Warrior of the Drowned Empire (Drowned Empire #6)

CHAPTER FOUR

MORGANA

I stared down at my feet, delicate and adorned with the golden straps of my sandals. The sand from the beach was sliding between my toes as the waves of the ocean gently lapped against them. The sun was setting as I held up my stave; the silver wood shone with just the smallest thread of gold from a suntree embedded within.

I was still getting used to using one. In the Above, as we now referred to it, we had no need for such things. Our magic, or rather, our will, simply was. But since we’d been cast down, pushed out from Heaven, more focus was needed, a tool to concentrate the mind, a way to direct the magic.

The waves crashed against the shore, rushing with far more ferocity than before. My toes were soaked, the waters were moving faster, the waves higher. The feeling was more visceral than anything I’d known. Everything was more visceral here. More alive. Brighter. Louder. Harsher. The water moved up my legs, darkening the orange color of my skirts. I could feel the material sticking to my thighs. I didn’t like it. A thought while Above would have simply adjusted the fabric for me. We lacked such concreteness there. But here, I’d have to manually remove the offending cloth, knowing the water would immediately force it back against me. So much of this world was like that. Working against you. Unyielding. Disagreeable. A constant wind blowing in the wrong direction. Nothing on this plane was easy.

“Ereshya?” Moriel’s voice was clear in my head.

“By the water,” I thought. “Where you found me yesterday morning.”

A second later his thick, muscled arms wrapped around me from behind.

“It’s been decided,” he said, his voice low. “It’s done.”

I’d been expecting this news, even though some part of me had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. A part of me even now wished for a better outcome.

“Are you sure?” I asked, turning in his arms. My eyes roved over his silky black hair, his dark, endless eyes. They had not changed, maintaining the echoes of eternity they’d possessed when Above. “Are you sure it must come to this?”

His face was grim. “I am sure.”

Darkness filled the atmosphere as he spoke. I could still feel his power, his strength, and the energy of his magic as easily as I had Above. But it was a small comfort against the rest of what we’d lost in banishment.

“The power of the Valalumir must be restored,” he said. “It must be made whole, and returned to its original form before it weakens further. And we must continue to do what we swore we would. Guard the light.” His arms tightened around me. “What are we, if not still bound by our oaths? The oaths we swore are eternal. I don’t care what the others do. Or what the Council says. We shall not be forsworn. Even down here, we remain Guardians of Light.”

My heart pounded at his proclamation. Lifting even as his words resonated. I hated being mortal. Hated the confines of this body. I could feel it trapping my mind and soul, squeezing me into this shrinking prison of skin and bones, caging what was once infinite. It felt wrong to bind such a thing.

But worst of all, I could feel it dying. Rationally, I knew it wouldn’t be for a long time. Maybe even a thousand years if we survived the war, but it was dying nonetheless, dying in a way my first form could not. The knowledge made my heart pound too quickly as if it were beating for every breath I would not take. The thought of death, however far off in the future, terrified me. Almost as much as the idea of being killed. Because I could be now. I was mortal. And so was he. And all the others.

Except for one.

One of us had more power than we’d been afforded, more strength. The very one who didn’t deserve any of it. The one who’d caused this, who’d forced us down here. Whose broken oaths had damned us all.

“Is it true?” I asked, squinting as a flare of the retreating sun cast itself forward.

“Is it true that the fool put part of the Red Light inside of her?” His hands ran up and down my arms and I turned again, leaning my back against his chest. This was also something I was still growing accustomed to. I was never sure if the strangeness of Moriel’s touch came from the fact that we’d spent lifetimes not touching. If my mind couldn’t move past the forbidden nature of such a thing. Or, if I simply could not accept the newness and physicality of my body. The way my skin felt, the way it sometimes hurt and burned, and the way it sometimes felt so good when he touched me that I wanted to scream and cry with gratitude. I felt like I was being constantly torn between pleasure and pain, satisfaction and yearning. It was all so confusing. And exhausting.

I missed being unbound, I missed the freedom of my ethereal body. The simplicity of it.

“Yes, he did,” Moriel growled. “The light was dying in its etheric form, and all he could manage was a sliver of it into her heart. He has ruined the Valalumir with his treachery, breaking what was once whole. Auriel has damned us again.”

“But to restore the light,” I said, “To restore the Valalumir from a crystal to its original form, won’t we need to remove what’s now inside Asherah? Is that even possible?”

“Of course, it is.” His fingers dug into my arms. “Nothing new is created. Nothing is ever fully destroyed, only changed. What goes in, must come out, however tied to her it is. We’ll remove it in the end.”

“But she’ll die.” I frowned. “Won’t she? If it’s removed?” My throat constricted. I’d never begrudge them their affair. The idea of love, of a soulmate, of mekarim … it sounded nice. More than nice, if I were honest. But I’d always thought of true love and soulmates as a kind of silly story. Something to dream about, to aspire to in the small moments of fantasy and dreams—not something to actualize. What made this even harder was the fact that for more years than I could count, Asherah and I had been close. Like sisters. I still found it difficult to do what I was doing now. To be here without her. To have chosen a side against her. To stay the course.

I feared for her. For her mortality. For her soul. Just as I feared terribly for mine. But Moriel was here for me, like he’d always been. Moriel understood what I was going through—understood in a way that almost no one else could.

Asherah had caused this. Asherah had damned us. And much as I cared for her—loved her, even—I knew the truth. Asherah had to pay for her crimes.

“Only her body will die,” Moriel said slowly as if contemplating mortality himself. “As all bodies in this realm will eventually. Her soul though?” He pressed his lips grimly together. “That’s another story.”

I took a deep breath, trying to process again the idea of dying, of death. Of what she’d experience. Of how she’d change form, and what she would become compared to what she once was. I tried again to reconcile the fact that despite the love I bore her, this was bigger than us. There was no other choice.

“So, we go to war.” The words were like wet sand in my mouth.

“We go to war.” Moriel rested his chin on my shoulder, his hands moving to my belly, rising to the curves of my breasts.

My stomach tightened with tension, and pleasure. Always both with him. “How? They’re all against us. Even the mortals. They worship Asherah and Auriel’s sacrifice. They think the Valalumir is a gift. We can’t fight them alone. Not with their support. Not with Asherah’s power. We’d need an army.”

“We have one.” Moriel’s words seemed to echo against the water, as his palms slid higher, rubbing against my suddenly sensitive nipples. They moved past my collarbone, and up to my face, until he covered my eyes. I sucked in a breath.

Did this pleasure come as a result of being untouched for so long? Or from the way my mortal body worked? Would it feel this way if anyone else touched me? Or was it just him, his hands, his fingers that wrought this reaction?

“Look, Ereshya,” he whispered into my ear. “Let me show you.”

I closed my eyes and allowed his memories to enter my mind. The vision he showed me was dark, a scene in the middle of the night. My inner sight needed to adjust, but when it did, I nearly gasped. I was looking straight into the evil, red eyes of an akadim. A monster.

Every instinct in my body told me to run. To get away. I had to remember it wasn’t really before me. It was Moriel’s memory. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any safer.

I braced myself, and looked back, looking the demon up and down. Another stood beside him, and another. I opened up my senses further, taking it all in. There was a row of the beasts, the akadim all standing at attention. And behind them, another. And another.

Despite my remembering where I was, that it was day, not night, that I was safe in Moriel’s arms, my chest pounded with a warning. I could not see how many rows of akadim had assembled. It seemed endless. The fear shot through me like an arrow. So many akadim. So many monsters.

“This is your army?” I choked out the words. I saw only death before me. Terror and violence. “Moriel, they’re demons. They tried to steal the Valalumir.” They were the reason we were summoned, the reason we were ripped from our families and made into Guardians. The reason we swore our eternity to keep it safe.

To keep it from them.

And, if the rumors were true, the reason why Auriel and Asherah fell.

“They may be demons,” he said. “But they can be more. They were once our ruin. Now, they become our salvation.”

I shook my head. “No. No. It’s not right. We fought against them for millennia. Longer. We exist to counteract them.”

“We did. Once. But no more. Now everything is different. Everything has changed. Now, the enemy is different. It unites us. Now we fight together.” His hands fell to my waist.

My heart still pounded, harder than before, and my eyes closed again as I swept through his memories, trying to see things differently, trying to see them his way. To see the demons as … not. As… more.

“You don’t agree,” he said at last.

“No. It …” Something crawled up my spine like a warning. “It feels wrong.”

His aura darkened, and I could sense it storming around me, the sound of thunder crashing had me nearly jumping out of my skin. And I was reminded of how his energy would fill the Hall of Records.

“Was it right,” he asked, “that I spent centuries diligently doing my duty, protecting the Light, only to be banished for another’s mistakes? Another’s weaknesses?” His grip on me tightened. “Was it right that Auriel not only couldn’t keep his hands to himself in Heaven, but had to steal the very Light we had sworn to protect? To bring it down here and ruin it? Was it right that I denied myself the feel and touch and taste of you for an eternity because I kept my oath? Was it right that the Council denied us the dignity of love and pleasure without cause, and then denied us our justice in the end?”

My throat went dry. “No.”

“No.” His voice hardened. “We are still Guardians of the Valalumir. Watchers of the Light. And though fallen, and forced to dwell down here, we are still Gods. We are still going to uphold our oath, our words. Auriel and Asherah may have forgotten themselves. The Council may have forgotten its point in existing. But I haven’t. I intend to make amends for the wrongs they have done to us. By any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary means akadim?” My voice shook. “Means allying with monsters? With mindless beasts?”

“Not allying,” he said. “Controlling.”

I turned back in his arms, staring into his darkening eyes. It was like staring into an endless night.

“Control?” I asked. “The akadim are leaderless. They answer to no one, not even amongst themselves. They have no ranks. No ruler.”

“They do now. I am their mind. I am their Arkturion. They bow before me, and they call me Maraak .”

King.

There was another flash in my mind, a memory of the magic he’d used to join their will to his. I didn’t understand how he’d done it. But I could feel it down to the bones of this body that he had done so. I was as sure of this as I was that this form would one day wither and die.

“I will control them,” he said. “I will keep them tempered, and useful. Keep them from destruction. They will have a purpose now. They will serve us, serve our mission. Whatever evil is inside of them will become obsolete. The good they do, their assistance in the restoration of the Light will justify the means used to do so. Of this, Ereshya, I swear.”

My body trembled. Even though the akadim weren’t in front of me, the vision of them had been terrifying. The monsters had been banished to Lumeria on Earth so long ago, I never thought them to be much more than scary children’s stories when I’d come into existence. Even after their attack in the celestial realm, I didn’t understand their threat. And now, they were far too real, and sharp, and violent. Like all things in this world. Even if Moriel had control over them, I didn’t trust them. Control could be broken. Control could be lost. Beasts were fickle.

“Do not be afraid, my lioness,” he said. “You are a warrior, and a goddess. You are so much stronger than them, and you will be their queen. They will worship you.” He pulled my hair back, his mouth suddenly hot against my neck, as his hands roamed lower, cupping my rear. “ Me Maraaka .”

My queen.

“Rule by my side,” he begged. “Rule with me, Ereshya. And I swear, I will kneel before you.”

I sucked in a breath, Moriel’s hands moved even lower, digging into my flesh, pushing himself harder against me, against this body that seemed to respond to his every touch, and every movement. My mind still didn’t understand it, but my body craved more.

“Are you ready?” he asked. “Ready to fight?”

I drew in a breath, weighing his words. “If we fight and we win, we restore the Valalumir to glory.”

He nodded.

“Then we can return home?” I asked, my hips moving against his. “We can plead to the Council. Restore our forms, our status.” My heart leapt at the idea of being a Goddess again in full. Of leaving behind this flesh. Of shedding my mortality, of escaping death. The thoughts only heightened my arousal. Hope was blooming inside my chest. “We can resume our duties.”

“No, my queen.” He lifted my leg, wrapping it around his hip, and I gasped at the newly deepened sensations. His fingers dug into my thigh, and he thrust creating friction between us. “We will not beg.” Thrust. “We will not prostrate ourselves before their unworthiness.” Thrust. “They banished us. And I will not forgive them, nor will I forget. Not until the end of time.” He was working me into a frenzy now. “The Council is no longer valid.” His voice deepened. “They have proven that time and time again with their decisions. We will stay here. We will make this our new realm. Our new Heaven.”

I bit my lip, starting to moan.

“Yes, my queen. Yes. We will rule over everyone, over everything. And then one day soon, we will rule over them.” He pushed the straps of my dress aside, his tongue smoldering hot on my neck. The material fell, pooling at my waist.

I startled awake, my chest pounding, my body covered in sweat.

Morgana. Morgana. Morgana! My name was Morgana. Lady Morgana Batavia. Previously Heir to the Arkasva, High Lord of Bamaria. Daughter to a father who was murdered. Killed by my aunt.

Morgana Batavia. That was who I was. That was my name. Not … Not …

I pushed my hands through my hair, black strands stuck to my forehead. There was a dripping sound, echoing in the caves of the Allurian Pass, soft sheets and blankets beneath me, and a chill in the damp winter air that blew through the stone corridors. A spitting fire crackled nearby.

But above it all, I still heard the cresting waves of the Lumerian Ocean. I still felt the heat of an ancient sun on skin I no longer possessed just as surely as I felt the lips of an ancient God kissing and sucking my neck, whispering an ancient name as an indigo-colored crystal sparkled beside me.

Ereshya. He was kissing—

Morgana! I was Morgana, born in the South of the Lumerian Empire. I grew up in the country of Bamaria. I lived in Cresthaven. I was twenty-one years old. I had two sisters. One older, one younger. Meera. Lyriana. I had a cousin whom I adored. Jules. Another I couldn’t stand. Naria. I was a mage. I was a student. I was a noble. And I was a lady.

I was real. I was real. And I was alive. Mortal. Not a Goddess. Not a Guardian. Morgana. Morgana! Not Ereshya. Not Ereshya.

Not. Ereshya.

I gasped for breath, my chest so tight it hurt. An akadim growled in the distance, and I scrubbed at my eyes still seeing images of that beach destined to sink beneath the tides of the ocean.

Staring down at my hands, I saw larger ones than I was used to, elongated fingers, darker skin on my body, tanner than I had ever achieved in this life. Not the hands of Morgana. These were the hands of …

I thrust them under the covers and tried to breathe, still trying desperately to calm my pounding heart. Gods, I was so sick of this. Of everything. Of the damp, darkened corridors that plagued my days. The endless Glemarian winter. The smell of must and sulfur. The incessant dripping sounds that came at all hours. Worst of all, I was sick of the grunts of monsters roaming the caverns at night.

A dark shadow filled my mind. Calm. Calm. This is only temporary. You’ll have your own palace soon, Aemon thought. The finest in the Empire. Finer than anything the Emperor has ever dreamed of.

I stared straight ahead, and grimaced, focusing on imagining an onyx wall around my thoughts, a dark labyrinth blocking him from entering.

But with a brush of his magic against me, the wall crumbled. His power was growing alarmingly fast every hour, just by being near the shard of the Valalumir I possessed. It should have strengthened my own power, too, but I hadn’t figured out how to use it yet. Instead, I could only sense Aemon drawing more deeply from its magic. Siphoning its power as easily as he took oxygen with each breath.

Shadows darkened my room as he stepped through the threshold, his aura heavy with something that stirred inside of me, memories of an endless, and eternally starry night.

You could come out with me , he thought. If you want.

He sat on the edge of my bed, dressed as I’d so often seen him in his Arkturion armor and cloak. The gold seraphim feathers that curved over his shoulders had been shined and sharpened to perfection. Even his red cloak appeared brand new. For over a year, this had been the form in which I’d always ignored him. This wasn’t my consort. The other version of him was. The one I was always waiting for, the one I saw in the darkness, the one who removed his armor in my presence. The one I’d allowed to be someone else—someone secret.

“You haven’t forgiven me yet,” he said. “And I understand. But I need you to remember that we are still on the same side.” He tilted his head, his eyes raking up and down my body leaving a shiver, pulsing in my core. They were his eyes, my lover’s eyes, and they were Moriel’s all at once. “Come with me,” he pleaded. “Breathe fresh air, feel the sky above your head, the sun against your skin. Leave this cave you hate so much. It will be good for you.”

I still refused to respond, attempting to keep my mind blank, to reforge my mental walls.

“Kitten,” he admonished, “Your stubbornness does not serve you. You’ll only wear yourself down trying to keep me out. You need your strength.”

“Stop it!” I cried. “Stop invading my mind! Stop calling me that! Stop! Just stop!”

“Hmmmm. There you are.” His lips curled into something seductive and sinister. “Tell me. What would you like me to call you, if not kitten? What if I called you Ereshya?”

My heart beat faster, and something inside of my soul wanted to answer yes. Wanted to claim the name, to claim everything that came with it. His love, my power, the strength and rule of a Goddess. Of a Guardian. Even the memories I was having—the ones that felt more recent and real than my own as Morgana—they, too, wanted me to answer yes. Wanted to be Ereshya. My body remembered his body perfectly, and my soul wanted to hear another name on his lips. An ancient name. My first name.

But I shook my head.

“You’re remembering, aren’t you?” he said. “Remembering who you were.”

“So?” I snapped. “So what if I am? What does it fucking matter?” It had been three nights since I’d made my choice. Since I’d betrayed my sisters, and taken the indigo shard from Lyr. I hadn’t handed it over to Aemon yet, even though it was once his. It was all that remained of the Indigo Ray he’d protected as Moriel. As much as he was pleased with my deception, I hadn’t done it for him. I knew Godsdamned well what he was, knew he was dangerous. He’d led me and my sisters into grave danger just to get what he wanted. He’d forced us to become pawns in his game, and then had us tortured, and nearly gotten us and our bodyguards killed.

I had no intention of forgiving him for that. Not now. Not ever.

Nor did I have any intention of giving him what he wanted.

“It matters when your past memories return,” he said. “That knowledge, those memories, they aren’t harmless. They change things, they change you. When you remember who you are, who you were, you remember your truth. And when that happens, you can never be the same again.” Ereshya, he purred the name into my mind, causing shivers to race down my arms.

“No,” I said, carefully eyeing the Valalumir shard on the bed. I’d taken to sleeping beside it. Unnecessary since it had been cursed by Auriel for its protection. He’d made it so it could never be taken by Moriel, or anyone else, ever again. And thanks to my betrayal, because Lyr had handed it to me, it was mine. Until I surrendered it to him.

If I surrendered it to him.

Aemon had only asked me to relinquish my claim once since that first day. I’d refused, waiting for him to explode and attack me with all of his strength, and magic. Or worse, order his akadim to attack me for him. I’d braced for it. But he’d remained calm, and nodded as if I were being perfectly reasonable.

“As you wish,” he’d said at my refusal. And then he turned away from me to talk at length with an akadim. I’d noticed this one in particular because he was different from the others. He had the same paleness in his skin, the same fangs slicing past his lips, and the glowing red of the beasts’ eyes. But the similarities between him and the others ended there. He somehow looked less demonic than the rest. He was shorter, his hands were clawed, but almost finely so, and something in his face retained its mortality in a way I couldn’t explain. He seemed intelligent, alert, almost as if he were halfway between being alive and akadim.

I waited the rest of that day and night for a second request for the shard, waited after Mercurial came and taunted me one last time that I’d made a mistake.

But Aemon didn’t ask again. Nor did he try to take the shard from me by any other means. I was left alone, cared for with regular meals and private baths.

The crystal, made of pure indigo light from the Valalumir, shimmered next to me, right where I’d left it when I fell asleep.

You feel its power, Ereshya, don’t you? he thought.

My fingers curled. “My name is Morgana. I am not Ereshya.”

“You are both.”

“I am n—”

“You are! You’re not just remembering her. You’re dreaming of being her.” His voice was dripping with seduction.

I stilled. It was no secret, and yet I felt utterly naked hearing him say it out loud.

“Come now,” he said. “I’ve known your mind a long time—you can’t hide from me. You never could. Not even back then. Sleeping with the shard as your bedfellow is going to call out to the parts of you that remember. It’s going to awaken Ereshya inside you. I know this, because it’s bringing me back in time, too. Do you think it was just you? It wasn’t. I was also there. I also felt it. Your leg wrapped around my hip. My hands sliding over your ass as the ocean rushed against our feet. My tongue licking the salt of your skin, your moans deep in your throat. Your nipples hard against my chest. You were so wet for me—”

“It was a dream!” I shouted.

“Yes, a dream.” His eyes flashed. “But also a memory.”

“And if I remember? If I forget I am Morgana and become Ereshya again, do you think that matters? Do you think if that happens, that I will then present it to you, and become pliable? That I could ever trust you again?”

“You were not so pliable back then either. As for trusting me again? You will,” he said simply. “We go back millennia, you and I. Lifetimes have bound us together. But I will prove myself to you. And soon. You will not only know what it is like being Morgana. You will know what it is to become Ereshya. You will no longer just know me as Aemon, or him. But as Moriel, your king. Your consort. More of your memories will come now. More vividly, with more details. They’ll come faster until you don’t know where Morgana ends and Ereshya begins. You will forget which life you are living at times. Soon, there will be days and nights when Morgana will be the part of you that feels like a memory.”

Dread filled me. Gods. I didn’t want that. But something softened inside of me as I met his gaze. “Is that how it is for you?”

He watched me carefully. “Sometimes. I have never not known a time when I didn’t recall my past life as Moriel. I have spent years feeling like I was living between lives, losing moments of my life here and now, disoriented when I’d been transported back. Every year, more memories stirred, woke my soul even further.” His eyes met mine. “Sometimes the most intense memories came when I was inside of you.”

I shook my head. “Don’t.”

“What does it matter in the end? I am who I am. I don’t have to separate myself from one life to the other. Nothing new is ever created. Nor is it destroyed—only changed. It’s all just one continuous, eternal loop. Never-ending. Like a God.”

My throat tightened again, my pulse pounding as I began to truly realize what that meant—the power he could unleash.

The power I could reach for.

“Trust me when I tell you,” he said, “that the past not only mattered back then, but still matters now, matters even more so than before. There was never a time when I wasn’t going to actively finish what was started. There was never a timeline or chance that this war wouldn’t continue. My soul knew it then, and my soul knows it now. It was prophesied ages ago. This war was inevitable.”

I shook my head. “Not all prophecies come true. And you forget, this isn’t my war.”

“Isn’t it?” His aura seemed to pulse, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement. “You’re foolish if you think it’s not.”

“I’m not. And it isn’t,” I said more urgently. “We’re not them anymore. Don’t you see? Memories are memories—they are the past. Irrelevant. They can remain where they belong. Nothing is forcing us to relive what happened! Admit this is a war that you do not have to fight.” Because it was a war I could not bear. A war that would make my sister my enemy.

“Isn’t it though?” he sneered. “Or did you forget all we’ve learned? Did you forget what the Empire would have done to you if you had been caught with your vorakh? Or Meera? Did you forget what they’ve already done to Jules?” His voice rose. “What they’re still doing to her!”

I flinched.

“Tell me,” he demanded, “how many nights did you search Bamaria, fucking every person you could find for answers? You cannot lie to me. I know you want her free, just as I do. Just as I want every vorakh freed from the enslavement of the Empire. Or is that not what you want? Not what you sacrificed everything for?”

I closed my eyes, my chest tight. I had sacrificed everything, before I’d known what I was doing. Before I knew the true cost. “I still want that.” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“But you won’t fight with me,” he said plainly.

“I want to fight the Empire. The Emperor. The Imperators. I want to crush the system that enslaved our kind.” Something inside me began to burn. “I want to hurt the people that took Jules away. That ruined my family. But not this. Not this other fight I know you’re planning. To go against my sisters. To go after more shards of the Valalumir. To reinstate a war that ended centuries ago. That’s the fight I don’t want.”

“And you think we can take down a thousand-year-old Empire with anything less than full power behind us? Without the power of the shards? Of the whole Valalumir? I need you to remember who you are—who you truly are now. Remember how we came together. Remember that we want the same things. That we have the same goals. Remember that even if I went about things in ways you did not like, it was for the greater good. We are meant to work together.”

I scoffed. “That was before. Before I knew you were Moriel. Before you betrayed me, and my family.” I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t forgive him. Because if I did … I lost myself.

“You found out the truth when you could handle hearing that information and not a moment sooner. Unless you want things to continue as they are, for the world to remain still, for your family and Ka to remain enslaved or worse, you will have no choice but to work with me. This is bigger than your own wants and needs. I tried to show you, to teach you. To prepare you. You grew up too privileged this time, and it was my duty to make sure you were ready.”

“Ready?” I spat. “You tortured me!”

“And yet,” he said, “in the end, you made the right choice. You betrayed your sisters. You kept my shard. Because you knew. You knew it had to be done. You knew your work had to be with me, and not them. And you are too afraid to admit it. Too afraid I’m right. Too afraid to admit exactly who you are.”

A liar. A Goddess. One who’d do anything to get my way. One who’d do anything to protect the ones I loved, even if I had to hurt them to do so. Because it was the only choice I had.

To take down the most powerful force in this world, we needed an even greater power. We needed a weapon unknown to them. A weapon they could not control.

And the longer I was in the dark of this cave, the more I realized the role I had to play, even if I was still railing against it. Because in the end, there was a simple truth about me. One I’d been running from for a very long time.

I wasn’t warm and friendly like Jules. I wasn’t graceful and mannered like Meera. And I wasn’t patient enough to play the game like Lyr, bandaging every wound, smiling through the pain and sustaining half a life until the time was right.

I’d been born different.

I was meant to destroy.

And knowing that, knowing that I was not like them? That had been the hardest truth to swallow. Harder than losing my sisters. Harder than the look of betrayal in Lyr’s face when she’d realized what I’d done. And the one in Meera’s when she saw me for what I was—when I realized I’d have to give her up, that I might never see her again. I’d told her we could fight the Empire, told her there was a way. That we could figure it out. That despite Aemon’s betrayal, we could work with him. I told her that Lyr wouldn’t understand, but she could.

Except she didn’t. Meera was against it. She wanted to escape, to go home. To see things right in Bamaria first.

How did I explain to her that it wouldn’t matter what was happening in Bamaria if we didn’t make a change at the top of the Empire? That it would never matter if the system of our oppression wasn’t destroyed?

Maybe I could have tried to explain it better, maybe I hadn’t wanted to. Maybe I’d wanted to send her away, to also take my revenge on Aemon. But it was done. The sides were drawn. And ever since, every second without Meera next to me—the first time in my life I’d ever been away from her—hurt.

Aemon pushed what remained of my blankets to the floor, his hand sliding up my leg. For a second, the heat from my dream returned, pooling in my belly with the knowledge that his touch brought pleasure, brought peace. That it was familiar, that he had brought me to ecstasy countless times before.

But I kicked out of his hold, rejecting his touch.

“Your choice,” he said. “I’m leaving today. There’s something I must do. If you do not wish to work with me now, then so be it. I give you this time to think. But you should use it wisely. I will return to you within a few days and I will expect an answer.”

“You’re leaving me alone. Here? With them?” I asked, suddenly panicked. I’d been walking amongst the akadim for days—fuck, I’d been with them for weeks since my abduction. By now, I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. But they still terrified me. Even the smaller, more human-like one. “Are you going to lock me up, too?”

“No. That’s not befitting of your station. Do not fear being alone with the akadim. You are their queen. Their maraaka. They worship you. They will fight for you. Die for you.”

I took a shaky breath. I didn’t want akadim to worship me. I wanted nothing to do with them. And yet … I feared being on my own with them.

“You won’t be alone,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Parthenay will keep you company.”

Parthenay, that bitch vorakh who’d tricked me. Who’d led me and Meera into the trap that allowed the akadim to take us. She was also the one who’d captured Lyr and Rhyan, the one who’d brought them here. She was the one who ruined everything.

“Company?” I scoffed. “Seems more like my guard dog.”

“She is both. You’re prolonging the inevitable. The sooner you acquiesce the better.”

I stared ahead. Hating everything. Wishing I could go back in time, back to when none of us were vorakh. Before Jules was taken, before a shadowed man whispered into my mind and slipped into my bed.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“The capital.”

I froze. “To Numeria? Wha—What are you doing there?”

He eyed me up and down, waiting a moment before he said, “Freeing a vorakh. One I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a very, very long time.”

“Jules?” I asked, my heart pounding.

His eyebrows narrowed. “Not just yet.”

“Because you don’t have the shard?”

“Because it’s not time, and I have other priorities. Something is coming. And if we are going to succeed, we need to be as prepared as possible. You took away one Lumerian with visions from my arsenal. So, I shall bring home another. One far more advanced in seeing the threads of the future than your sister.”

“A chayatim?” I asked. They were the cloaked ones, the vorakh hidden in the Emperor’s service.

Aemon nodded.

“Why now?”

His eyes fell on the shard. “It has strengthened me. Enough for this.”

“Can’t you free Jules?” I asked, hating how desperate and hopeful my voice had become. I was shaking with the request. “Please?”

“I will free them all. Every last one. I told you before, and I will tell you again. I do not allow vorakh to suffer. But even I have my limits, even I must play their games to achieve what we want—at least, I must while I remain without the shard.”

My pulse thumped. I knew what he was doing. Manipulating me, wearing me down. I couldn’t give in … couldn’t allow it. Not yet.

His lips tugged, reading my mind. “We will take Jules away from Numeria—she cannot remain with them. But not yet. I only have strength for one. Unless you change your mind, unless you’re willing to give me what I want, then I take my leave.”

I almost wanted to say yes. If it meant freeing Jules. And if I was there, too … maybe I could redirect him from hunting my sisters.

Unless they were hunting me. My throat constricted, and I reminded myself that this man had kidnapped me, had held me prisoner in the most horrific conditions. I would not give him what he wanted. Even if the price was Jules.

“What if I try to run while you’re gone?” I asked. “Go after Jules by myself? I’m a Guardian. A vorakh. And unlike you, I have the shard.”

“And you will fail. Force alone will not be enough—not the kind of force you’re describing. You’ll only make it harder to free them in the end.” He flexed his fingers. “But know this, Morgana. If you work against me, I will send my akadim to hunt down your sisters. As well as Auriel’s current incarnation.”

“You’ve already done that,” I gritted my teeth.

“I sent orders for them to be hunted and kept whole. No harm. But I don’t need them to be brought before me in such a state. Nor do I much prefer them alive. That is a courtesy I extended to you. I can just as easily tell my akadim to bring them back in chains. As forsaken. I can have them returned as akadim. Or presented to you as torsos without arms and legs.”

“No,” I said, feeling my own aura intensify, pushing back against his. “You can’t hurt them.”

“And yet, you will not hand over the shard. You choose them over Jules.”

“You’re making me choose!”

“The Empire is making you!” he yelled. “You just don’t see it yet. I can’t make you do anything.”

“No? Then how the fuck did I get here?” I growled. “I swear to you now, if you hurt them, you’ll never see the shard again!” I took the crystal into my hands, slowly, sensually sliding my finger down its length as I’d done to him on countless nights. I twirled it before him, taunting him. “How long do you think before I can wield this against you?”

His nostrils flared, the room flickering with darkness as his eyes tracked the movement between my hands. The crystal began to warm, glowing brighter. It was recognizing him, recognizing Moriel.

But it was still mine. It still belonged to me until I said otherwise. And with that thought, its glow dimmed, and Aemon was released from whatever spell he’d fallen under.

“See?” I sneered. “See how it answers to me?”

His hand wrapped around my throat, his fingers squeezing. “I will wait for you,” he said. “For a time. But I have eyes on your sisters, and Rhyan. They are safe for now.” He squeezed harder. “Safe from me, at least. But they are my enemies—and yours—until they decide otherwise. You remember one moment in eternity now, but there’s a thousand years’ worth of war and hatred between us.” Aemon released his hold on me and lifted my chin. “Talk to Parthenay if you get lonely.”

He stood, looking down at me, his eyes shifting longingly to the crystal at my side. His aura intensified. Darkening, threatening.

His dark eyes flashed, and then he turned, leaving me once more alone, the monstrous growls of the beasts echoing against the walls. Only the faint light of indigo was my companion.

I turned the shard again, feeling its power vibrate and pulse in my hands.

His power would grow even more. I couldn’t stop it.

But my power would increase as well.

I closed my eyes, feeling the shard’s magic, feeling its strength, imagining it was mine. Imagining I knew what to do, that I had the power to wield it.

Something moved through me, a shock of magic.

You chose wrong, Ereshya. Again. Mercurial’s laugh rang like a bell in my mind .

I tightened my hold on the shard, staring down an akadim who passed the threshold of my room, his pale skin mixed with the light of the shard made him appear almost blue.

We’ll see about that, Mercurial. We’ll see.

The beast grumbled, its red eyes tracking my every movement.

“Get out,” I seethed, my heart pounding furiously. The akadim rushed off in fear, and my eyes widened. Once again, I was alone.