“Ask the right question,” Morgyn said to my back. I stilled, if only to rest my weary soul for a second. But I did not turn back to her as I spoke.
“Why was I unable to contact you using the communication crystal?” I ground out.
“Because I did not wish to receive your message.”
I spun, dagger in my hand, even though it could do nothing against her in this form. “We may technically be sisters, but I will kill you. Lady of the Lake or not, whether you are a hundred years or three hundred years old, you are still fae. And I am very good at killing.”
Morgyn didn’t flinch. “Ask—”
“Why did you refuse my message?” I demanded, close enough to her I should have been able to smell her, hear her heartbeat. But there was nothing. Only the hollowness of my own soul.
“I fear that the communication crystal will become a crutch. A distraction, keeping you from where you need to be and what you must do.”
“That does not sound very neutral.”
“I allowed Gorlois to attack. I am helping you by giving this counsel.” Was that remorse in her eyes, or a flickering of this strange apparition she’d conjured?
“Those are not remotely equal.”
“Arran is safe in Avalon and will continue to heal. But you must not interfere.”
I heard the subtext. No more using the communication crystal. No uninvited trips through the void to her sacred island. Or she may very well dump my injured mate on the shores of that cursed clearing.
“You must use your power,” she continued calmly, as if she had not just threatened my mate’s life, and by extension, Annwyn itself.
“My power—the one that summoned the succubus. Yes, great things have come from this power.”
“Your mate wanted you to hone it, not hide from it.”
Ice. Ice around my heart. Ice in my chest. Ice to protect the golden thread of my mating bond, so fragile and taut now. “My mate is in an enchanted sleep, fighting for his life.”
“You do not deny the truth of what I say.” Morgyn did not even bother to sound smug as she said it.
For a second, I was envious of her. What must it be like to be immune to the pain of the world? Even when I’d lost myself in the sullen numbness of grief for Arthur, I’d felt the clawing need for revenge. But Morgyn, she got to be above it all. She had notbeen tortured for twenty years. She’d been discarded, yes. But that had saved her.
Anger rose in me, icy walls thickening and sharpening. I hated her. I hated everything she meant.
“We may share the same heartless harpy of a mother.” I paused. Harpy now felt an inaccurate term for the Dowager. “But you do not know me or my mate.”
She did not argue. “Train your power, Majesty. You will need it in the coming battle.”
I turned on her, ready to stab my knife into that mirage form even as I knew it would be unsatisfying, would do nothing. The blade was in my hand, the muscles of my arm already tensing in readiness. “And how am I supposed to do that without my mate—”
She was gone.
Of course, she was.
I stabbed the dagger back into the jeweled scabbard at my waist, my fists tight with fury. That wasn’t enough. I grabbed it out again and threw as hard as I could, lodging it to the hilt in the tree directly behind where Morgyn had appeared.
Even with my strength, both inherited and honed, it took me several tries to dislodge the blade. I finally managed to get it out, shoved it back into the scabbard, and stomped off.
“Thanks for nothing, sis,” I said to the emptiness over my shoulder. “As usual.”
18
VEYKA
“There is no way.”
