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Ignoring the heavy ache in her heart, she slowly inched away from Teryn’s side in search of the dagger, a rock—
A curved black tip caught her eye. The collar. She’d dropped it when she’d removed it from Teryn’s neck, but now the pointed tines called to her. She scrambled for the cuff and gathered it in her hand. Then, dropping the crystal to the ground, she pressed one sharp tip to the widest facet.
Splinters fissured in a radius around the point…
But it didn’t break.
The Roizan bellowed again, tossing its head side to side. It pushed off from the ground, angled its face until its remaining pair of eyes—Dimetreus’—locked on hers. It charged forward, teeth bared. Larylis leaped into its path. Swinging his sword in an arc, he cleaved through the Roizan’s front leg, severing its paw. It skidded to the ground, thrashing to rise on its two remaining limbs.
Cora returned her focus to the collar and the crystal, pressing harder. Harder.
Another crack.
White light streamed from the fissures, nearly blinding her.
She closed her eyes against the glaring light and pressed again. Again.
The brightness struck her eyelids, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if they remained open or shut.
Gritting her teeth, she forced the tine deeper into the crack. A splintering sound struck her ears, tinkling like a thousand shattering mirrors.
The pressure gave way beneath her, and she felt the sharp tine strike the soil under the crystal. The light disappeared, leaving darkness on the other side of her eyelids.
Fluttering her lashes open, she stared down at the ground.
The crystal lay in two broken halves.
The claw pierced the earth.
When she glanced up at where the blood weaving had been, there was only sky.
60
First Teryn was swallowed by darkness, his consciousness faint and floating in nothingness. No thoughts. No memories. Just a much-needed sleep. A final rest.
Then light bled into the void, splitting it into shards. It burned brighter and brighter until it was all that there was. All Teryn could see. It dimmed at the edges of his vision, shrinking inch by inch until it narrowed into two points of light.
Teryn’s mind felt slow, heavy, as he took in his surroundings. They were familiar like a dream, and just as hazy.
A dark meadow bathed in fire and moonlight.
A beautiful woman crouched upon the earth.
Before her were two halves of a broken crystal from which the points of light glowed. The woman moved slowly, as if the passing of time had been reduced to a leisurely crawl. He watched as she gathered up the two halves of the crystal and brought them toward the blazing fire that lapped over the walls of a tent. It was strange seeing flames move so slowly, but even stranger to watch the woman. The longer he looked at her, the more certain he was that he knew her. The feeling only grew as she moved farther away from him. The wider the distance grew between them, the more desperate he was to draw her back.
Something warm and heavy condensed in his chest.
A name formed in his mind.
Cora.
And he remembered.
His memories brought a hollow ache, one that deepened when his eyes fell on a body sprawled in the grass nearby. He hadn’t noticed it at first, not with his attention so absorbed by Cora, but now he saw his own slack face, eyes closed. Was he…dead? The world didn’t look how it had when he and Emylia projected themselves outside the crystal. There was a haze between him and the plane of existence he watched. A discrepancy between time and space that sent waves of panic through him.
Stark illumination drew his attention away from his body. Even though Cora had taken the broken halves of the crystal to the fire, the two points of light remained on the earth. Beside it, another familiar figure kneeled. This one, however, didn’t belong to the living world.
“Emylia,” he said. His voice rang hollow, lacking all resonance.
