“I am taking back my life.” The tension she felt caused her to shiver. “I am taking back what you stole.”
“I let no one take anything from me,” he replied. “Your life is mine, and I will give it up when I choose to do so and not before.”
“This time the choice is not yours to make.”
He laughed softly, a swirl of dark cloth as he gestured disdainfully at her. “The choice is always mine. Laying claim to your life was good for you, little witch, until you sought power that wasn’t yours. You would pretend that you are better than I am, but you are not. You are no freer of guilt, no nobler of purpose, no higher of mind. You are a monster. You are as cold and dark as I. If you think otherwise, you are a fool.”
“The difference between us, Morgawr, is not that I think I am better than you. The difference is that I recognize what I am, and I understand how terrible that is. You would go on as you are and not regret it. Even if I am able to change myself, I will look back at what I was and regret it always.”
“Your time for regret will be short, then. Your life is almost over.”
There was a fresh edge to his voice, one infused with anticipation. He was getting ready to attack. She could feel it in the movement of the air, in its crackle and hiss as the magic he summoned began to break free of its restraints.
As a result, she wasn’t where he expected her to be when he lashed out. She had eased to the side, leaving just a shadow of herself behind to draw him out. Feeling the backwash of the magic’s power, watching the whipsaw effect of his fury cause the wall behind her to rupture, she struck back at him with shards that would have ripped him apart had he not already made his own warding motion in response.
Trading ferocious assaults, they quickly turned the chamber into a smoking, debris-clogged furnace, the heat and sound intense and suffocating. But they were more evenly matched than either had expected, and neither could gain the upper hand.
Then the Morgawr simply disappeared. One moment he was there, his great form shadowy and fluid behind a screen of smoke and heat, and the next he was gone. Grianne slid back to her right, not wanting to give him a chance to come at her from another direction. She tested the air, searching for him, but the trail of his body heat told her he had fled from the room.
She went after him at once. If he was running, his confidence was breaking down. She did not want to give him a chance to recover. A fierce anticipation flooded through her. Maybe now she could put an end to him.
Black Moclips was closing on the Morgawr’s fleet when Redden Alt Mer decided to take a look for something he was already pretty certain wasn’t still aboard. He did it on a whim, having not even thought of it until now, remembering it because of something Ahren Elessedil had told him when they had talked about Ryer Ord Star, wanting suddenly to discover if it was true.
So he climbed down out of the pilot box, the controls locked, the airship on course, and walked past the living dead of the Federation and climbed down into the aft fighting station in the port-side pontoon. He walked back to where the ram began its upward curve, removed a panel on the side of the hull, and peered inside.
There it was, against all odds, in spite of his certainty it wouldn’t be, still in the same condition in which it had been installed, neatly wrapped and ready for use. You never know, he mused.
He carried it out and laid it on the deck, piecing it together in moments, wondering why he bothered. Because it was there, he supposed. Because he lived in a world where a man’s fate was often determined by chance, and he had believed in the importance of chance all his life.