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L arylis wasn’t a warrior. He was hardly a king. He’d been trained in the art of the sword alongside his brother, but his strength had always resided in books. Knowledge. He’d read about warriors, survivors, wars, and battles. He understood combat both physically and intellectually, but he didn’t consider himself a fighter. There were times when he marveled that he’d survived the battle at Centerpointe Rock at all.

That experience had certainly tested him, though he was convinced the only thing that had kept him on his feet was the incessant numbness he’d felt in the wake of his father’s death. He’d felt fear then, yes, but it hadn’t been as strong as his guilt. That guilt had allowed him to defy death, to risk everything, uncaring what happened to him.

He didn’t have that luxury now.

Gone was his self-loathing, self-hatred. Gone was his desire to be punished for every good thing he’d been given.

I’m sorry, Father . I can no longer bear the burden of your death. I can no longer wish I’d have taken your place .

Because now, more than anything, Larylis wanted to live.

That need to survive generated waves of fear. It grew with every swipe of the Roizan’s claws. Sent his heart thudding with every kick of the creature’s hooves that brought him to the brink of death. He wasn’t blanketed in numbness this time, no matter how he wished he could be. Instead, he was plagued by the selfish yearning to breathe another breath. To experience all the joys and pleasures life had in store for him.

Mareleau.

Their unborn child.

Every experience they’d yet to have.

He could tell himself he was fighting for the citizens he was responsible for too, but it wasn’t the selfless desires of a king that kept his arms swinging. Kept his legs dodging. Kept his body rolling. Standing. Running. Swiping. Stabbing.

It was her . Their future. To hell with everything else.

The Roizan swung a massive paw. Larylis dove to the ground, but pain seared his thigh. He didn’t have time to look at the wound, didn’t have time to wipe the sweat from his brow. He rolled to the side, climbed to his feet, fighting the pain that screamed in every muscle, every bruise, every torn inch of flesh.

He rounded the creature, darting behind it on aching legs. The beast swung its head, trying to pin him beneath one of its four sets of eyes. With its rear hooves, it kicked out, grazing Larylis’ ribs. His vision blackened, but he swung his sword again and again, grunting with the pain that radiated up his arms each time his blade met the thick hide of the Roizan. His next swing sank into the beast’s slender leg.

The creature bellowed. It planted the wounded limb on the earth, but the grass had been turned to mud. The Roizan slipped. Fell. Skidded to the ground.

Larylis charged for the injured leg. Gritting his teeth, he swung. Cleaved.

Whatever it took, he’d live.

He had to live.

Mareleau hauled Cora to her feet by her good arm, though Cora was certain the girl wasn’t being mindful of the wound she’d inflicted. “What are you doing?” Mareleau asked, eyes darting from Cora to Teryn. She gestured toward the field, teeth bared in frustration. “We have to help Larylis.”

Cora spotted Larylis scrambling to his feet, moves lethargic. The Roizan hobbled after him, one of its hind legs missing. Larylis must have severed it to slow it down. The beast opened its maw, raking its tusks from side to side as it charged in close. Larylis rolled to the other side and dove to his feet, managing to sink his sword into the monster’s neck. The Roizan let out a bellowing roar, then hobbled in for another charge.

Though Larylis fought relentlessly, Cora could see the exhaustion in his limbs, the ashen pallor of his skin. She cast her gaze throughout the meadow, seeking anything she could use to help him. The camp had been made as a base for a hunting excursion, but there were no weapons in sight. The hunting party must have taken them all with them.

Teryn cried out, drawing her attention back to him. His face contorted, and his hand shook as he fought to form the next line of his intricate pattern on the back of the shirt. In the next moment, his face went slack, eyes hard.

A chill shuddered through her.

She knew that look.

Knew it didn’t belong to Teryn.

She rushed before him and framed his face with his hands. “Teryn.”

His eyes rolled back. The sorcerer’s steely gaze disappeared, and Teryn regained control of his body. She moved her hands to his shoulder, ready to intervene again if needed. He erupted with a cough, one that sent specks of blood flying from his lips, but he immediately returned to his task, dipping the reed back in the blood, painting a delicate slash of red, then a loop. Higher and higher the pattern climbed. He lifted his eyes, frowned at something in the air, and returned to paint another loop.

Cora squinted into the space above them where Morkai’s weaving continued of its own accord. The pattern was more complex than the one Teryn was painting. It was taller too, and she feared that meant it was more complete. From the hasty speed of Teryn’s brushstrokes, she got the sense that he was racing against this one. If only she could disrupt the pattern?—

Something slammed against her, and she fell to her side. She looked up in time to see Teryn—no, Morkai—standing over her. Mareleau reached for her, dragging her to the side. She bit back a cry as her shoulder screamed in pain. Morkai released a growl of frustration and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the Roizan turned away from Larylis and hobbled toward Cora and Mareleau, the four grotesque faces inching closer and closer.

Cora threw an arm around Mareleau and tried to focus on…on somewhere to use her magic to travel to, but her mind was racing too fast, her emotions too tangled, too panicked.

The Roizan opened its maw…

It froze, a bellowing screech piercing the air. Cora and Mareleau scrambled back. It shook its head as smoke wafted from one of the four faces—Ulrich. In the next moment, the fleshy visage blackened and charred until it sloughed off the creature in a puff of ash.

Morkai muttered a curse. He stood before his tapestry, studying it with intense concentration. The red threads continued to climb, but they were slower now.

The Roizan thrashed, bellowing in rage as the next face began to blacken.

Cora’s pulse quickened, but not with fear. Hope bloomed inside her. Morkai’s blood weaving must be using too much of the Roizan’s magic.

With a deep inhale, she pushed her panic down and focused on the grass near Morkai’s feet. On her exhale, she extricated herself from Mareleau, rose to her feet, and took a step through space.

Morkai leaped back at her sudden appearance. Before he could react, she touched his cheek and called Teryn’s name.

Returning to his body felt like torture, his every muscle aching, his stomach turning with bile. Yet Cora’s voice cut through these sensations, bolstering him, giving him the strength to fill the space of his body. His hands became his own again, his legs under his command.

Wincing, he kneeled over his unfinished painting. His hands shook as he gathered up the discarded reed, dipped it in the sorcerer’s blood, and picked up where he’d left off. His vision blurred, his lips chapped and bleeding. Every move he made grew increasingly heavy. Despite his efforts to deepen his breaths, his lungs felt shallow, uneven. His heartbeat failed to keep a steady rhythm, his pulse slowing with every second.

“You’re almost there.” Emylia’s gentle tone entered his awareness. It sounded wrong to hear her voice with his true ears now that he was back in his body. Or was it still his ethera that heard her? She crouched beside him, the edges of her form wavering as she watched his progress. “You’re so close, Teryn. You can do this.”

“Why can I hear you?” He spoke the words, but they didn’t leave his lips. “Why can I see you?”

Her mouth tugged into a frown. “Morkai’s spell is almost complete. With every strand, it fights to sever you from your body, fights to trap you as an ethera for good. Even though you’re in your body, you straddle the line between life and death. Your feelings for Cora are all that keep your connection to your cereba intact, linking it to your heart-center.”

He felt Cora’s hands then, palms against his cheeks, but it wasn’t his flesh that felt her touch; it was the buzzing resistance of his ethera. His name left her lips over and over like a mantra.

The Roizan roared again, and Teryn felt a stronger tug, fighting to wrench him from his body.

“Teryn. Teryn. Teryn.” Cora’s voice kept him in place, while Emylia’s urged him to keep painting. Don’t lose focus. He was so close.

So close.

Cora said his name again, and this time it ended on a sob. He was vaguely aware of the blood dripping down his chin, tingling the surface of his ethera.

“One last line,” Emylia whispered, the sorrow in her tone mingling with Cora’s cries.

“Teryn, Teryn, Teryn…” Cora continued to chant, and he felt her lips press against his cheek, felt her cradle his face, her tears mingling with his blood.

With a final surge of intent, he painted the last line and closed the pattern in a slash of red. Then, with all the waning strength he had left, he lifted the leather strap from around his neck and shoved the crystal into Cora’s trembling hands.

“I love you,” he said, but the words left the lips of his ethera, not his body. “I love you,” he repeated, and this time he managed a garbled whisper before his hands slipped from the crystal.

Cora stared down at Teryn, limp in the grass before her. Blood stained his lower face, trailed down his neck and over the puncture wounds that had been left in the collar’s absence. His hair was now entirely silver, skin so pale she could see blue veins beneath it. She didn’t dare look at his chest, couldn’t bring herself to note if it still rose and fell.

The man she loved was dying, but there was still more work to be done.

She swallowed down her sorrow and turned herself over to logic. Safety. The anchoring element of earth cradling her knees, her legs. Breathing in, she called on the element of air to guide her intellect. The growing flames fueled her resolve. Her strength of will.

The watery realm of grief would have to wait.

“Where is your dagger?” she said to Mareleau, but the other woman’s eyes were locked on the Roizan. It had ceased its attack, and now a third face sloughed off into a puddle of ash.

King Verdian.

Mareleau was too distracted to pay Cora’s question any heed, but she needed something to break the crystal with. If only she could find the dagger and slam the stone with its hilt. Her eyes flicked to the pattern that was suspended in midair. It continued to slowly weave, which meant they still weren’t safe. So long as the crystal was intact, no one was safe from Morkai.

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.