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“I’d rather you didn’t,” Mora said, surprising us both.
“Pardon me?” Brander asked, his voice full of incredulousness.
“If I don’t trust Kalon, what makes you think that I’d trust the rest of you?” Mora asked, and I could feel her words like a sword through my black heart. “How do I know that your arrival won’t be a way to set me up? How do I know that you’re onmyside?”
“Mora, you can’t believe-”
“You lied to your own son about his future,” she said, cutting Brander off. “Why on earth would I believe that you care about what happens to me? In fact, how do I know that you’re not the one that set this entire thing up? After all, getting rid of me and Kalon ensures your high seat on the tribunal, right? You, Thorin, and Phaeron remain untouchable if I don’t exist.” My gut kept tightening with each doubt spilling from her lips. “I mean, what with Thorin being the one to break his word and all, how do I know that you’re not the real enemy here?”
“I’d think that you’d be able to see and feel that, Mora,” Brander answered carefully.
“The future is subjective, Brander,” she shot back. “It’s affected every time that someone changes their mind. I don’t see whatmighthappen, I see what isgoingto happen.”
“Kalon, you need to listen to me, son-”
“Because you think that I have the power to influence her?” I scoffed. “You heard her, Brander. She doesn’t trust me any more than she trusts you. So, what the fuck do you want me to do?”
Mora’s grey gaze didn’t flinch or stray from my face. She was looking me dead in the eye, daring me to take sides. She was daring me to challenge her truth. Mora was more than prepared to fight this battle on her own, and I’d never felt so fucking irrelevant in all my life. I was over three-hundred-years old, and I’d never mattered less than I did in this moment with this woman.
“If anything happens to either one of you, then the other will not be able to exist,” Brander practically yelled in frustration. “What don’t you get about that?”
“That’s where you’re confused,” Mora told him. “You seem to think that I care what happens to Kalon if I die. You seem to think that I care about what happens toanyof you if I die. The prophecy matters so much to you because it benefitsyou, because it’s a win foryou. Well, Brander, it doesn’t mean shit to me. I didn’t choose this life. You guys chose it for me because it was a decision that was what was best foryourpeople. I’m happy dying in a freak accident, so that I don’t have to outlive my parents, my friends, or anyone else that I care about.”
Brander was silent for a long while before finally saying, “You’re right. I was under the impression that you’d automatically become loyal to us once you were turned because that’s what usually happens.” We could both hear him sigh over the phone. “I’d forgotten that you’re different.”
Knowing that there was nothing more to say, I said, “You know what to do if anything happens to me.”
“I know,” Brander replied, resigned. “Just…be careful, son.”
I hung up without any promises that I would be. We both knew that I was going to do whatever it took to make sure that Mora was safe, so there was no point in making false promises about being careful. If I died, I died. I accepted that.
“What happens if you die?” Mora asked, and I knew that she was just asking out of curiosity.
“Everything I own is willed to Brander,” I answered. “My death will be treated like any other, and he’ll hold a funeral, get my affairs in order…all the normal stuff that people do when someone passes.”
With those grey eyes still locked onto mine, she said, “I would have trusted you with my life.” I could feel that sword again. “I would have loved you my whole existence.”
“Baby-”
“Now you’re nothing but a constant doubt,” she went on, and I had to keep from jumping her.
“I’m not,” I argued. “There’s no doubt in my mind and heart about what you mean to me, Mora.”
“I hear everything that you’re saying, but all I can process is everything that you’ve done to me since you first spoke to me at the bar,” she replied. “Words means shit, Kalon. Right now, when I’m so fucking confused that I don’t even know what to do with myself, words mean shit.” She let out a humorless laugh when she added, “To imagine, the only person that I can trust is locked up in an insane asylum because he’snotinsane.”
“Mora-”
“I don’t have time for this, Kalon,” she said, interrupting me. “They’re going to show up at night, and there’s no reason not to think that it won’t be tonight. I need to rest up. I need to…call my parents and Zaire again, remind myself why I need to do this, and just…get my head together.”
“No,” I told her.
Her head jerked back a bit. “No?”
“If we’re going to die tonight, then we’re spending these next few hours with me buried deep inside you.” I was in her face before she could stop me, my hand wrapped around her neck again. “We’re going to spend the next few hours proving that fucking prophecy right, that we reallycan’texist without the other.”
“Kalon, we can’t-”
My lips silenced her protests, and I’d never been so grateful in my life when her hands twisted in my shirt, keeping me close, not pushing me away. Whatever we were, we were one, and everything in Mora knew it, even if she was doing her best to fight it.
