Chapter 56
MORRIGAN
Kaiden, Dez, and I remained in the bed for a while after Kaiden helped me clean up.
It was… a lot to process. I hadn’t quite wrapped my brain around what we had just done.
The last thing I remembered was a blinding light practically consuming me, burning off every inch of my skin until I had been torn apart and thrown into oblivion.
Next? I woke to the taste of Dez’s blood on my tongue, and his warmth at my back.
But when I first opened my eyes, I barely felt like myself.
I couldn’t even speak full sentences. All I knew was that I needed something. More blood. More… them.
A throbbing energy coursed through me in violent waves, and I didn’t know how to tame it.
So when I felt Dez’s hands on me, I did the only thing I knew how to do at that moment.
I just needed to feel. I needed to feel something other than the taste of death that lingered in the back of my throat. And when Kaiden conceded… Gods…
But now, as I lay between the both of them, each clinging to me like I would slip away if they didn’t, all I could hear was Dez’s screams again, and Kaiden whispering promises in my ear. I died. Kaiden, Dez, and everyone else had watched me die. Tristan had watched me die.
Suddenly, Rosina’s eyes were staring back at me again beyond that light.
Beside me, Kaiden and Dez were fast asleep, likely exhausted from everything that had happened over the past few days.
So, I did my best to slip from under their arms, and crawl my way out of the bed.
I made it to the bathing room, but paused as I stopped in front of the mirror.
Leaning in close, I noticed a thin, glowing white line circling the outer part of my pupil.
I rubbed my eyes continuously, trying to figure out what was happening, but the light wouldn’t go away.
It vaguely resembled Tristan and Rosina’s eyes, but theirs matched the color of their irises. Why is mine white?
Shaking my head, I looked for a small band to wrap my hair up and splashed some cool water on my face. Air, I decided. I need air, and I need to find Tristan.
I prayed in my mind that they had honored my request. Did they blame him? A distant memory of him being pulled away from me had my nerves rising. Did he blame himself? I wasn’t sure which thought made my chest hurt more.
That same buzz of energy I had felt when I woke still crawled beneath my skin, like it was searching for a way out of me.
But it was nowhere near as strong, now. I grabbed my robe to cover myself and walked out of the room, careful not to stir them.
I almost laughed to myself at the idea of them waking up together, without me in the center.
I had made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs before slamming into someone around my size. I assumed it was one of Dez’s staff and immediately apologized. “I’m so sorry.”
But when I looked up, a pair of honey brown eyes gaped at me. I froze in my place, tears instantly pooling in my eyes as they began to sting. I was sure my lungs were going to implode.
“Morrigan?” she whispered.
“Lyra?” The word came out in a sob, and before either of us could speak again, we yanked each other into a tight, aggressively warm embrace.
Every single one of my emotions seemed to pour out of me, and I couldn’t stop crying into her shoulder, clinging to her shirt.
I felt her crying, too. Her arms were wrapped around my back, digging into my ribs.
“I came for you, Morrigan, I swear,” she cried, clutching me tighter. “When I saw what happened, I thought… I thought you were—” Her breath caught between her words and I dreaded pulling back, but I needed to look at her.
“I heard you, Lyra,” I told her. “I was able to free myself for just a moment, and ran back toward the village. I heard you calling for me. I-I tried to yell for you, but Cain… He…”
“Where is he?” she seethed, fire growing behind her eyes and lighting them like mountains beneath a blazing sunlight. “I’m going to kill him, Morrigan. I’ll—”
“He isn’t here.” I lowered my hands to hers, holding them tight, and was far too selfish to let them go. “He’s still in… It’s a long story.”
“But you’ll tell me?”
“Everything.”
“Morrigan!” a higher pitched voice called from the other side of the hall. Just as I turned, Eowyn slammed into my side and wrapped her arms around my neck. “You’re okay,” she whispered into my shoulder. “Gods, Morrigan, we were so worried.”
I didn’t know why, but I began laughing.
The familiarity I felt having both Eowyn and Lyra at my sides made me almost forget every bad thing that had happened over the past couple of months, replacing them with nothing but…
love. I craved to hear their voices every night that I slept in those tunnels, and I longed to see them again each day I was in the Netherworld.
“I missed you guys so much,” I laughed, but that laughter slowly died into tears. Before I knew it, Lyra had joined the embrace again, and we all stood in the middle of the hall, holding each other as we cried together.
“Don’t leave us again,” Eowyn whispered as she kept her head against my shoulder.
“I won’t let her,” Lyra answered for me.
When a throat cleared nearby, I turned to find Eris and Tristan standing by the doors that led into the courtyard.
My heart dipped into my stomach at the sight of him.
Where his markings had once been on his face, only faded, white scars remained.
Both of his eyes had the faint blue glow shining in them, and his lips were tilted into the saddest smile I had ever seen.
“You weren’t there,” I said to him, pulling away from the three-way hug, but keeping a hand on each of them. “When I woke, you weren’t—”
“We, uh,” he peeked over his shoulder before returning his gaze to me. “We had something to retrieve.”
I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to be there.
I pressed my lips together as his thought slipped into my mind and tried not to react. I was positive he didn’t mean for it to.
I finally released Lyra and Eowyn to walk around Tristan, finding Cain standing behind him. His ankles and wrists were chained in the obsidian shackles, and he looked even worse than when I had seen him last.
“Hello, princess,” he said with a cocky, bloodied grin—his wounds appearing relatively fresh.
“We’ll take him down to the dungeon,” Eris said, tugging at his chains as he began to walk away. But Tristain remained in his spot, staring at me like he didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered finally, “for not being there.” His eyes trailed to the girls behind me, and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “This… This is a lot. Everything here is different. The air is different. I’m different. And there’s this blinding fucking light in the sky—”
“Tristan,” I stopped him, bringing my hands to his cheeks. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
A deep pain reflected back at me in his eyes. I could almost feel it. It was remorse… regret… guilt. The bond allowed me to sense it, and beneath those emotions—if I really listened close enough—I could hear his heart beating.
“You died,” he said under his breath, careful not to let the girls hear.
“But I’m here,” I answered with a smile.
I pushed up onto my toes, pulling his face toward mine until my lips pressed into his. It felt like I hadn’t kissed him in years. But it was cut short as we were both reminded of Lyra and Eowyn behind us when one of them cleared their throats.
I turned around to see a blushing Eowyn and a very confused Lyra with her arms crossed over her chest. With one eyebrow cocked, she nodded her head in Tristan’s direction. “So… are we going to get an explanation at some point?”
“I’m going to help, Erin,” Tristan said, quickly making his way to abandon the confrontation.
“Eris,” I corrected him.
“Yup! That’s what I said! Erik!”
Laughter bubbled in my chest while I watched him leave, and I saw both Lyra and Eowyn staring at me as he disappeared as well. Lyra turned around with her tongue pressed into her cheek.
“Long story, huh?” she asked.
I offered a guilty shrug and tried to play it off with an innocent smile.
Dropping her hands, she walked toward me with Eowyn at her side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “Good thing I have time, princess.”