Page 110 of The Edge of Darkness

Aremis’s dark brown eyes looked nearly black in the cave light, and the image, along with the name the wraith had used, was unsettling, even to me.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“I know that it is not meant to be bound to a vessel.” She surveyed him, tilting her head. “Perhaps that is why you are in pain.”

I tried to read Aremis’s expression as he straightened. He had always excelled at hiding his emotions. But the pain . . .

He seemed half a moment away from denying it, but he remained quiet.

“Has the witch told you how the Aether came to be bound in physical form?”

Aremis nodded. “Yes, she explained. She also said there might be a way to break its curse.”

The wraith swung her gaze to Nivelle. “Perhaps.”

The witch crossed her arms. “If anyone would know how to break the curse, we assumed it would be you. As a wraith, your kind are the closest in nature to the Aether, are you not?”

“The only similarity our kind shares with the Aether is in a physical sense. As it is, I do not know how to break the curse. I imagine that is something only our ancestors knew.” She studied Aremis again, this time with admiration. “I do wonder, though, what it must be like to glean the world’s secrets on the whispers of the wind . . .”

“It is not as magical as it sounds,” he said. “Most do not survive more than a decade with this curse.”

The wraith sucked in a breath. “Such a quick life. I cannot fathom it.” Something like pity surfaced the longer she regarded him. “But then again, it was never meant for your kind, nor any, for that matter. The witch who bound it to herself fared no better. I can only imagine that if you were to be successful in unbinding it, the devastation it would cause upon its release would be staggering.”

“And if I’m not successful?”

The wraith shifted her eyes to her sacred pool. “I suppose it would be the same either way.”

We all remained quiet, letting her words sink in.

The odds didn’t seem too good.

Aremis’s voice cut through the silence. “Why does the Aether keep reappearing in different fae? Shouldn’t it be released once the harbinger dies?”

“One would think so. But the act of binding an entity to a physical being is no simple feat. That type of spell, one that involves a soul, is more similar to an oath, and if either party enters into it unwillingly, or is forced into it, there are always consequences. Not to mention it was made through dark magic.”

“Like a blood oath,” I suggested.

“Similar,” the wraith said. “When that witch died, the ‘oath’ was still forged. And until the holder of the curse successfully releases the Aether from that oath, it will continue to resurface. It has no choice.”

“Wait,” Auren said. “If the witch attempted to break the curse, she was obviously willing to release the Aether. So, if she tried, but died in the process . . .”

“The Aether didn’t want to be let go,” Aremis finished.

The wraith shrugged. “Or the witch was not strong enough.”

“It does not take strength to release someone from an oath,” Aremis argued.

“Ah, but it is not physical strength I speak of. It is one’s will. How far are you willing to go to rid yourself of this entity?”

“What is the cost?”

“That is the question isn’t it? No one knows.”

Aremis didn’t reply. But I had a feeling he knew the answer.

Memories. Myself. That was the cost. Something I’d worked my entire life to hold onto. And the damned wraith might as well have just crumpled the notion like paper and thrown it into the fire.

The cost would be everything that made me who I was—all that I’d experienced. All that I longed for, but couldn’t let myself have.