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But the arrow didn’t hit my heart.
My eyes snapped open, and I jolted. Mornon was positioned in front of me, slightly to the side. The dart my brother had shot was in his outstretched hand, its point just inches from my chest.
Terrified, I watched the bulging veins on the back of his hand, then flinched as the arrow shaft disintegrated in his fist.
Mornon took a deep breath and tilted his head slightly back, his sharp gaze piercing the night through the spruces’ branches. His demons suddenly melted, returning to hazy shadows on the ground.
Mornon canted his head toward Araton in a disturbing way. “It’s finally time for you to die, Prince.”
“No, please, no!” I screamed, tugging at the chains of darkness as I helplessly watched him move toward my father and brother, who stood prepared to fight him. “ Mornon!” I roared with all the anger and pain within me.
He stopped.
It was the first time I called him by his real name, and even though I had said it before, it now left a bitter taste in my mouth. A wrong taste.
I watched the tight set of his shoulders—it seemed like he wasn’t breathing at all. Maybe I wasn’t either. “Please,” I said, my voice small.
He lifted a hand and elegantly rotated it. With a gust of hissing wind, the darkness rose around us, transforming into a cage of endless height that kept us apart from my father and Araton.
I heard them desperately shouting my name, but I couldn’t even make out their silhouettes beyond the blanket of darkness.
The shadows that restrained me suddenly retreated. My dress sleeves were blackened around my wrists, and I felt a burning sensation around my bare ankles.
But it was nothing compared to the warmth Mornon’s gaze stirred in me when he turned.
He kept his glowering eyes locked to mine as he moved with studied slowness between me and the stone altar.
The altar where Calien’s Crystal was still floating.
Fear spread through me like an army of spiders crawling all over my body. It was over, then. In a few seconds, Mornon would command me to give him the Crystal. As a good prisoner, I would obey, dooming the entire world.
And the worst part was that I almost didn’t care.
“I’m not here for the Crystal, Nauriel,” Mornon said abruptly, his gaze so fierce it made my knees shake.
“I’m here,” he added, inching forward in a threatening way, “because we nearly got separated. Was that what you wanted?” His voice was the emblem of the darkest fury as he shoved my cousin’s body aside with his boot to stand in front of me. “After what we shared the other night?”
I clenched my jaw so tightly that my gums hurt. I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth as hard as I could. I dug my nails into my palms.
Anything to stop me from saying that single syllable my heart wanted to scream.
That single syllable that, as I inhaled the scents of blood and entrails scattered around me, filled me with such shame that I wished the ground would open beneath my feet and swallow me whole.
Suddenly, Mornon seized my jaw with his blood-stained fingers from Queen Aloiv and pushed my head back. “ Answer me,” he growled, gazing down at me superiorly.
“I am,” I said furiously, and even though I knew it was fruitless, I slapped his wrist to get his fingers off my face.
To my surprise, he let go of me.
We stared at each other with intense hostility, the meaning of my words weighing on us with all its terrible force.
Gradually, his controlled breathing shifted to match the quick rhythm of mine. His pupils dilated, shrinking the pine-green irises into thin rings. His expression turned lustful.
“Join me,” he said softly.
I took a sharp breath, shocked.
“Let’s subdue these lands together.” His excitement about the vision he was imagining of us frightened me.
“Stand with me when I take over the lands we haven’t yet explored.
” He grasped my chin with his thumb and forefinger.
“We will be the king and queen of an everlasting empire, unmatched and unrivaled.”
But, as I got lost in the treacherous maze of his gaze, I understood I would never truly be his queen. I would just be his puppet, to be used whenever and however he desired. A ballast he couldn’t get rid of.
He would never see me as his equal. Neither would he ever love me, for he hated that the Spirits had bound him to me.
He was deceiving me once more.
All he did was manipulate me, over and over again.
I stared at him, overwhelmed and in a rage at the same time. “You are a black sea that wants to drown me in its depths.”
Mornon framed my face in his big hands, his fingers threading through my hair. “You will not drown, Nauriel. You will swim.”
I held onto his wrists and tried to shake my head, but he pressed his palms harder to immobilize me, pulling the hair behind my neck until I was panting.
“Swim in me. Swim with me.” His eyes gleamed with mad yearning. “And it will be the others who drown.”
I looked at him for a few long moments, searching for the man I still couldn’t believe had been just a lie. In a fit of despair, I placed my hands on his chest and said, “Let’s go away.”
He subtly flinched, then went as still as stone.
“Let’s go far away,” I pressed, my tears blending with the blood on my eyelashes, “where we can go back to being the way we were on the island.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Let’s go somewhere where we can be happy.”
He gazed at me with awful coldness, his face devoid of any emotion. “I don’t want happiness, Elf.” He removed his hands from my face. “I want power.”
Feeling torn inside by his words, I could only stare as he turned away from me, like I was insignificant, and then stepped over the scattered bodies to position himself again midway between me and the altar.
His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “Give me the Crystal, Nauriel,” he ordered imperiously.
I staggered, overwhelmed by his command echoing in my mind. One foot slipped on a pool of blood. I looked down at the carnage caused by my mate. All those wide eyes and fear-distorted faces seemed to be staring directly at me.
Judging me.
Blaming me.
Condemning me.
They made me see that I was the monster who killed them. And soon, I would become the cause of all races in the Lands of the East and beyond being wiped out.
No.
That single word emerged within me as the strongest declaration, and the final spark of light within me boldly ignited in the darkness that consumed me.
I couldn’t let Mornon destroy everything. I couldn’t stand by and watch elves, humans, and witches perish in whatever terrible way the enemy had planned for them.
I couldn’t stay still just because I loved him with all my soul.
I had to find a way to . . . to . . . to kill him.
I had to, I told myself as another tear fell on my cheek, dissolving the blood crusted on it. Mornon would never let me take my own life—he would always manage to step in at the last second. So, I needed to find another way.
I had to, had to, had to.
Maybe that’s why the Spirits had bound me to him: Because I alone could end his life. But how?
With me, my strong granddaughter.
I gasped when I heard my grandmother inside my head. My eyes darted toward the Crystal, and I almost felt Calien’s hand caress me.
We will defeat him together.
Her deep, melodic voice resonated in my mind, battling to silence Mornon’s command. When she finally succeeded, I almost felt lighter and released a faint, freeing sigh.
“I won’t say it again,” Mornon warned me, slightly impatient. “It’s your last chance.”
But in that moment, as I looked at the Crystal, I realized that I had regained all my strength and that I would never give it to Mornon.
But above all, because of my grandmother’s presence, I realized I was ready to fulfill my duty.
So, I refocused on my enemy, my mate, and grievously declared, “I will kill you, Mornon.”
He remained silent, still as a statue. His black fingertips rubbing together were the only sign of his anger. After what felt like forever, he half-turned to me and, in a low, intimate voice, said, “I don’t like it when you call me Mornon.”
I flinched as if he had stabbed me in the heart.
As I sensed he was about to vanish, I couldn’t hold back and, using my elven speed, closed the distance between us in an instant. “Wait,” I called out, grabbing his hand.
But I couldn’t say anything more.
Yet, I wanted to tell him so many things. Things that were eating away at my soul. Things that would leave him utterly indifferent.
Because he didn’t care about me.
And I still couldn’t accept it, despite everything.
Feeling beaten, with silent tears streaming freely down my cheeks, I released his hand.
A moment later, Mornon turned, grasped my face, and pressed his lips to mine like a hungry beast.
His mouth swallowed my moan of surprise, and he pulled my hair to suck in another, and then another. I clung to his broad shoulders to resist the fury of his kiss, pressing myself against him to mold my body to his as much as I could.
He ended the kiss abruptly and forcefully turned my head to lick my tear- and blood-streaked cheek, causing me to emit a hoarse cry of pleasure.
“Don’t stop,” I panted, wishing he would clean up all the blood on my skin and then shower me with his own.
Mornon suddenly inhaled, freezing. “You’ve made your choice, Elf.
” He straightened up, towering over me to his impressive height.
His fingers remained in my hair as he looked down at me with such coldness that it unsettled me.
“Now watch me burn these lands and all their inhabitants until you give me what I want.”
Black flames erupted from the ground beneath his feet, swathing him.
The next moment, I was alone, transfixed by the fear of what was going to happen.