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Desmond’s eyes went wide as he looked down at Emylia, at her twisted expression. He seemed to falter, and the cyclone of wind increased. Desmond stumbled back, breaking contact with Emylia’s hands. She, in turn, dropped the crystal and tumbled from her chair.
In the next moment, the wind was gone, the lanterns extinguished save for one.
Teryn blinked to adjust to the shift in light.
“Why, Mother?” came Desmond’s trembling voice. He stared at the ceiling, blinking back tears, shoulders slumped. “Why didn’t you want to come back? Is your love for me so weak?”
Only silence answered.
With a heavy sigh, he lowered his gaze. Teryn saw the motionless heap on the floor before Desmond did.
“Emylia!” Desmond called out, rushing to her side. She was sprawled beside her chair, lips pale, face coated in a sheen of sweat. Her crystal lay a foot away from her empty palm. He fell onto the floor and pulled her into his lap. “Say something. Please!”
She mumbled incoherently as blood trickled from her nose.
“No, please no.” He rocked her in his lap, tears streaming from his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me, Em. I did this. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“Des,” she said, voice weak. She lifted a hand toward his cheek but dropped it before it could make contact. Her face went slack, body limp. Fresh blood trickled over her lips, her chin.
Desmond stared down at her, eyes wide with terror. “No, no, no. Emylia!”
She was silent. Still.
A sob broke from Desmond’s throat. He pressed his hands to her cheeks, her neck, her wrist, hands trembling with every move. As he released her wrist, his eyes fell on what lay discarded beside her. The crystal. His trembling ceased. With a chilling calm, he grabbed the amber stone. Then, folding her limp fingers around it, he pressed it to his chest, directly over the blood marking his shirt. As soon as the crystal made contact, Desmond heaved forward with an agonized grunt. He stayed like that for several moments, eyes pinched tight. Then his face relaxed. Slowly, he let Emylia’s hand slide from around the crystal, from his chest, to the ground.
He cradled the crystal to him. “I’ll make this right, Em,” he whispered. “I’ll bring you back. I’ve given up half my heart to do so. It belongs to you now.”
He crouched beside Emylia’s lifeless body and caressed her brow. “Forget my father. Let him stay cursed.” He brought his lips close to her ear. “I’ll find the Heart of El’Ara myself. I’ll find the mother and make sure she never bears this true Morkara. Then when I am Morkaius, I’ll find you a new body and we will rule together.”
Teryn felt colder than he ever had before. He no longer held any doubt about who Desmond was. He wasn’t Morkai’s son, but the sorcerer himself. And he’d trapped Emylia in the crystal out of a dark and treacherous love.
Teryn slowly turned to face her and noted her pursed lips, her empty eyes. “He didn’t wait until he was Morkaius,” she said, voice hollow.
She waved her hand, and their surroundings shifted. Teryn found himself in a candlelit bedroom he’d never seen before. From the gilded portraits lining the walls and the elegant furnishings, Teryn guessed it was inside a palace or manor. The only thing that belied the room’s grandeur was the table that stood at the far end of the room, its surface littered with books, vials, and stacks of paper. It reminded Teryn of the contents in the tower library.
Beside a large four-poster bed stood Morkai—and this time Teryn could see all the signs that he was a slightly older version of Desmond. He had the same ageless grace that the former duke had when he’d been alive, but the tender sorrow he’d glimpsed in the younger man’s eyes too. He stared down at the bed. Or, more accurately, the female body that laid upon it.
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.
