AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That explained why Emylia knew so much about magic, and perhaps why she could utilize the crystal the way she did. Yet it reminded him just how much hedidn’tknow about her.
“How did you die? Why did he trap your ethera?”
“He trapped me for the same reason he trapped you. He has plans for me.”
He didn’t fail to note that she hadn’t answered the first part of his question. Was she hiding something? He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you helping me?”
“Our goals are the same,” she said with a shrug. “I want out. I want my soul to be at rest. And there’s only one way to solve both our problems.”
“What’s that?”
“We must destroy the crystal.”
Teryn’s eyes went wide. “How?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said, wringing her hands at her waist. “You need to strengthen your connection to your vitale and cereba first. You’ll likely get only one chance to do what needs to be done. That flinch you created today? You’ll need to do that with your whole body. If you can gain control over your movements, you’ll have a chance at removing the crystal from your body. You must force it at least sixteen inches away, remember? That’s the first step.”
“What will that do?”
“Like I told you, removing the crystal from over your body’s sternum will compromise the connection between Morkai’s heart-center and your cereba. He will fight you for dominance, but without the crystal closing the circuit that gives him primary control, you’ll have an equal chance at retaining motor function. You’ll need to act at once to break the crystal.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Didn’t you tell me it’s unbreakable?”
“Yes, but I’ll work on figuring that part out. For now, you must get strong. You have time. I promise.”
Teryn bristled despite her placating smile. He knew what empty promises sounded like, for he’d delivered his fair share, and hers rang as hollow as an unfilled vase. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t trust her. Right now, it was his only choice. And he did have time, didn’t he? His marriage to Cora wouldn’t commence for another year, and if Morkai was determined to avoid her until then, she’d be safe in the meantime. He’d be able to free himself before then.
Right?
Yes. He affirmed the word again and again.
Yes. Yes, I will do this.
No matter what it took, no matter how many sessions he had to spend laying in his empty body, trying to get his limbs to obey his mental commands, he’d get his body back.
And if he couldn’t…
Well, he knew one thing that would prevent Morkai from attaining his goals. It would be a last resort. A dreadful one at that. But if it meant keeping Cora safe—keeping the three kingdoms he sought to control safe—then Teryn Alante was willing to die.
32
Witches didn’t deal in curses. Cora knew this, knew every bit of information she pored through stood in contrast to her ethics. But if there was any hope in breaking Morkai’s fate weaving, it had to be in one of these books. And yet by sunset, with over a dozen books read and burned, she’d found nothing to fuel that hope. Nothing of immediate value, at least.
Only three of the books had mentioned curses at all, and when it came to breaking them, all had said some measure of the same thing:To break a curse, one must cast the same spell in reverse.
That wasn’t helpful. Cora may have had access to Morkai’s blueprints for the fate weaving he’d cast, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of the complex intersecting lines he’d drawn in his book. Would it be enough to draw the pattern in ink, or did she need blood? Would she have to suspend it in the air, make the pattern weave itself, like Morkai did? And if she was supposed to cast the spell in reverse, didn’t that mean she needed to know which part of the pattern was the starting point and which was the end?
She’d found only one other option, a single sentence mentioned in the most recent book she’d read:A curse may be rendered neutral if one casts a counter curse of equal or greater power to the opposite effect of the original curse.
Yet another unhelpful piece of information. Because—as Cora had already surmised—witches didn’t deal in curses. Even if she knew how to cast a counter curse, how could she make one strong enough to neutralize Morkai’s dark magic? And what would the opposite effect be? A fertility spell?
She curled her fingers into fists as she watched the book burn, witnessed every page crumble to ash in the hearth. That single line of relevant, albeit unhelpful, text was all she let remain in her mind. Everything else, every unsettling spell, every instruction on using dark magic, she’d refused to take in. She may have decided to use Morkai’s books as a means for education in a single subject, but she wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t be seduced by the excerpts scrawled within these tomes, nor would she allow any excuse to save a single book from burning. Aside from those that couldn’t be burned, of course, like the ones with pages laced with poison. But even those were fated to be discarded, not kept.
Even if she never found a way to unravel the weaving Morkai had placed upon her, she’d at least have the satisfaction of watching everything he’d owned be destroyed. That was where her true motive lay. This was less about gaining the ability to bear heirs and more about defeating a sorcerer who held too much power beyond the grave.
The sun began to set just as the last remnants of the book joined the ashes in the hearth. She debated returning to the bookshelf and selecting her next target, but she stopped herself, noting the heaviness of her bones, the fraying edges of her protective shields. As desperate as she was to do more, she knew better than to push herself. After expending so much energy sensing, reading, and clearing, she was at her limit. Her magic needed rest, as did her mind.
She set to the task of closing windows, putting out the hearth fire, and readying the room for the morrow. All the while, she couldn’t shake her growing ire. She’d hoped she’d have gained something from reading Morkai’s books today. Considering what little value she’d gained from the two excerpts she’d committed to memory, all she’d manage to accomplish was a slower pace than the day before.
