction of those veins, but it had no guidance, and it was lost without it.Thiswas the importance of the Morkara’s duties.
A duty she could mimic now.
As Queen of Magic, themorasaw her as someone it could obey.
Whether itwouldwas the question.
Like an unruly child, the magic surged again, as if testing her resolve, her strength. It seared her palms, sent chills down her spine.
She focused on the coolness of the stone beneath her hands, the air in her lungs, the dew drops dotting the field, the moonlight streaming overhead. The elements were hers, reflecting the similar-yet-different ones that made up faemora. The magic surged once more, battering her body inside and out. She focused on Teryn’s steady touch, Valorre’s comforting presence.
Her loved ones.
Her anchors.
She sent her intention back to themora. It funneled from her heart, down her arms, into her palms, flooding the rock beneath her. It spoke to the pulsingmorain a silent demand.
Reverse.
Reverse.
Reverse.
Themorastilled. Its flow grew calm. And it opened itself to her will.
Possibilities spread before her as she felt the weight ofmorasettle over her. Its strength was somehow crushing and uplifting at the same time. A blanket of lead and light. A blazing, deadly inferno and a gentle ray of sunshine.
It was both. It offered everything. Nothing.
It was unyielding. It was pliant.
She could shape it in her hands even as it burned her.
Yes…she could shape it.
Visions flooded her mind, of all themoraoffered. The power it could give her. The enemies it could vanquish. The wars it could end. The curses it could break…
Curses.
She was still cursed to die childless, wasn’t she? She never had found a way to rid herself of Morkai’s most wretched punishment.
Darkness filled her heart, a companion she no longer tried to hide. Yet now that it was here…
