Chapter 3
Morgana
Istudy Leon’s face for any sign of change, running my hands over his still body, trying to sense any flicker of him through the mooring.
I stop when I reach the sharp lines of his cheeks. Is he a little paler than before? Is his heartbeat weaker? I worry I missed something vital in the minutes I stepped away to argue with Respen.
“There’s no change, Ana.”
The voice makes me start, and I turn to see Tira behind me. Behind her is a crowd of people—so many they can’t all fit in the chamber, leaving Stratton hovering in the doorway and Hyllus looming behind him. They’re all looking at me expectantly.
“What is it?” I say, hope twisting in me like a knife.
“We might’ve come up with a plan to save Leon,” Mal says. “And—”
“Might,” Phaia interrupts. “If you don’t destroy them both while you’re at it.”
“Let the man speak,” Damia bites back.
“Yes,” I say. “Let him speak.”
“It’s very experimental,” Mal continues, glancing at Phaia, as if to say See? I’m giving her all the facts.
“It’s also very dangerous,” Alastor cuts in.
“But it’s probably the only way for Leon to live,” Lafia says.
She sounds so sure, a gravity to her words that makes it hard to remember she’s still just a teenager who was brainwashed by the Temple not so long ago.
She’s endured more hardship in her short lifetime than most, and from what I can see, it’s made her practical. I trust her judgment.
“I’ll do it,” I say, squaring my shoulders.
“How about you wait a moment and get the full explanation before you sign your life away?” Alastor says darkly.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll do whatever it takes to bring him back. I don’t care—”
“You’d have to give up a piece of your soul,” Mal blurts out.
It pulls me up short.
“What?” I ask. “How?” A few days ago, I didn’t even know you could remove a soul at all, let alone a piece of one.
“It would only work because of this binding magic on you both. The sawlamoor?” Mal says, glancing at Damia for confirmation of the name. She gives a curt nod. “One of the points of connection is between your souls; it’s why you feel so bad now, with Leon’s soul adrift.”
“Bad” is maybe the understatement of the century.
“But his soul didn’t go anywhere,” Lafia jumps in. “It’s still here. It just got pulled out of his body and can’t find its way back. If you sent a piece of your soul out after it, it could act like a tether, a line from him to the bond, helping him find his way back.”
“Like a mooring line,” I say.
A fierce energy blossoms in my chest. I can bring you back, I call into the gaping absence where Leon should be. I’ll bring you home.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to another word of this.
” Healer Yanda pushes her way through the fae and humans, her hands thrown up in disgust. “People aren’t meant to break up their souls like this.
It’s just wrong. Why don’t you tell her the consequences, hmm?
Funny how you don’t seem eager to mention those. ”
“Morgana,” Alastor says, and it makes me stand straighter.
He rarely calls me by my full name. “If you do this, your lifeline will probably be tied to Leon’s.
Even if this saves him for now, the day will come when he dies.
On that day, the piece of your soul attached to him will die too, killing you. ”
“On the other hand, we predict you’ll also live as long as him,” Lafia says. “You’ll age slowly, like the fae.”
Alastor throws her a frustrated look. “It’s not all sunshine and rainbows living for centuries, you know—”
“I don’t care about any of that,” I say, ignoring their bickering. “Whether it’s next week or three hundred years from now, I don’t want to live in a world without Leon anyway.”
I don’t tell them I had been contemplating making sure I didn’t, at least until I realized I wouldn’t be able to join Leon in the afterlife. I need them to think I’m calm and rational so they’ll tell me how to do this thing.
Yanda shakes her head, huffing in disapproval.
“I can’t be present for this,” she says. “It’s against the healer’s oath. I’d say you shouldn’t be performing such an atrocity on ground sacred to Viscalis, but the sanctuary is technically the fae’s to do with as they wish.”
“Yes it is,” Damia says severely.
“Leave off, Damia,” Phaia says as Yanda storms out of the room.
I’ve never heard the silver-haired fae sound so angry before.
“She’s just trying to stop you all from making a huge mistake.
Being moored to someone without their soul is bad enough, but to go around messing with such a powerful connection…
” The horror on her face surprises me. It’s as if she has some small concept of what I’m going through—and she thinks letting Leon die, and the mooring with it, is better than this.
But that’s not an option for me. I shake my head, and she huffs with frustration, though her voice is gentler now when she addresses me.
“We don’t know what might happen to a person who gives up some of their soul. To them or the mooring. All kinds of things could go wrong—”
“As you said, we don’t know. There could be no side effects, or some I don’t mind living with.
Or there could be terrible side effects.
There’s no way to be sure, so there’s no point in talking about it,” I say.
“I’m willing to accept the consequences—whatever comes.
It’s my soul. I get to decide what to do with it. ”
And I can’t think of anything more worthwhile than breaking it apart to save Leon. After all, I already feel shattered into pieces. What’s a few more cracks?
“What about what Leon would want for your soul?” Alastor says quietly. My heart sinks. I don’t know how much longer I can keep having this conversation before I scream.
“Don’t you want me to save your best friend?” I snap.
He shakes his head. “This is your choice to make—gods know Leon’s made drastic choices for the both of you when he had to—but I don’t want this if it means losing another friend,” he says. “And I know Leon would agree with me.” His eyes fall on Leon’s body.
I close my eyes. Though I’m touched by Alastor’s words, they don’t alter my determination.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “but he’s not here to argue his case, and my mind is made up.” I turn to Mal. “Do what you need to do.”
“Morgana…” Alastor looks like he wants to keep arguing with me, but for once, he doesn’t have the words. He just closes his mouth and bows his head regretfully as Mal beckons Corrin forward.
“We talked about it earlier. What it would take, I mean. I can do the bit of this that involves blood magic. But we also need a magical proxy—a version of you that could symbolize your soul.”
“It was that stupid game at the ball that gave me the idea,” Tira says to me. “We can use shadows.”
“That’s where I come in,” says Corrin, offering a slight bow.
“Thank you,” I say to the crime lord, a little surprised by his willingness to help. Fighting together for Trova is one thing; dabbling in experimental magic is something else entirely.
He shrugs. “We all do extreme things in the name of love, Your Highness.”
I catch him glancing toward the soldiers, just as Damia looks away, her eyes landing on Leon. Fairon is standing closest to his brother, and I realize how quiet he’s been throughout this whole conversation.
“Do you have any objections?” I ask him.
He raises an eyebrow.
“You saved me already, Princess Morgana. It seems too much to ask for you to save my brother as well—at such risk to yourself. And yet, if your mind is already made up, I won’t argue. Filusia will owe you an immeasurable debt.”
Mal steps toward me, drawing the knife from his belt.
“Perhaps it’s better the healers aren’t here for this bit anyway,” he mutters.
He takes my hand, stretching my fingers out to reveal my palm. Unlike dryads, who grow up in Agathyre and swear the healer’s oath, he has no qualms shedding blood. Not usually. But now I see the hesitation in the way he’s gripping the knife.
I put my hand over his, guiding the tip of his knife against my skin. The cool metal grazes it, a caress that promises more pain to come. It doesn’t matter. Nothing can compare to the pain I’m already in.
He presses down, and I hiss as the blade slices through my skin, drawing a line of bright blood across my hand. Lafia steps forward with a bowl. Mal quickly tilts my hand so that the blood drips into it, pressing my flesh to speed up the flow.
When he’s satisfied he has enough, he takes my hand again and rubs a firm finger across my cut, brows furrowed in concentration. I wince at the sharp spark of magic, but when he lifts his finger away, the bleeding cut has been replaced by a dark purple scab.
They do the same to Leon, taking his hand and drawing blood to collect in the same bowl.
“We’ll need to do this in the entrance chamber,” Mal explains. “It’s the only place with enough floor space.” He walks slowly out of the room, carrying the bowl of blood in front of him like it could explode at any moment.
I feel guilty when I realize what we’re really asking him to do. Mal holds Leon’s fate in his hands—mine too, if the healers’ warnings are accurate. When we follow him out to the entrance chamber and he places the bowl on the floor, I touch his shoulder, meeting his gaze.
“If this goes wrong, if neither Leon nor I come back, it’s not your fault.” I look up at Fairon. “I don’t want anyone blaming him.”
The Filusian prince nods. “We know this was your choice, princess. We won’t hold anyone else accountable for that.”
Lafia is already murmuring beside Mal, explaining something to him.
Mal dips his finger in the blood and begins to trace patterns onto the floor, shapes that he stops to check with Lafia as he goes.
I recognize a few as the same pieces of ancient Agathyrian carved on the outside of this temple, but there are others mixed in.