94
I snapped back to the present as if someone had shoved me.
Mornon was still behind me, his breath brushing the hair on top of my head. My arm was still outstretched toward my father and Araton, holding up the glass dome.
Only a few seconds must have passed in real life.
Suddenly, Mornon inhaled deeply and spun around. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye as he took a few steps away. When he paused and faced me again, his expression was as hard as a diamond.
“Last chance,” he said with a piercing stare.
“Come with me, and I will spare your family an eternity of excruciating suffering. They will be simple”—he clenched his jaw as he searched for the most appropriate term—“subjects.” He uttered that word with barely concealed disgust, then offered me his hand. “You have my word.”
I observed his skyward-facing palm, and my fingers tingled from the need to entwine with his one last time. Instead, I created a small glass dagger in the hand I wasn’t using to control the barrier.
Mornon snorted quietly through his nostrils. “Really?” he asked in a flat tone.
I ignored him and turned to my father and brother. I gazed at them intently, and when a flash of understanding crossed their faces, I tried to give them a smile filled with apologies.
Araton attempted to break through the shield again, repeatedly mouthing my name and the word no, but our father swiftly grasped his hand.
Initially, my brother looked at him with despair, but then he understood the message in his steady gaze and pushed his fear aside.
Both of them looked at me with resolve and deep, deep affection.
Father nodded at me, giving me the final boost of courage I needed to proceed.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured in a broken voice.
And in an instant, I shrank the dome into a bubble surrounding me.
Mornon’s indifference shifted to a shocked look that slowly turned into pure, inexorable anger. “No,” he growled through his teeth, bared like a beast’s.
I wasn’t surprised that, unlike my father and brother, I could still hear his voice even though now he was outside the barrier. There was no magic that could prevent us from perceiving each other.
“No, no, no!” he erupted, lunging at me. He started pounding his fists, swathed in black flames, against the glass. “This. Can’t. Be. Happening. Again!” he shouted, punctuating each word with a punch. “ No!”
The force he was using to break the bubble was so intense that I had to summon all my strength to resist, feeling like my eardrums would burst with each strike. Blood started to flow from the inner corners of my eyes, nostrils, and the sides of my mouth, dripping heavily from my chin.
I didn’t have much longer.
I had to act immediately.
However, just before I could bring the blade to my throat, Mornon suddenly took a step back, his face twisted with angry turmoil as he stared at my blood-dripping face.
Without wasting even a fraction of a second, I formed a circle of large glass spikes around the base of the sphere to keep him at a distance long enough to finish my task.
Tears mixed with blood as I raised the dagger to my carotid artery. “Forgive me,” I said.
“For what?” he roared furiously. “Because you’d rather kill yourself than be by my side?”
“And you’re willing to watch me die, rather than give up?” I shot back sourly.
Mornon’s attention drifted to Calien’s Crystal, and he clenched his jaw so tightly that a muscle on his cheek fired.
“ Look at me!” I ordered vehemently, and his burning eyes shot to mine again.
“Are you ready to face eternity without me? Because that’s what will happen in a few moments.
You will not just lose the Crystal forever.
” I swallowed hard, grimacing at the metallic taste.
At the pain gripping my heart. “You will lose me.”
He subtly reared back as though he’d been slapped and went still. Then his fingers began to flex nervously and his nostrils flared as his breathing sped up and his face crumpled into a mask of hatred.
He was warring with himself.
And I, too, couldn’t help but fight for us one more time.
“Amlach,” I said, my voice thick with pain. “Please give up. Sacrifice your powers and let’s start a new life together, away from everything and everyone.” I looked at him intently, with all the love that was mercilessly tearing me apart. “I will never leave you alone.”
A muscle throbbed just above his upper lip, slightly curled in disgust. He let out a bitter half-laugh. “Still trying to convince me to run away with you?”
Hurt by his mocking tone, I decided to try one last, crazy path. “I saw your future without me,” I declared.
The veins on his face burned more intensely, but he stayed in terrifying silence.
“It won’t be as you picture it,” I continued in a grave manner. “You will no longer care about your plans for conquest and submission. You will live a lonely and desolate existence, knowing that you will never be allowed to join me in Rest.”
His gaze was so sharp it made me feel like he was skinning me alive. “And have you seen our future together, too?” he asked venomously.
It happened all at once.
Like during the fight, Calien’s power of foresight activated again, showing me something that took my breath away.
I saw a little girl with pointy ears peeking through her long, dark blonde hair and golden skin walk down the steps of a wooden house built on the edge of a jungle by the beach, near a freshwater mouth, and run to her father, who had just washed ashore with the boat carrying the day’s catch.
The man took her in his arms and set her against his side, his gaze shifting to the elf watching them from the porch, smiling.
He grinned mischievously at her. She reached the boat and hoisted the basket full of fish while he, with his free hand, took the bucket with the shellfish.
I saw Amlach and me walk back to the wooden house with our daughter.
As it started, the vision ended suddenly, leaving me so devastated that I felt like my soul had just crumpled up on itself until it turned to powder.
My eyes, brimming with tears as hot as magma, refocused on Mornon. “Yes,” I gasped with a barely visible smile.
His brow furrowed even further. His irises burned dangerously.
The next moment, he stormed into my mind, as painful as a blade suddenly piercing the flesh. I sensed him probing every corner without any regard, moving with the slithery of a serpent among the images stored in my memory.
When he found the vision I had just experienced, I felt like a gasp ran through my whole body. However, as soon as he finished watching it, he quickly moved on, as if it didn’t mean anything to him. Once he realized there was no vision of his future without me, he hastily abandoned my thoughts.
“Ah, Elf . . .” He pinned me with a sharp look. “I’ve almost believed you.”
I closed my eyes, defeated. Finally, with great effort, I accepted that I had reached the end of the line and looked at him with a stern yet exhausted expression. “And I’ve almost believed you would choose me.” The lump in my throat cracked my voice. “That you would choose us.”
Without wasting another moment, I pressed the dagger against the side of my neck.
The skin tore beneath the glass.
The first blood started to trickle down my throat.
“ Wait!”