96
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Seeing him on his knees with arms spread and bloodied palms facing upward, terrified me.
Because, although his pose, there was nothing submissive about him.
His expression embodied a boundless and relentless and monstrous and lethal hatred. His face twisted with spasms, almost as if something inside him was struggling with a deafening screech.
I should end it immediately. The artery was just a breath away from the blade. Half a second, and he wouldn’t be able to heal me in any way.
Yet, even as I commanded my arm to make the final, deadly move, my muscles refused to obey.
There was something in the violence his gaze was hurling at me that prevented me from finishing my task.
Something so powerful that, very slowly, I lowered the hand I was controlling the shield with.
A hole opened at the top of the glass bubble, which gradually began to retract like water at my feet along with the stalagmite circle until it vanished.
All the energy that the barrier had absorbed from me was returned, hitting my wavering body like a shockwave.
The bleeding from my ears, eyes, nose, and mouth ceased.
Nevertheless, I kept the dagger at my throat.
Mornon’s eyes never left mine as my heart rioted against my ribs to the point that I feared it would break through them to surrender itself to the one it belonged to.
I couldn’t trust him. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t make that mistake for the umpteenth time. He was just tricking me once more. In an instant, he would lunge at me, immobilize me, and in the next, we would disappear into thin air.
And his reign of terror would truly begin.
No, I would not give in now. But as I took my last breath before severing the carotid artery, Mornon closed his eyes.
And suddenly his horrifying beasts, peering at us while gurgling and hissing, dissolved one by one into thick puffs of black smoke.
As the snowflakes falling on us grew fewer and more scattered, I lowered the glass dagger, which then retracted into my wrist.
I stared at Mornon, stunned. Was it true, then? Was he abandoning the Crystal and the plan he’d worked on for thousands of years? For me?
Was it love that faint glow I saw shining in the ire’s fire blazing in his eyes?
Reading all those questions in mine, he inhaled angrily, and then, as if it hurt him physically, declared, “I, Mornon, surrender to you, Princess Nauriel.”
My heart skipped more than one beat.
My breath caught.
And the darkness in me rose in revolt with a tremendous roar.
“Finally,” Lady Calien’s deep, mellow voice suddenly resonated in Elvish.
A blinding white light emanated from the Crystal in the center of my chest. When it faded, the ethereal, opalescent form of my grandmother’s spirit appeared beside us.
“Calien,” I exclaimed, astonished to see her among us here in the real world.
“Mother,” my father gasped, and though I dared not turn to see the happiness on his face—too afraid of a sudden movement from Mornon—I could feel it.
Grandmother gave her son a smile brimming with love and nodded affectionately to Araton before turning her attention back to Mornon and me.
Mornon, who was gazing at her with such rancor that the tips of his hair were flaring again and the veins on his face were burning with alarming intensity.
Calien looked down at him with deep commiseration. “Poor boy,” she said, attempting to stroke his cheek with the back of her bony fingers.
He turned his head away with a grimace filled with disgust.
She withdrew her hand and regarded him with equal sternness. “Look what you’ve done to yourself for the wrong power.”
The enemy mocked her with a half-smile but didn’t meet her gaze.
I had a strong feeling he couldn’t do it. That even Mornon the Abomination was intimidated by Lady Calien’s regality.
“Except for the druids, I am the only elf to whom the Spirits have ever granted magic,” she continued, “while you were born with it. We were so much alike . . .” Her voice took on a note of sadness. “But you chose the path of solitude.”
He shot her a fierce glare. “I chose to become more powerful than you,” he said, refusing to speak Elvish.
She remained unmoved. “And you think you are?”
Mornon’s glowering expression cracked subtly.
“All this time, you have believed I sacrificed myself because I realized I wasn’t strong enough to defeat you?”
“You weren’t,” he hissed. “ No one is.”
“So, you have forgotten what I told you.” Calien paused, then solemnly said, “‘I won’t be the one to destroy you. She will.’”
Mornon stood perfectly still for seconds that felt like they stretched forever, and it was almost as if I could see his brain digging into his thousand-year-old memory to recall his fight with the Queen of the Elves. When he found it, his fiery eyes barely widened.
“ No . . .” he growled in a low voice.
A ghost of a victorious smile flickered on my grandmother’s lips. “I saw this very moment, that day. I saw you”—her gaze shifted to me—“and you.” Her face hardened. “I saw two mates fighting, instead of loving each other. And in the end, I saw light triumph over darkness.”
Mornon cut his rancor-filled eyes at me.
“So,” Calien went on, “I did what I had to do for that vision to come true.”
A muscle fired in the enemy’s jaw, and he dug his claws into his palms once again.
How much longer could he hold himself back?
“And now here we are,” the queen’s spirit said. “Where it all ends.” She looked at Mornon with an unyielding expression, which softened as her attention shifted to me. “And where it all begins.”
A tear rolled down the outer corner of my eye, and she wiped it away with the back of her index finger, causing a gentle tingling sensation on my cheek.
Then, she spoke to my mate. “Are you ready to meet your fate, Mornon?”
I held my breath when his fierce gaze locked onto mine and held it so vehemently that I felt my knees get weak.
“I am,” he finally said, his deep voice betraying all the suppressed violence within him.
Calien silently watched us. When I managed to look away from Mornon and glance at her, she nodded at me with a small smile.
Then, with my heart pounding, I knelt before the one I loved.
Mornon wouldn’t let me look away, even for a moment, as I pressed my hand to his chest, slightly gasping at the unmistakable feeling of his heart pounding frantically against his hot armor.
Grandmother rested her hand on my head, sending that tingling feeling again. “You can’t take it,” she said solemnly. “It must be given.”
And, drawing a breath so furious it reminded me of a volcano on the verge of erupting, Mornon the Abomination gave me his magic.
Hazy beams of darkness shot from his back. Calien channeled them into the Crystal, which instantly became as hot as a branding iron. I tried to resist the intense heat spreading through my armor, watching in amazement as the black filaments were absorbed into the increasingly bright white light.
I couldn’t believe it.
It was over.
We had won.
The enemy had giv . . .
Suddenly, Mornon grabbed my wrist and pressed my palm harder against his armor. He pinned me with a demonic stare, subtly smirking as he pierced my skin with his claws.
I opened my eyes wide, a shiver running through me.
And then I felt it.
His darkness unrolled from my bones and tendons, abandoned my cells, crawled through my flesh, and escaped from my chest in four ribbons that converged into the stream of shadows being sucked into the Crystal.
The despair I felt rising from my soul overwhelmed me. The urge to scream, rebel, and beg him to stay squeezed me like a noose around my neck, making me gasp.
I looked at Mornon, trying to implore him with my eyes.
But the feral glimmer I caught in his gaze made me stop.
For, suddenly, I sensed that he was not only transferring all his power into Calien’s Crystal.
He was also doing something else.
But before I could understand what it was, the glow within the Crystal expanded to engulf me, Mornon, and my grandmother, becoming painfully blinding.
Then it exploded.