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No, this can’t be happening.
His chest tightened, lungs contracting. Or were they his lungs at all? Emylia had told him to breathe, but if he was separate from his body, then…then that was impossible. His legs-that-weren’t-legs gave out beneath him and he slid to the floor. But the floor wasn’t solid; it was nothing but a buzzing resistance against his thighs and hips.
Emylia crouched before him. “I can’t answer any more questions until you strengthen your connection to your vitale.”
“My what?”
“Your vitale, your life force energy. Your ethera is connected to it. Now close your eyes and focus on your breath. Breathe slow and deep.”
It was hard to focus on anything except his growing panic, but she’d said breathing was his greatest weapon against the sorcerer, right? He didn’t know how or why or even half of what was happening to him, but if Emylia was telling the truth, he had to try.
Closing his eyes, he took a breath. It was shaky and shallow, but he poured all his focus into making the next one deeper, stronger. Then the next.
“Can you feel the air moving through your lungs?” came Emylia’s voice.
“Yes,” he said, though he didn’t understand how it was possible.
“Can you feel the beating of your heart?”
He shifted his attention to the rhythmic pounding. The thud of his pulse. The melody drained some of his fear, smoothing the edges of his panic. His next breaths were even deeper.
“Good. Sink your attention into what makes you feel alive. The pulsing of your blood. The workings of your heart, lungs, and other organs. That is your vitale. It is your life force, the part of your body you still maintain control over. Do not open your eyes until you feel like you can maintain this connection without conscious thought.”
Teryn sat in stillness for countless minutes until his breaths were steady, his pulse uninterrupted by spikes of anxiety. Finally, he opened his eyes and saw Emylia sitting across from him. She no longer wore her dress and capelet but billowy silk pants and a matching tunic. It was yet another strange outfit, following neither current female fashions nor ones from the recent past. If Emylia’s ethera resembled who she’d been when she was living, she hadn’t been from the continent of Risa. The Southern Islands perhaps?
While his calmer state of consciousness allowed some curiosity to bloom, he had far more pressing questions.
“You said my vitale is the part of my body I still maintain control over. Does that mean…” His words snagged on a thorn of fear, but he quickly refocused on his breath, on the steady rise and fall of his lungs, on the steady beat of his heart. He tried again, and this time he managed to speak past the terror that threatened to overwhelm him. “Does that mean Morkai has control over the other parts of me?”
Emylia kept her tone steady. Gentle. “Morkai has control over your cereba. That is the spiritual aspect of your mind that allows your soul to animate your physical body. It controls movement. Speech.”
Ethera. Vitale. Cereba. These were all strange words he’d never heard before. Were these scientific terms? Or did they have more to do with magic?
“If we’re both souls, how are we talking?”
“Our etheras are beyond the restraints of the human body. We can communicate, even without forming words with our lips. However, the instinct to move our lips when we speak is deeply ingrained with the outer layer of our etheras.”
“Are you saying we could communicate with just our minds if we wanted to?”
She pursed her lips.Yes, we can. See?This time, he heard the words despite her lips remaining pressed tight.
A shudder tore through him. If he had a body, his hair would stand on end.
“I figured you’d prefer it if we continued speaking like this,” she said, moving her lips this time.
She was right. Speaking mind-to-mind was not something he was ready for.
Changing the subject, he asked, “How did this happen? You said Morkai tethered his ethera to the crystal. The last thing I remember from inside my body was looking at the light on the stone’s facets.”
“Eye contact with light from the crystal gave him temporary access to your cereba. He held you in place and drew your ethera into the crystal through that link.”
Teryn shuddered, wondering if that was what had happened to Cora when he’d found her in the tower room. She’d had the crystal in her hand, but…she’d probably been looking at it too. He’d only taken the precaution of not letting the stone touch his skin, but he’d let himself look. Let himself become entranced by its dazzling light. How foolish could he be?
“Don’t blame yourself,” Emylia said. “Morkai wove countless enchantments around the crystal over the years, ones that were meant to be triggered upon his death, should it come to pass. As a result, the crystal is easy to forget, evading one’s memory when it’s out of sight. It’s alluring, which makes one forget danger and want to look at it. And it’s unbreakable. These enchantments were too strong for even the princess to break with her efforts.”
“You know about Cora, then? I think she was stuck in here too, she—” His pulse racketed, surging out of his control. “Has he gained some hold over her ethera too?”
“No, you freed her before he could touch her ethera, and he…he didn’t intend to touch hers at all.”
