Page 37 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Nura’s lips pressed together, and she hesitated before answering, as if reluctant to reveal her hand.

“Vardir believes that we can’t tap into your power because you have blocked it within yourself,” she said. “Your own connection to it is severed.”

“That’s rich, considering that you’re the reason why I got this way.”

“I won’t defend what I’ve done to you, Max. I’m not ashamed of it, but I won’t defend it. Yes, perhaps I’m the reason why you were sentenced to Ilyzath. But whatever happened to the inside of your mind? That part had nothing to do with me.”

She began to turn away.

“Nura.”

She stopped.

Maybe this was a question better left unasked. I didn’t even know how to phrase it. I settled on, “What happened? With us?”

She was silent for a long moment, her back to me.

“I loved your family,” she said. “No matter what I did to you. No matter what I’ve had to do since. I loved them.”

And before I could say anything more, the wall parted, and she was gone.

CHAPTERELEVEN

AEFE

Idreamed of a city in the forest. I tread suspended paths near the tops of the trees, which cradled ramshackle wooden buildings. I looked back to see Caduan there, walking behind me. He looked different than he does now—younger. He gave me a small smile, which I returned without thinking.

A blur, and then we were in a crowded room with raucous Fey gathered around tables and benches, clutching mugs of mead. My senses were dull, clouded by many glasses of wine. Caduan’s were too, his words slightly slurred. We were arguing.

Suddenly the window shattered.

Suddenly we were falling.

Suddenly there was fire everywhere.

We were on the ground. Caduan did not move. I bent down and bit his wrist, drinking his blood—and life blossomed in me, in him, a thread connecting us and making us both more powerful.

Humans everywhere. Pain in my abdomen. I was pinned to the wall, a spear impaling me.

Caduan’s magic clustered around him as he fought his way to me.

This is a memory,I realized.A long-ago memory.

Everything froze, like time held its breath.

I observed the scene around me, the fire paralyzed mid-stroke, the white-haired human’s wide-eyed face, the smoke hanging motionless in the air. I lingered on Caduan. His face at first seemed calm, focused… but those eyes, and the way they looked at me… maybe back then I didn’t know how to recognize such hidden wrath. But I knew how to see it now.

My chest tightened. I reached out, as if to touch him, and—

The world split in two. Something in the magic beneath me tore apart—tore apart in a way that was deeply wrong. Like a wound ripping through the center of my soul.

The memory was gone. This was no longer the past. This was the present.

I was now three different places at once.

My room, in Ela’Dar.

A cell of white stone, panic filling me, death surrounding me. I knew these eyes. These were Maxantarius’s.

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