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C ora was forced to watch the horrible scene unfolding before her. Roije and Salinda’s attack. Roije’s severed arm. Teryn charging Morkai. Salinda wrapping Roije’s wound and helping him limp away. Cora lost sight of them in the haze, but she was close enough to see Teryn and Morkai’s fight. Close enough to watch as his plate was rent open.

She could hardly peel her eyes away, even as she struggled to free herself from beneath the dead horse. At least none of the enemy soldiers had seen her, nor had anyone found her brother. With the plumes of dirt clouding the air and mingling with the bloody chaos of battle, Dimetreus looked like any other dead body.

But he wasn’t.

She could feel his life force even as he lay prone a few feet away.

Her pulse thudded wildly as she watched Morkai step toward Teryn. The prince was frozen, his hand over his heart, his eyes on the ball of blood. She clawed her hands into the dirt, tried to pull her bottom half free. There was a sharp pain in one of her legs. Likely fractured from the horse’s fall. Her shoulder screamed where the stallion had kicked her.

Morkai lifted the ball of blood higher and let it rotate in his hand. Teryn gasped, raking his breastplate with his fingertips as if desperate to reach his heart. She remembered that sharp pain when Morkai had used her own blood against her. But could he kill with it? She knew he could weave death by merging it with a deceased person’s blood, but what could he do with just a single source?

Teryn winced. His sword clattered to the surface of the rock.

Morkai dropped his broadsword.

Cora’s heart slammed against her ribs as she realized what he was going to do.

There were several bodies littered around the rock.

Gaping wounds.

Sources of blood.

Morkai lifted his free hand toward the nearest body. Tendrils of crimson rose like ribbons toward his palm.

Cora renewed her struggle, straining against the horse’s weight.

Stop fighting .

The demand came from within her. Not a voice but a feeling. She ignored it.

Stop struggling .

She only struggled harder.

Slow down.

Feel .

She gritted her teeth against the urgings, raging at them, hating them. How could she be expected to slow down and feel at a time like this?

A spike of resentment shot through her. Resentment at her own futility, her weakness, her stupid worthless magic?—

Subtle awareness cleared a path through her anger, something soft and yielding. She continued to rage against it, but it was stronger than her resistance.

It was her magic.

She suddenly knew what this was. Another challenge.

Hot angry tears streamed down her cheeks. She didn’t have time for a challenge. She didn’t have time to slow down and turn inward. Not when Morkai was transforming both sources of blood into threads—threads that were now beginning to twine together.

Again, that soft, quiet urging cut through her resistance.

She hated it. Oh, how she hated it.

But she gave in. Gave in to the hate, the anguish, the panic. Let herself feel it, let it twist her heart and weaken her body. Let herself slump beneath the horse and close her eyes. Her weakness turned to calm, and calm turned to strength. Magic flooded her chest and trailed down her arms, humming through the ink that marked her skin.

She breathed.

In. Out. In. Out.

And felt.

Pain. Grief. Urgency. Fortitude.

Then something softer.

Protection. Devotion. Friendship. Love.

Open your eyes.

She followed the internal urging, saw Morkai’s blood weaving growing tighter, the strands of blood nearly fully merged. Teryn was now on his knees, still clutching his breastplate.

Allowing her quiet magic to still her mind, she followed its pull, its guidance. Followed it as it narrowed in on the space behind Morkai. She felt an overwhelming need to be there, to free Teryn. It was so strong she could feel it down to her bones. It tugged her palms, her body, her soul, tugged every part of her until she felt as if it would carry her there on an invisible wind.

Teryn’s face warped with pain as the mage threaded another strand through his tapestry.

Her heart swelled with determination. Resolve. Conviction.

With a slow exhale, she focused on her legs, on the foot that wasn’t radiating with piercing agony. She moved it against the dirt, the horse, and pictured it pressing against the very place she needed to be. Not against soil, not buried beneath a dead animal, but upon the rock?—

She hobbled on one leg, suddenly upright.

Blinking at the startling shift in light, she realized she now stood directly behind Morkai on Centerpointe Rock.

His back was facing her as he continued to weave his crimson tapestry. He hadn’t a clue she was there. It shouldn’t be possible that she was. She couldn’t have been able to move from under the horse to the rock in the blink of an eye.

But it had happened. And this was no time to second-guess what could be her last shot.

A ripple of pain shot through her injured leg as she shifted her stance. She reached for one of her daggers, stepped forward, and plunged it into Morkai’s back. She twisted it as far as she could before he whirled to face her.

His eyes went wide as they met hers. His blood weaving fell to the surface of the rock. It didn’t disappear like it had before he’d killed the prisoner or after he’d woven her blood with Linette’s. It simply spilled as ordinary blood should. His magic ruined. His tapestry incomplete.

Cora held his gaze and unsheathed her next dagger. With a thrust, she drove it into Morkai’s abdomen. She grabbed her final knife, thrust toward him, but he knocked her hand away. Unfazed, she swiped and slashed and stabbed. He backed up a few steps and held out his hand. She expected him to reveal her tiny ball of blood again. Expected to feel the searing pain strike her chest at any moment.

It didn’t.

She plunged her final knife into Morkai’s side and grabbed an arrow from her quiver?—

Teryn gasped.

Her eyes flew toward him. He’d been halfway to standing but now doubled over. Fresh tendrils of blood seeped from his wound as Morkai drew it toward his palm.

She glanced back at Morkai, saw blood spreading over his padded tunic everywhere she’d struck. He held her gaze with a sneer and wrapped his free hand around the hilt of the knife in his side. As he pulled it free, more blood darkened his tunic.

Her lips curled into a wicked smirk. If he pulled all of her blades free at once, he’d bleed to death before long.

He narrowed his eyes as if he had come to the same conclusion. Gritting his teeth, he pressed his open palm over the wound while the other continued to summon Teryn’s blood. “I need my Roizan,” he said.

“He’s busy right now.” She clenched her hand around the shaft of her arrow, assessing where she could strike next.

“Drop your arrow and call off your unicorn friend?—”

“No.”

“—or Teryn dies.”

Teryn bit back a cry as Morkai drew more blood from his wound. He sank back to his knees, his face white. He was losing blood far faster than Morkai. He’d die, even without a blood weaving.

“All right.” The words left her mouth in a rush. She let the arrow fall to her feet. “All right. I’ll call off Valorre. Drop Teryn’s blood.”

“Call off the unicorn first.”

She released a slow breath and sought her connection to Valorre. She sensed him on the hillside, his energy frantic, fatigued. Run out of range.

He rippled with defiance. The abomination will come back to the field .

It’s all right , she said, trying to convey her certainty. Her sense of calm amongst a storm of fear. Just do it .

She felt the unicorn’s grudging acceptance.

“It is done. The Roizan will return.”

Morkai turned his palm down. She noted that the blood didn’t fall. It only disappeared. That meant he still had it, the same way he still held her tiny drop somewhere. He took a step toward her, his face distorted with rage. “Stop fighting against me, Aveline. I have already won. Lela will be mine by the end of this battle. There will be no war. No surrender. It ends here. This is your last chance to choose me.”

She hobbled a step back, her injured leg screaming in protest. Catching her balance, she lifted her chin and tried to exude far more confidence than she felt. “You already know my decision. I will never choose you. And you haven’t already won. You’ve lost. You may have killed King Arlous and may think you can kill Teryn too, but King Verdian has fled to safety.” She didn’t know if that last part was true, only that she hadn’t seen the King of Selay on the battlefield yet. No one could see far in this haze. Her chest squeezed as she pondered her next lie, uncertain if there was a chance it could be true by now. The thought tinged her voice with sorrow, giving weight to her possible deception. “My brother is dead. You have no one to inherit Khero from.”

His lips tightened into a line.

“You made a mistake in keeping him on the battlefield,” she said.

Morkai spoke through his teeth. “He wasn’t supposed to be on the battlefield. I ordered him back to camp.”

Cora frowned. If her brother had been ordered to safety…why had he been out there? Had he purposefully sought her out? If so, why? Based on the anger he’d shown during their initial confrontation, it could have been for revenge.

She remembered how his eyes had briefly cleared of their sheen. It hadn’t lasted long, but for a moment she’d felt like she’d connected to a piece of his true self.

Perhaps it had been hope that had driven him after her.

Over Morkai’s shoulder, Cora saw the lumbering shape of the Roizan breaking through the dusty haze. It set the rock rumbling as it clambered toward its master.

The duke shook his head with a dark laugh. “You’re wrong about one thing, Aveline,” he said as he removed another one of her daggers. “I do have someone left to inherit Khero from. You.”

The Roizan ambled closer and closer, panting with fatigue, lips coated in froth. Morkai pressed his hand over the freshest wound and reached for the final embedded dagger. The one she’d plunged into his lower back when she’d first found herself transported onto the rock. His face contorted as he reached behind him and wrenched the blade free.

Cora stepped back, stifling a cry as her injured leg made contact with the rock. She angled herself slightly toward Teryn. He’d managed to remove his breastplate and now pressed his palm over his wound.

With the final dagger free, Morkai locked his eyes with hers. “If your brother is truly dead, then I need you more than ever to claim the throne.”

The Roizan reached the edge of the rock.

“But I don’t need you alive. All I need is your body.” A wild grin stretched over his lips, his pale eyes flashing with menace. He held his hand—the one still clutching her dagger—toward the Roizan. He hadn’t looked at the weapon after he’d removed it. His attention had been too fixated on Cora. Too engrossed in his own wicked plans to question whether Cora had any of her own. Didn’t think to wonder why Cora had stopped fighting him. Why she didn’t flinch or cower as the Roizan leapt upon the rock.

Morkai’s expression shuttered with relief, his free hand still pressed to one of his wounds. A wound that was surely knitting back together at that very moment.

It didn’t matter.

The Roizan’s eyes narrowed on the blade in its master’s hand, a blade forged from a white horn. It opened its salivating maw over Morkai’s arm and snapped its teeth shut. With a cry, Morkai faced his creature, eyes wide with surprise. The Roizan didn’t seem to see Morkai at all, not even as the duke swung out with his free hand, shoving at the beast’s snout, desperate to free himself.

Cora edged the rest of the way toward Teryn and linked her arm through his. Together they scrambled off the rock, tumbling to the root-strewn grass. She looked back at the rock just as the Roizan opened its mouth again, this time snapping its teeth over Morkai's head. Then his body. Blood poured between the Roizan’s teeth as he continued to crunch through flesh and bone. The monster devoured his master, his maker, until there was nothing left that could be called a being at all.