He took a step closer. “I can give you half my heart.”
She barked a laugh as she stepped back again, feeling porcelain crunch beneath her shoes. “Halfyour heart? Is that what you consider a proper proposal?”
“The other half doesn’t belong to me,” he said without inflection. “But you could. I think my heart would like you. It’s a jealous heart, but it could come to understand.”
Another piece of porcelain crunched under her foot. This time she slipped. She caught herself on her hands and knees, making an effort to heave a few breaths as her fingers stretched toward her quiver. Her hand came around the fletching of an arrow. She rose to her feet and rushed Morkai, colliding with his torso. Her arrow slid through flesh as she angled it up beneath his ribs?—
She gasped as a surge of pain struck her chest. Her vision blurred, but she refused to collapse. Clutching at her heart, she took a wavering step back, her lips curled into a wicked grin. Morkai held her drop of blood over his palm, but Cora didn’t care. So what if he killed her, as long as she took him with her. His black coat was already darkening around the shaft protruding from his torso. He stared down at it for a moment. Then, to Cora’s horror, he smiled. Tucking his cane beneath his arm, he brought his free hand an inch from his wound and began to gather tendrils of his own blood.
He met her eyes as her tiny drop stretched thin and began snaking toward his. “I could bind us by blood, Aveline. I could wind our fates together, force you to be my bride.”
She stumbled back, her chest still throbbing with pain as she doubled over. Her vision was nearly black now.
Then the pain abated. She lifted her eyes and found Morkai frowning down at her. His blood no longer hovered over his palm and hers had returned to a tiny drop. He lowered his palm and the ball of blood disappeared.
“I won’t bind you to me,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “Weavings of fate take more power than I’m willing to expend. Instead, I will give you time to choose me. And you will. You will choose one half of my heart willingly, or you will take the other half unwillingly.” He said the last part through his teeth as he wrenched her arrow from his flesh and threw it into the fire. Then he took his cane from under his arm and pointed it at the sleeping Roizan. He pressed his other hand to his seeping wound. In a matter of seconds, he stood straighter.
He’d healed himself.
“I will give you time to think.”
“I don’t need time to think,” she spat out. “I will never choose you.”
A tic formed at the corner of his jaw. “Is it the boy then? The prince?”
Her pulse kicked up. “Teryn? He’s…he’s nothing to me. He betrayed me.”
Morkai scoffed. “I see the way you look at him. I’ve been on the receiving end of looks like that. I know what it means.”
“You mean hatred? Yes, I imagine you’ve received many looks like that.”
“You could never be Teryn’s queen. Do you know what the prince’s father did tohisqueen? He tried to have her replaced with his mistress. Teryn would only do the same to you.”
She clenched her teeth. “I never said?—”
“Haven’t you figured out why I took your blood all those years ago? Why I wove it with Queen Linette’s?”
Cora’s breath caught. All she could manage was a shake of her head.
“I bound your fate to the queen’s. It took all the power I’d stored in my Roizan up until that point, but I succeeded.”
“Then why am I still alive? What are you waiting for?”
“Death was not the bond I wove. A death weaving doesn’t take nearly as much power, for it is an immediate sentence, not a long-term curse. It was your fate I wove, one that guaranteed—like the queen—you would die childless. It was an idea you inspired. I don’t have your ability to sense others’ emotions. I can only give thoughts and feelings to weak-minded beings, not receive them. But you knew the queen had lied about providing an heir. I’d already known I’d have to do away with her one way or another. She’d already begun trying to turn Dimetreus against me. And letting her further Dimetreus’ line would only hamper my plans. But your little scene at dinner that night made me realize I could take care of two problems at once.”
Cora’s stomach turned over with a wave of nausea. She resisted the urge to bring her hand to her stomach. “Why would you do that? Why would you try to keep me from having…” She couldn’t even say the next word. The prospect of having children had rarely crossed her mind. She was nowhere close to ready when it came to becoming a mother. But the realization that he’d tampered with something so personal, so intimate….
Her legs gave out and she sank into her chair. Sweat beaded behind her neck, down her back. The laces of her corset felt too tight, too smothering. “Why?”
“The unicorns. The mother. The child. Who do you think you are in that prophecy?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “The mother, Aveline. You are the mother and your child would have been my enemy. I knew of the prophecy long before I came to Khero, and I knew who you were the moment I met you. I sensed your magic, respected it. That’s why I never wanted to kill you, regardless of the threat you posed. Weaving your fate was the only thing I could do to let you keep your life.”
He said it with so much false kindness, it made her want to retch. Fury roared through her blood, and it demanded his life. She extended a hand toward her quiver, even as Morkai’s eyes trailed her every move. She didn’t care if he stopped her. She didn’t care if she died trying?—
The door flew open and a guard stormed in. “There’s a unicorn circling the castle wall.”
Morkai’s expression shuttered. “A unicorn?”
“It’s been trying to get in.”
