Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
MORGANA
I can’t go outside during the day anymore.
That’s the first thing I learn about my new existence.
Three days after Prague, I make the mistake of stepping onto the balcony at noon. I don’t even think about it, only feeling the pull of air, the openness beyond glass doors. For a moment, I forget what I’ve become.
The moment direct sunlight touches my skin it feels like being stabbed with hot needles.
I jerk back inside with a hiss, shadows rising on instinct to shield me, curling around my body as if they are afraid I might fracture without them.
Azrael finds me like that, slumped against the wall, breathing too fast, fingers clenched in the dark hem of my dress.
“Sunlight?” he asks quietly.
“Sunlight.” I look down at my hands.
The shadow tattoos are glowing faintly, pulsing in time with my heartbeat as if they are laughing at me. “It burns.”
“You’re shadow-touched now. True shadow.
” He kneels beside me, his hand hovering just above my skin as if he is checking for damage only he can see.
“Direct sunlight will always hurt. Dawn and dusk, you can tolerate. Full day?” He pauses, then shakes his head once.
“You’ll need to stay inside or use heavy enchantments. ”
A laugh slips out of me, sharp and empty.
“So I’m a vampire now. Great.”
“You’re a Shadow Queen.” His fingers finally touch my forearm, tracing one of the black markings that winds up my skin like ink given life. “This comes with costs.”
He’s not wrong.
The last three days have been an education in everything I’ve lost and gained.
I’m stronger now. I can lift furniture that should take three guards to move.
I’m faster too, able to cross entire corridors in blurred motion, as if the palace itself cannot decide where I am supposed to be.
My shadow magic no longer requires focus.
It answers thought alone, like it’s always been waiting for me to stop pretending I was separate from it.
But I also need darkness the way humans need air.
Too long in brightly lit spaces, and I feel drained, exhausted. My sleep schedule has inverted completely—awake all night, sleeping through the day.
Even food tastes wrong now.
Everything is dull. Blunted. Like I am chewing through layers of cotton that used to be flavor, texture, life.
“You will adjust,” Azrael says, watching me carefully. “Kira did. Celeste did. You will too.”
Kira. Celeste.
The other human women who became Elemental queens.
I met Kira briefly in London when retrieving the last mirror piece. Celeste, I will meet soon because today is the emergency summit.
Representatives from all five courts are arriving.
And not all of them are coming with the intention of accepting that I exist.
“Nervous?” Azrael asks.
“Terrified.” I stand and smooth down my dress as if it can smooth anything else about me.
It is shadow-silk, the kind of fabric that moves like it’s alive. It adjusts to my body, to my temperature, to every subtle shift in me as if it is listening. It never wrinkles. It never forgets.
“I am about to face centuries-old rulers who think I am an illegitimate pretender,” I say.
“You’re about to face politicians.” He steps closer, steadying me with a hand on my waist. “You’ve stolen from dictators and crime lords. This is just a different kind of theft.”
“Except instead of stealing artifacts, I’m stealing legitimacy.”
“Exactly.” His smile is sharp now, almost approving. “So show them why you deserve it.”
The throne room has been prepared for the summit.
Five pairs of thrones stand in a semicircle: Storm, Flame, Earth, Frost, and Shadow. Ours are at the center, raised slightly above the rest. Black glass and silver. Shadow-marks carved into the armrests match the ones beneath my skin, as if the throne itself is trying to recognize me.
I’m wearing my crown for the first time.
Black diamonds set into shadow-forged metal, heavy enough that my neck already aches beneath the weight.
Azrael placed it on my head himself.
“Symbols matter,” he had said. “Especially to those who doubt you.”
Now I sit beside him, back straight, hands folded in my lap, every inch of me trying to look like something I am not yet sure I believe.
A queen.
Even though my heart is beating too fast.
Even though part of me is still waiting for someone to tell me this was a mistake.
The first portal opens with a crack of displaced air and shifting light.
The Storm Court arrives.
Draven steps through first, followed by Kira and a small honor guard. He is exactly as I remember him. Tall. Controlled. Powerful in the way storms are powerful when they have not yet broken. His eyes, storm-grey and assessing, sweep the room like nothing here is allowed to surprise him.
Then Kira sees me, her face breaking into a grin.
“Oh thank god,” she says immediately, breaking every rule of protocol in a single breath. “You’re here. I was really hoping I would not be the only terrified human in the room.” She follows up with a wink.
Draven exhales like he has suffered personally for her sentence. “Kira?—”
“What? Look at her; she’s obviously terrified.” Kira strides forward without hesitation, ignoring every formal boundary between courts. “I was the same at my first summit. Wanted to throw up in a decorative urn.”
Despite everything tightening inside me, I laugh. “There are decorative urns?”
“Everywhere.” She nods seriously. “It’s a problem.”
She reaches the base of the thrones and looks up at me with sharp, assessing intelligence that does not feel unkind.
“You’re the one who sealed the rifts,” she says. “Saved both worlds. That’s pretty badass.”
“I’m the one who broke the seal and opened them in the first place,” I correct.
“And then you fixed it,” she says simply. “That counts.”
Her gaze flicks to Azrael. “She’s going to be fine. Stop hovering.”
“I am not hovering–” he begins.
“You are hovering.” But Kira’s tone is fond. She turns back to me. “We’ll talk later. Lady talk. About how weird it is to suddenly have magic and politics and centuries-old husbands who brood professionally.”
“I like her,” I say before I can stop myself.
“I do not brood,” Azrael and Draven say simultaneously.
Kira and I exchange a look.
She winks again.
I definitely like her.
The Flame Court arrives next.
Kai and Celeste step through together, fire and control made human shape. Kai radiates contained intensity, like something constantly on the edge of ignition. Celeste looks more composed, her flame-red hair falling perfectly as if even chaos obeys her.
Celeste is polished in ways Kira isn’t, but when she smiles at me, it’s genuine.
“Welcome to the madness,” she says. “Fair warning. Summit politics makes normal royal courts look sane.”
“Wonderful,” I mutter.
Then the air shifts again.
The Earth Court arrives.
The ambassador steps through first. A Shadow courtier announces her name—Thessaly.
She’s composed in a way that feels like discipline sharpened into something dangerous. Long, graceful limbs. Dark skin. Eyes that look at me as if I am something that should not have been allowed to survive.
Behind her, another figure follows. Taller, broader, presence quieter but heavier. The temperature drops in a way that feels intentional.
The Frost Court.
Boreas is the name of this ambassador.
His gaze sweeps the room once, sharp and calculating, before settling into stillness at Thessaly’s side, as if he is choosing, very deliberately, not to take center stage.
“So this is the human pretender,” she says. No hesitation. No softness. Not even an attempt at diplomacy.
Azrael’s shadows darken around the edges of the room. “Choose your next words carefully, Ambassador.”
“Or what?” Thessaly’s smile is thin and cruel. “You’ll threaten the Earth Court over your pet?”
Something in me tightens.
“She was human,” Thessaly continues, turning slightly so everyone can hear her clearly. “Born without magic. Without heritage. Without any claim to rule the Shadow Court by birth or right.”
I force myself to stay still.
To stay seated.
To not react.
“I was human,” I say evenly. “Now I’m not.”
“Transformation does not erase what you were,” she replies. “Your blood is tainted. Your legitimacy is nonexistent.”
Her gaze sweeps across the other courts as if inviting agreement.
“The Shadow Court’s throne should pass to proper bloodlines. Not to a common thief who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
The words land harder than they should.
Because part of me hears them and does not argue.
I am a thief.
I did get lucky.
What right do I actually have to sit on this throne?
“Morgana’s bloodline traces directly to the mirror-crafters,” Azrael says. His voice is ice. Controlled, but only just. “Her family guarded the seal pieces for centuries. She was prophesied.”
“By texts written by the same bloodline,” Thessaly waves dismissively. “Convenient.”
Her expression barely changes, but her attention shifts to the other thrones.
Storm is watching. Flame is listening. Frost is calculating.
She knows exactly what she’s doing and exactly what she wants the room to do next.
“Morgana saved both worlds,” Kira cuts in immediately. “That seems like a pretty solid claim to me.”
“The Storm Court would support anyone who aligns with your political interests,” Thessaly replies without looking at her. Then her attention returns to me, sharp as a blade.
“Tell me, Queen Morgana,” she says softly. “Can you even use shadow magic without burning out? Or are you simply a glorified vessel for your husband’s power?”
The throne room goes silent.
Everyone is watching, waiting to see how I respond.
I could remain seated. Let Azrael defend me. Play it safe.
Instead, I stand.
Shadow magic pours from my hands instinctively. Not his shadows. Mine. Silver-edged and powerful, they fill the throne room in seconds, wrapping around pillars, dancing across the ceiling, creating patterns that shouldn’t exist.