Chapter 13
MORRIGAN
We just stared at each other, no more words exchanged for what felt like hours—though only seconds had passed.
I wasn’t sure what led me to what I did next.
Perhaps just the fear itself of realizing that he had been real all along…
Knowing that we had this… connection since I was a little child.
It was all too much. Hearing him say my name…
I’d heard it so many times, but those were dreams. Now, with him standing in front of me, I was convinced that my brain might actually explode.
So… I ran.
I turned on my heel and raced down the hall. I needed air. I needed the room to stop spinning. But most importantly, I needed to find Azrael. This man may have saved me from my nightmares for years, but how did I know I could truly trust him? He could have been another Cain for all I knew.
His voice faded behind me, and the hallway finally came to an end. I seemed to be standing in some kind of reception hall with several other doors. Anything could be behind them. Those creatures could be in one of these rooms.
I stood still, catching my breath as I examined each of them, but before I could make a decision, black mist formed at the center of the room.
It was the same stuff I had seen in the woods, and with the necroviants, but lighter this time.
Now, it closely resembled Kaiden’s shadows. This… This is what took Azrael from me.
My heart felt like it had stopped beating, but my breath turned to ice as he emerged from the darkness. The black mist was him?
He took a single step toward me, to which I retreated back. “Will you just listen for a moment—”
“Where is Azrael?!” I yelled at him, raising my hands again as flames moved in my veins, charged and ready.
His eyes flicked to a spot over my shoulder, followed by the sound of a door creaking open. Without lowering my hands, I peered behind me, but was unable to see inside of the room.
“He’s in there,” he said.
I gulped nervously and felt my hands trembling slightly.
He could be lying, I told myself. This could be a trick.
With my hands in front of me, I backed up slowly, but refused to take my eyes off of him.
Though, I had the sinking feeling that the idea of me being able to overpower him was a moot one.
The mist alone seemed to be made of death itself.
But I would be an idiot to leave myself exposed.
He watched me with something akin to amusement in his eyes, but the rest of his face remained impassive. As I drew closer to the door, muffled voices slowly cleared into one of a familiar little boy speaking.
Azrael.
Risking it, I turned and ran into the room, but my feet almost slid from beneath me when I saw Azrael at the dining table.
He was smiling, shoving his fingers into a plate filled with little sugar cookies.
Crumbs spilled over the dark, almost black, wood, and he practically bounced in his seat with a large smile on his face.
I quickly noticed that his blindfold was nowhere to be seen.
When his head turned, he noticed me standing in the doorway, and his eyes lit up before he dropped from the chair and rushed toward me. “Princess!” he squealed, wrapping both arms around my hips in a tight embrace.
“Where is your blindfold, Azrael?” I whisper-yelled at him. “You can’t—”
“He’s alright here.”
I bristled at the sound of his voice behind me.
“Things work differently in my world. His power of blight can’t hurt anyone in this castle.”
I kept my eyes on Azrael, trying to ignore the man towering nearby. But as my eyes drifted over Azrael’s shoulder, my entire body went rigid. Not again, please… I can’t do this again…
“Morrigan?” The second my name fell from her lips, my body crumbled to the ground, and Azrael stepped back in fear.
“What’s wrong?” He sounded confused, but I couldn’t answer him. I could barely hear his voice over the ringing in my ears.
“Not again,” I whispered, crawling backward until my back hit a nearby wall. Quickly, she stood from her chair and ran to me, but I threw my hands up to cover my eyes. “You’re not real!” I cried over and over again. “You’re not real! Please! I can’t do this again!”
“Morrigan,” she said again, but it was closer. And as a pair of arms wrapped around me, I felt the coldness of their touch but… I felt it. My breath constricted the tighter she pulled me in, and I barely even heard the footsteps enter in behind me.
“I am real, flower. I was real,” she whispered, her own words shaking with so much emotion. “I never left you, baby.”
Every wall in me crumbled, and horrible, heavy sobs left me as I fell into her shoulder. I couldn’t tell if I was crying or screaming—perhaps both. But someone else moved Azrael away from us while we held each other.
“M-Mom?” I stuttered, barely able to speak through my tears.
“Shhh…” Her hand smoothed my hair back as she buried her face into the crook of my neck. “There’s time to talk later. Just let me hold you again. My brave, brave girl.”
“I was real,” she had said. Could it really be true? I didn’t know how it was possible, but had she really been there the entire time? Watching me?
I dug my fingers into her gown, wanting to hold onto her as tightly as possible. I couldn’t let her slip away again. I needed her to stay.
“Confused is one way to describe how I felt when I sensed your mother’s arrival,” he said from somewhere nearby. “But she begged me to send her back. She told me her daughter needed her.”
It took all of my strength to pull away just enough for me to see him standing beside us. “H-How?” I asked. “W-Why is she here?” I turned back to my mother. “Why aren’t you in Eden?”
She offered a soft shrug with a tight smile. “I don’t know, flower. But I’m so happy that I’m not.” Lifting her hand, she cupped my cheek and wiped away the tears with her thumb. “Because, then, I couldn’t be with you right now.”
“Obviously, I can’t just raise the dead,” he continued. “But I was able to offer something close enough. I used that little connection of ours to project her instead of me.”
I turned to look up at him—at the soft gaze he returned, filled with shared sadness.
“I’ve kept her safe here in my castle. I couldn’t risk letting her turn into one of them.”
Sucking in a quick breath, I tried to calm the tremors shaking both of my arms. “You… You did this… for me?”
“Morrigan,” he replied, his voice dropping to an almost whisper. “There is no limit to what I would do for you.”
I stared at him for a couple of seconds longer before my mother turned my face back to hers.
“You’re safe now, Mor. No one will hurt you here.
No one will ever hurt you again. I won’t allow it.
” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry for everything.
I’m sorry for turning you over to those monsters, for Maeryn—” Her breath caught, lips quivering as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
“No,” I told her. “You were the only good in my life. You didn’t have a choice. I know that now. I love you. I wanted to tell you that the moment Maeryn read your letter. Don’t apologize to me, Mom. There was never anything for me to forgive.”
Crying once again, she pulled me back against her chest, and we remained there, holding each other. I could have stayed there all night. For days. It was a memory I would lock away and keep frozen in time, hopeful that it would never end.
But a hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up at him.
“You need food,” he said softly. “I’ll leave you and your mother here for a while. We can… talk when you’re ready.”
Even with the gratitude I held for him that warmed my heart, I still couldn’t stop the apprehension of trusting him just yet. Still, I nodded in agreement. “Where… Where can I find you?”
He shared a glance with my mother. “Bring her to the garden when she’s ready.” With a simple nod from her, he turned and walked out of the room.
I took my time with my food, scared that if I ate too quickly, it would make me sick.
I didn’t miss the glances my way from my mother as she took me in. I knew I had lost weight… a lot of weight. My limbs ached just from sitting in the wooden dining chair. It was impossible to hide the result of Cain’s torture for… however long I remained in those tunnels.
I filled her in on the important details as we sat together, avoiding anything that wasn’t necessary for her to hear.
Like Aamon’s visits to my room every night.
The physical torture of breaking my bones so that Cain could heal them—hoping that by drinking his blood, I would become more complacent.
Azrael had been there for some of it, and he kept quiet as I spoke to my mother.
As if somehow, even at his age, he understood my need to block it all out.
Was he hiding something as well? I wondered to myself. What had he been subjected to before Cain took me? That was a question I would never dare to ask him. If, one day, he wanted to speak his truth, I would be there for him. But it wasn’t my decision.
By the end of it, I could see in my mother’s eyes that she was holding onto her composure by a small thread.
She released a shaky breath that sounded like she had been holding it for far too long.
Tightening her grip on my hand, she leaned back in her seat.
“He will get what’s coming to him, Morrigan.
Don’t you worry about that,” she hissed under her breath.
“I’m just so happy that you’re here and safe.
” Then, her gaze turned to the boy beside me. “Both of you.”
Azrael’s head leaned against his open palm with his elbows on the table. His eyes were already closed, and a sweet, soft snore slipped from his lips with each breath.
“I couldn’t leave without him,” I told her quietly. “I don’t know if there were more children. I would have taken more—”
“Stop it.” The demand in her voice caught me, and she leaned forward, brushing a curl behind my ear. “Do you even know what you did, Morrigan?”
My brows knitted a tight crease as I stared at her and shook my head.
“You saved his life, flower. Who knows what Cain would have done to him. You could have died if anything had gone wrong. Did you even think about that?”
I suddenly felt a possessive pull toward Azrael as she asked me that, almost offended by her question. “I didn’t care about my life. I couldn’t just leave him behind, Mom. He didn’t ask for this, and if saving him would have cost me my life, then—”
“Exactly,” she interrupted me again. Her head tilted to the side as she gave me a smile, one that could only be carved from a mother’s love, one I had seen for so many years, but only now recognized. “You are so strong, baby, and you don’t even know it.”
Before I could think of a response, she pushed out of her chair and stood.
Rounding the table, she carefully lifted Azrael, his head slumping over her shoulder as he remained fast asleep.
It reminded me of the days that I would fall asleep in the garden as a child.
She would wake me and pick me up before taking me back inside, humming her melody in my ear to lull me back to sleep.
“I think it’s time you two talked,” she whispered before offering her hand. “Come. I’ll show you the way, and then I’ll take this little man to his bed.”