Chapter 38
Mora
Mora didn’t give herself the chance to think—to hesitate—when she careened through billowing smoke, a rain of black soot blending with her onyx mist. It blanketed the snow, clinging to the remains of a once-opulent manor overlooking Galdon’s Crossing.
Cracks tore at the white stone facade, glass shards tumbling free from the windows to plink on shoveled walkways, its roof collapsing inward with a loud groan.
All the while, a mass of orange flames chewed on its bones.
Manicured hedges clutched at her mist, wisps snagging on the spindly twigs of the topiaries gracing the garden’s eastern corner.
They formed a small maze, burlap-wrapped cedars standing at the exits.
It was so dark, the sun lost to smoke and storm clouds; no one noticed the burst of snow and ash exploding in her wake when she crashed to the earth, a maelstrom of vapors rising before Mora stepped free...
and walked straight into the arms of hell.
Hedges rustled, tired, heaving breaths wheezing from the other side. “Please, don’t—”
“You thought we wouldn’t notice? That the lord could hide you and word wouldn’t spread?” A maniacal laugh made Mora shiver. “Your Aegist led us right to you.”
The wind didn’t kiss her cheeks, it punched her, a stream of air rushing through the gardens like a furious bull. It tore branches from slumbering trees, lifting flakes of snow from the ground and tossing them in the air until Mora had to squint to see through it.
“Please, spare my family,” someone howled, the trembling voice one Mora remembered well—Lord Falcrest was a kind noble and her father’s childhood friend. Someone who visited Castle Berwick often.
Torches swayed above the topiaries, a crowd marching past a break in the hedges up ahead. She stood, frozen, amber eyes wide. Tremors raking up her body.
An older man in a rich purple and silver embroidered coat dragged the lord through the snow, Falcrest’s long, black hair ensnared in his fist. It took Mora a moment to realize...
that was Lord Clairmont of Reverie, the neighboring village.
A fellow noble joining the revolt and attacking one of his own.
It shouldn’t have surprised her. Many in the upper class fed the flames of the villagers’ fears, nourishing those embers until they grew into the wildfire devouring Berwick.
All in the name of the gods damned Laws, and the Indentured they’d lost. Lord Clairmont didn’t truly care about the people’s worries; nobles like him only cared for themselves, and the power they could accrue at the cost of those around them.
Falcrest didn’t fight, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t do this.”
Clairmont hesitated, his forehead wrinkling.
A man by his side looked back toward the manor, disgust simmering in his cold eyes. “My lord?”
Clairmont sighed. “Shut him up.”
A boot slammed into Falcrest’s face, a spray of blood following the loud crack.
“Dear gods.” Mora backed away, legs trembling, her heel catching on something stiff.
She fell, hissing a pained gasp as her ass hit the ground hard, hands scraping on dense snow and sharp bits of ice.
A burning chill etched itself into her palms, but Mora barely felt it.
Not as she stared into the wide, dead eyes of the Aegist who’d stabbed her.
His yellow cloak undulated in the harsh winds, revealing a ripped, blood-soaked tunic and a soft stomach shredded at the hands of a furious blade. A torn bit of red silk clutched in his fist. She scrambled away, breath hitching when a blood-curdling scream pierced the billowing winds.
Lord Falcrest’s sobs grew louder. “It was me! I took them in; leave my family out of this!”
“You’re as bad as the fallen Crown,” someone snarled, the man’s posh voice one Mora recognized, though she couldn’t place it. “We witnessed what nearly happened to Elodie; you’ve endangered us all! Thank the Gods for the anonymous letters instructing us to investigate your reprehensible actions.”
Mora’s upper lip curled—of course Elodie was at the center of this madness. She needed to help him. Needed to—
Frigid ropes of smoke moved beneath her skin, burrowing through muscle and crawling over bone.
They squeezed before she could take a single step, crushing her ribs in a vaporous fist. Forcing the air from her lungs until she nearly doubled over.
Mora ground her teeth, hugging her center as she swayed, her vision going blurry.
Lungs burning. Air refusing to pass through her lips.
Lord Falcrest wasn’t a Halfling...
She couldn’t save him.
A panicked shout surged from the other side of her hedge, the windstorm growing stronger with it, and Mora saw red.
The wish tugged, a sharp pain making her wheeze—a rib broke, fissures skittering over bone.
She spat in the snow, forcing herself to look away from a panicked lord who had joined her father regularly for tea.
Who’d sent boxes of chocolate bonbons every year for her birthday. Who surely would not survive the day.
Tears gathered on her lashes, but Mora gave herself to the smoke, a wave of glittering onyx diving over the topiary.
Before she could land, a man in royal blue regalia tackled a woman to the ground and, in one swift motion, drove a cleaver into her face. The blade sliced into her cheek, tearing skin apart until her teeth peeked through, stopping when it hit bone.
The screaming quieted, her olive-green eyes going wide. Blood pooled in her mouth, spilling through the gaping wound, thick strings of frothy, red saliva dripping down her face to puddle on the ground, a stream of tears following suit.
“I got another one,” the waste of a King’s Guard uniform hollered, beaming when his kin cheered.
The wind churned, pulling wisps from Mora’s vaporous edges as it curled around them, called by the twitch of the woman’s right hand.
He tsked, slamming his boot down. “There’ll be none of that.”
Bones snapped, fingers twisting. At the sound of the crack, Mora was back in Castle Berwick’s dungeons, choking on rancid, musty air, Dother’s breath in her ears.
Do you want to help him?
She was frozen, staring into azure. Clinging to her cloak while Philip wailed in agony.
Glowing orange seared Mora’s vision, an apparition tearing through her smoke, pulling her from the hell in her mind.
It was a person on fire, the inferno devouring them as they ran.
Their face shrouded in flames, skin melting while heat consumed their hair until all that remained was a charred, bloody mess of muscle and fat.
They fell into a hedge as the life was torn from their body, fire catching on the evergreens.
“No!” the cleaver-wielding King’s Guard cried, rushing toward his fallen comrade.
They were little more than ash. Black bits of human remains drifted in the breeze, blending with fat flakes of soot and snow, except for their boots, and the charred husks of flesh remaining inside. “Which one of you fuckers did this?”
The furious howling winds were gone, yet the world grew louder, screams and taunts pulsing all around—how many people fought?
The King’s Guard stomped back to the air Elementalist and tore his blade free, sneering when she groaned. “I’d take my time with you, but I’ve got a fire-fucker to kill,” he taunted, firelight glinting on his bloodied knife when he raised his arm.
Mora smothered her fear and pounced, air hurling from his lungs when she crashed into him. “What in the—”
Snaking around his throat, she cut off his words and tore him from the ground, lifting him high above the hedges.
His lips fell open, but no sound escaped.
Not as she squeezed until spots of red bloomed in his eyes.
Until no white remained and they bulged from his skull.
Lips swelling, purple erupting beneath the skin.
They swayed while he kicked his feet, clawing at his obsidian noose only to tear at his own flesh, blood caking beneath his nails.
There was a pressure in her center. A maddening need to shriek.
How dare he don Althenis blue and silver and murder Berwick’s people?
He was the sickness festering on the island.
His kin the true danger. They wielded their volatile hatred and ignorance like weapons, uncaring who fell, so long as it made them feel powerful.
Pathetically devoted to greedy nobles who didn’t give two shits about them.
What use were her words when he’d already won, terror saturating the air around them, the shouts and cries so much louder without the Elementalist’s furious winds.
Instead, Mora spoke the one language the King’s Guard understood, squeezing until she heard a snap.
One she’d hoped to never hear again, his body growing limp in her hold.
When his weight pulled at her misty tendrils, Mora recoiled, dropping him, Philip’s last choking gasps fresh in her memories.
You’re a monster.
Indeed, she was. And Dother’s wish no longer guided her bloodstained hands...
Gods, what was she becoming?
The body thumped on packed snow, flames catching on the cuff of his sleeve.
Mora burst forth from the dark hold of her curse, running to the air Elementalist, but the woman flinched at the sight of her, olive-green eyes growing wide. Ruddy-brown hair slipping through blood when she tried to move away.
“I won’t hurt you,” Mora murmured, hesitantly offering her hand until she noticed the tendrils of glittering onyx still clinging to her skin. She cringed, dropping her arm to her side and trying her best to keep her voice soft. “I want to help. I can take you some—”
Arms wrapped around her center and the world spun, Mora’s back slamming onto frozen earth before she understood what happened. Glowing amber reflected off a sharp blade, its pointed tip pressing just below her eye.
“You killed Todrick!” her attacker snarled, chest heaving.
“The poor excuse for a King’s Guard?” Mora pouted. “Was he a friend of yours?”
“Witch woman! You’ll burn with the rest of them.”