Epilogue
Morgana coughed ash from her lungs and then quivered, lying still for a moment to catch her breath—and her bearings.
Something weighed her down, and the world was blackness and rubble. Every inch of her hurt, as though poison raced through her veins, scalding her from the inside out. And... and she couldn't seem to feel her toes. No, not just her toes. Her entire lower half was nothing more than numbness.
Her own son had betrayed her, and the girl, Cleo, had something to do with it. Drake had won, or no, not quite... She'd had one last hand to deal, and it was a winning hand, but where... Patting around, her heart erupted into panic. Where was the Blade? Where was her trump card?
Morgana scrabbled beneath her smoking skirts and found the hilt of the Blade there. Relief flooded through her. Her smile was a thing of vengeance. They thought they had beaten her, but she still had the relic, and now they would presume themselves safe.
After all, when one's greatest gift was Illusion, sleight of hand was but a mere trick.
Sebastian's power might be brutal, but the kitchen knife that she'd wielded last night had borne the brunt of it, not the Blade hidden in her skirts.
All she'd had to do was make sure the ensuing explosion felt powerful enough to hint at the destruction of a Relic Infernal.
Still, she wasn't certain how she was going to manage to get out of here.
She tried to move her legs, and... nothing.
A new fear enveloped her.
No. Not this. This would not be her price to pay, it would not be.
She fought long and hard, straining to force her weakened body to obey.
The heavy beam across the middle of her back had no give to it, and the exertion left her panting, clutching hopelessly at the treasure in her hand, a treasure that was ultimately worthless if she couldn't force herself to escape this physical trap.
Her magic was useless, drained in the encounter.
Her body was useless.
"Damn you," Morgana cried, her forehead resting against the timber floors and a hot tear scalding her cheek.
"You fucking useless piece of flesh. You bleeding little whore.
" Her uncle's favorite words to use against her, and she used them now to inspire that inner rage that always burned, but even her own innate fury could give her no release. "Get up!"
The door opened with a creak.
Morgana froze.
A pair of men's heeled shoes came into view and a tall shape materialized, wearing a long black cloak with a hood. His face was somewhat obscured, and she blinked away her tears, trying desperately to make him out.
The ominous click of the heels came closer. Morgana's breath caught in her chest, but it didn't matter. She was helpless.
That was when she saw his face, that bland marionette mask beneath the hood with spells of Illusion carved into the papier–maché.
Her eye wanted to follow the runes that burned with a brassy gleam, but she forced herself to meet his eyes, ignoring the flicker of an image—a young, handsome man—that the spell suggested to her weakened mind.
Those empty, black holes gleamed with nothingness. Every person who passed this man would see a different face in their mind. Nobody would be able to describe him. Only she, who knew Illusion, could see through it.
"What are you?" she whispered, forcing herself to swallow. "Show me your face!"
"I find it interesting that you think yourself in the position to make such demands," the stranger said. The words burned into her mind, as if they'd bypassed her ears entirely.
Her heart hammered, her blood seeming to freeze in her veins. She'd heard that voice before. She'd commanded it, so many years ago, when she, Drake, and Tremayne began to dabble with the Relics Infernal. Her fist clenched around the hilt of the Blade, but the creature merely laughed.
"Yessss," it whispered and reached up to remove its mask of Illusion. "Now you are beginning to understand."
Slowly, the mask lowered, and Morgana squeezed her eyelids tightly together. She did not want to see it.
"Look at me."
She shook her head.
"Look at me, or I shall remove your eyelids, so you may never look away again."
That made her open them.
Noah Guthrie's body. Or it had been once.
The creature squatted in front of her, his trousers straining over his thighs.
His eyes burned holes of fire in his handsome face.
He was beautiful, stunning, his skin made of pure alabaster, as if carved by a Renaissance master.
Except... Except for the faint flaws, the sheer inhumanness of it.
The skin on the middle of its forehead smoked and began to peel, a sigil of burning light branding itself there.
A sigil she never, ever wanted to see again.
Morgana froze, turning her eyes away from the sight.
She couldn't breathe. All of her life, her dreams, her ambitions.
.. destroyed. She knew it already. And now she was at the mercy of a being who could, and would, do anything it wanted to her.
Helpless. She knew that feeling so well.
She'd spent years fighting to put herself in a position where she would never be helpless again, but the world conspired against her.
"I see you remember me."
How could she forget? It was the first creature they'd ever summoned from the Nether Reaches, a plane of existence that some termed Hell. Their audacity had been met by a being of power that had stared at them as though it were committing their faces to memory.
Tremayne had crowed, as if the world had been handed to them on a platter, but Drake had grown still.
And Morgana had hovered between both emotions.
Here was the world—power, revenge, and everything she'd ever wanted—hers for the taking.
.. But meeting the demon's eyes felt like staring into an abyss that had suddenly opened beneath her feet.
The creature smiled, an expression that made her feel like a cold claw was trailing down her spine. "What can I do for you? Mastersss?"
"Tell us your true name," Tremayne had demanded. A name was power, or so it was spoken by all the mystics. "You are bound by these relics. You must obey me."
It had been a little too easy. The creature blinked. Its eyes narrowed, a muscle jumping in its jaw, and then with a snarl it had spat: "Lascher."
"We can never do this again," Drake had told her, later that night. "We have to destroy the Relics."
"But—"
"I caught a glimpse of its mind, Morgana." His voice had been tight. "For all its subservience today, it was furious. It wanted to destroy us, to rein upon us agony that would break a man's mind and tear him limb from limb, then do it over and over. We can never bind that creature again."
"But with the relics, we can control it."
"Do you believe that?" he'd asked, turning to face her.
And she'd doubted, just enough to agree to his plan to steal the Relics from Tremayne and replace them with illusory ones.
Over the years, she'd come to regret that decision, declaiming it as weak, but now, now that she stared up into those merciless pits of eyes... "What do you w-want with me?"
"What I've always wanted," Lascher replied.
"It has been a mere flicker of years for me, a blink of the eye, but for you it has been many.
Your flesh is sagging and eating itself alive from the inside with age.
You are weaker and vulnerable." It poked her directly in the thigh, and to her horror, Morgana felt nothing.
"I could tear you limb from limb, just for the audacity in summoning me, but I want more.
" It leaned closer. "We have an enemy in common, you and me. A powerful enemy."
"Who?"
"The one you call the Prime. He is too powerful for me to confront. Serve me," the creature replied, reaching out to stroke her tearstained face with his gloved hands, "and I may not kill you."
Never deal with a demon. Never trust them. Never believe what they can offer you. The only way to approach them was with the Relics Infernal in hand.
But what choice did she have? She couldn't feel her legs and her magic was weakened inside her. She needed to regain her strength, and even then she might not be able to fight this creature off.
"I can help you make them pay," it whispered, and the whisper slithered all the way through her veins. "I can help you bring that son you spat into the world to heel. I can help you make him crawl."
Yes, her heart thundered, while the little part of her that often offered counsel hid in its corner of her mind.
"I can give you back your legs," it promised, and Morgana's tears welled again, against her will. "I will even allow you to keep this." He slid the Blade closer to her fingers with the tip of his shoe.
"What is your other choice?" it taunted. "Lie here and rot whilst your enemies dance on your bones? Perhaps you will die before others find you, others who find your weakness... appealing. Or perhaps you will not."
There was no choice, not truly. Morgana grit her teeth. "What is your price? What do you get out of this?"
"The same thing you desire. Vengeance. To crush those who thought to harm me beneath my heel.
" He lifted a hand to his flawed cheek, to the marred flesh there, looking thoughtful.
"And I am not fully here. Something happened when you used the Blade.
I was brought only halfway into this world, my vessel torn from me before I could overtake it. "
She'd used the kitchen knife to stab both Lucien and Sebastian, not the Blade. If he ever found out... "Then how—?" she blurted, gesturing to the body it wore to distract it.