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T eryn woke with a sudden start, though he didn’t feel as if he’d been asleep. He felt more like he’d been…lost. Floating. Clinging to the fraying edges of his consciousness. Now wakefulness dawned on him in a violent rush. He sat up—at least he thought he did—but all he saw was blinding white light. Not even his body stood out against it. He glanced down at his hands, his legs, but there was nothing to see.

Panic raced through him, sending him teetering back toward the opposite edge of consciousness.

“Calm, Your Highness.” A feminine voice reached his ears. It was a hollow sound, devoid of resonance, but the fact that there was someone near him, calming him, gave it a soothing quality.

“Where am I?” His voice held the same lack of resonance, but there was nothing soothing about it. The words left his lips, but instead of reverberating from his vocal cords, they simply took shape in the nothingness around him. That only renewed his sense of panic.

“It’s all right, Prince Teryn.”

“Who are you? Why can’t I see anything?”

“My name is Emylia. I’m here to help you.”

“Help me with what? Where the seven devils am I?”

As if in answer, the light grew muted, slowly fading into shadows. Those shadows spilled over the surface of white, like ink staining a blank page. But instead of pure darkness, the shadows took form, creating distinct edges, shapes, and textures, until it became a moonlit bedroom. His bedroom at Ridine Castle. He saw his four-poster bed, the flagstone floor, the tapestries decorating the walls.

He released a sigh of relief…but the breath leaving his lungs didn’t feel normal. It tingled against his lips without warming them and it lacked the rushing sound he was used to. He glanced down at his body, and this time he could see hands. That was a small comfort.

“Just breathe, slow and steady,” the woman named Emylia said. A woman he’d still yet to see.

He glanced up from his hands and nearly leaped out of his skin at the sight of the unfamiliar woman. If he had to guess, she was around his age, perhaps a year older. Her skin was a rich brown while her curly hair was the color of the midnight sky outside his room. A beautiful woman. And one who was only half dressed. The shift she wore was of a flowing, floor-length silk in a color he couldn’t distinguish in the unlit room, but the way it bared her shoulders told him it had to be a nightgown at best.

Suspicion darkened in his mind. Averting his gaze, he set his jaw and said, “Miss…Emylia, who are you and what are you doing in my room?”

It was all he could do not to order her out at once. The last thing his relationship with Cora needed was a scandal. A nagging thought pulsed through him, telling him this was the least of his worries. But…why? Something had happened after his conversation with Cora…

Something that would explain the terror lurking in the back of his mind…

“I told you. I’m here to help you.”

“With what?” He allowed his gaze to return to her and saw she now wore a capelet over her shoulders in the same flowing silk as her gown. It struck him as odd that her ensemble would change so suddenly, but he was more concerned with getting her out of his room. There was no way he was letting this stranger ruin what he had with Cora. “Never mind. You shouldn’t be here. Please leave at once.”

When she made no move to obey, he reached forward to assist her, determined to drag her out if he must.

“Don’t touch me,” she barked, leaping away from his touch.

Teryn froze.

The woman made a placating gesture, and her tone turned gentle again. “It’s…it’s probably fine, but we can’t risk it.”

“I don’t want to touch you,” Teryn said through his teeth, trying to ignore that his teeth felt…well, there was something wrong with them. Something wrong with him . Everything about his body felt…too light. Too fuzzy. Was he dreaming? It felt like a dream. But not even in his dreams did he fancy having a strange woman in his private quarters when he could have been dreaming about someone else. “I just want you out of my room before someone gets the wrong idea.”

Her shoulders sank, eyes turning down at the corners. “Highness, we aren’t in your room.”

“What do you?—”

“Do you remember anything about what you were doing before?”

“Before what?”

“What’s the last thing you recall? Stay calm but try to remember. It’s better if you remember on your own.”

Teryn was torn between fear and irritation. A nagging notion—too hazy to decipher—continued to plague him, trying to remind him…

He closed his eyes, and a vision played through his mind. First he saw himself holding the crystal in his room, saw the light catch on its facets. Then there was nothing but white. He’d heard a woman’s voice. Emylia’s voice, he realized now. Then dark tendrils like black smoke took shape before him, forging legs, hands, a torso. Then a face. One he recognized. The shadowed figure was colorless, revealing neither Duke Morkai’s dark hair nor his silver-blue eyes. But Teryn knew it was him. Emylia had shouted not to let Morkai touch him, but the voice had been too far away, too lost in the tumult of Teryn’s fear and confusion. The figure reached out, grasped Teryn. Pain had surged through him, searing his skull as if it were being cleaved in two, and then…

Then nothing.

Teryn stumbled back, swiping a hand over his face. But when his palm made contact with his skin, it lacked the pressure he was used to. Instead, it simply…buzzed. Thickened the air. He drew his hand back and examined it. It was still his hand, but the closer he looked, the more he realized its edges were slightly blurred, its shape in a constant flux of swirling particles.

His breaths grew sharp and shallow. Breaths that didn’t feel like true breaths.

“You need to stay calm,” Emylia said, but her words only reminded him of the wrongness of their voices. They still lacked resonance. Still struck hollow in the space around them.

“You expect me to stay calm? What the seven devils is happening? Where am I— really ?”

Her expression sank with pity. “You’re inside the object you know as Morkai’s crystal.”

Teryn glanced around the room, no longer trusting his surroundings. They seemed as tenuous as his form, something real but not real. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. He could only hope this was a nightmare and that he’d wake from it at any moment. But if this wasn’t a dream and Emylia was telling the truth…

He was inside Morkai’s crystal.

Not his body, though. He knew enough to comprehend that whatever he was now, it wasn’t a being of flesh and blood.

A question formed on his lips, one he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer to. “Am I dead?”

“No, Teryn,” she said with a gentle smile. “You’re alive.”

He swallowed hard. “Then what am I?”

She clasped her hands at her waist. “The part of you that exists inside this crystal is your ethera. You might call it your spirit. What you see now is the outer layer of your ethera, the part that most resembles your physical form.”

“And you? What are you?”

She gestured at her body. “This too is the outer layer of my ethera. But unlike you, I died many years ago. I don’t have a body to return to.”

“Does that mean I can go back? I can get out of the crystal and…return to my body?” Referring to himself as something separate from his body ignited a fresh wave of panic.

“Yes, but you need to keep your breathing steady, Highness. It’s your best defense against him.”

Him .

The shadowed form of Duke Morkai.

“Was that… thing I saw…was that the sorcerer’s ethera?”

She nodded. “He tethered it to the crystal as a way to fully evade death.”

“But you said you’re considered dead because your body is gone. So is his. He has nothing to return to.”

Emylia wrung her hands before forcing them to still. “Returning to his former body isn’t his goal.”

The way she emphasized former sent a chill through him. She must have been implying that Morkai intended to forge some new body. What did that have to do with Teryn? Why was his spirit stuck inside a crystal?—

Truth dawned like a dagger to his heart. “He wants to use my body.”

Her nod of confirmation sent his head spinning. Or whatever part of this so-called ethera that felt like his head.

“He…already has,” she said. “Somewhat.”

“What the seven devils is that supposed to mean? Is his spirit in my body right now?” What were these words leaving his mouth? These kinds of things weren’t possible. They weren’t real. Months ago, he hadn’t believed in magic. Magic had been a thing that existed only in faerytales. Then he’d met Cora, caught his first glimpse of a unicorn. Magic then shifted into a beautiful truth, one that gave Cora the ability to sense emotion and even go so far as to hide them from sight. But when Morkai came along, his view of magic changed yet again, and he’d learned of its dark side. One of wraiths and blood sorcery. Somehow, Teryn was now entangled in that malevolent kind of magic.

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.”

That gave him some relief. Enough to steady his breaths again. “Does that mean when his shadowed form touched mine, he took control?”

“Yes. Touching your ethera with his own strengthened the link to your cereba. That allowed him to manipulate your body. A difficult task with such a temporary connection, but it was enough to force your hand to lift the crystal and hold it over your body’s sternum. That closed the circuit, creating a sustained link from Morkai’s ethera, to your cereba, to his heart-center.”

Teryn furrowed his brow. “Heart-center?”

“The spiritual aspect of the heart. His is stored inside the crystal. So long as the crystal is near your body, within at least sixteen inches of where your heart-center should be, the circuit remains closed, giving him primary control over your cereba.”

Primary control. Over his body.

Nothing good could come of that.

“Where is my body now? What is he doing with it?”

Emylia held his gaze, nibbling her bottom lip as if debating whether to answer. Then, with a sigh, she waved a hand. A ripple of shadow crossed his vision. As it settled, the bedroom grew somewhat sharper, the walls and furnishings more distinct. She stood and gestured toward the bed. Teryn rose too, feeling that strange buzzing resistance between his feet and the floor. Slowly, he turned toward the bed, dreading what he was about to see. He was right to feel dread. For there, upon the bed, lay himself. Asleep. His own body separate from the soul he was now.

“Is this real?” Teryn asked. “Is this truly my bedroom? Truly my body?”

She nodded. “I can utilize some of the magic in the crystal. With it, I can forge a likeness of any place I’ve seen. That is what I first showed you when you awoke. I muted the light of the crystal and showed you something familiar to set you at ease. But what you see now is real. In addition to casting illusions, I can create a window of sorts that allows me to project my ethera—and yours—outside the crystal.”

“So we’re free from the crystal now?” Even as he asked, he knew the hope was too good to be true.

“No, our etheras are tethered. Mine even more than yours, as I have no link to a living body. We can experience the crystal’s immediate surroundings, but that doesn’t make us free of our captivity.”

Teryn wondered if Morkai had been able to project his ethera in the same way. If so, Morkai could have been watching Cora the entire time she’d possessed the crystal. Rage burned through him at the thought.

“Where is the crystal now?” he asked, stepping closer to the bed.

She angled her head at the sleeping Teryn’s chest. “It’s beneath your shirt.”

“And Morkai is…”

“Resting his ethera. Controlling your cereba is taxing, especially since he has no link to your vitale. He’ll need to sleep, and that is when you have the highest chance of regaining control. It will be hard, though. He maintains the primary connection even during sleep. To loosen his grip, we must move the crystal more than sixteen inches from your sternum and open the circuit between your cereba and his heart-center.”

Teryn studied his body, saw the lump beneath his shirt that must be the crystal. If Morkai’s spirit was sleeping, now was Teryn’s chance. He surged toward his sleeping form and reached for the collar of his shirt?—

His ethera’s hands went straight through the cloth, resulting in nothing but that buzzing resistance. That thickening of the air.

“Breathe,” Emylia said, and Teryn realized his lungs had begun to contract again.

Teryn took a few steps back, deepening his breaths and watching his body’s chest rise and fall in tandem. “Seven devils, this is madness.”

“I know, and you had the right idea. But before you have any chance of manipulating physical matter, you need to strengthen what little connection you have to your cereba. You maintain a slim link between it and your vitale.”

“What can I do?” He had to do something. Anything. Morkai was in his body. He would wake. He would…

Teryn didn’t want to think about what he might do. Whom he might do things to.

“For now,” Emylia said, “align your ethera with your body and simply breathe. Feel your heart. Your pulse.”

“You want me to just…lie down and breathe.”

“Do not underestimate your connection to your vitale. So long as your awareness of it remains strong, you hold the upper hand. If you let fear disconnect you from it, you leave it open for Morkai to take. He isn’t strong enough to take it yet, but he has plans to do so. I know he does.”

What were his plans? And how did Emylia know so much about Morkai, about utilizing the crystal’s magic? Who was she aside from a trapped spirit? Could he even trust her?

Emylia opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he said, “If you tell me to breathe one more time, I’m going to lose my godsdamned mind.”

She pursed her lips and gestured toward the bed with a pointed look.

With nothing else to do, he climbed upon the mattress, sank into his sleeping form, and tried to become one with a body that was no longer his own.