Morrigan
Morrigan’s eyes slowly opened.
It had been a few days since they reached the Atlantic Ocean, the weather clear but giving no sign of relenting on the cold. Sandrine and Cahira took shifts steering, letting Morrigan enjoy the sensation of solitude, for no matter who occupied the bed across from her, they slept while she was awake. It offered plenty of time to gather her thoughts, considering all that had been laid before her and what was to come. She also appreciated the break from Lucius, who was becoming increasingly more difficult for her to be around, the mere smell of him able to derail her at a moment’s notice. She never would have imagined she’d be trapped in a similar predicament as before, this time favoring the man she’d spent lifetimes trying to escape from. But there was no running from it now, the three of them trapped together until the world was put back in order. She hoped it would be sooner than later; she assumed being immortal robbed a soul of its emotions, yet in her case, it seemed quite the opposite.
She sensed daylight, noticing Sandrine’s long form stretched out beneath the blankets. Though they hadn’t had much time to correspond, Morrigan felt she was an old, unthreatening soul, one with secrets as deep as hers and her presence brought her peace. She rose from the bed, careful not to wake her, slipping a robe over the thin chemise she’d slept in.
The cabins were quiet as the nocturnal creatures slept, even Dan who sat with his arms crossed on the ladder, his eyes drifting open and shut as he listened for Cahira as she steered the ship above. Morrigan gave him a soft, reassuring pat on his knee as she moved past him, heading down a shorter set of steps into the storage hold. The boat swayed gently as she maneuvered around the piles of trunks towards the coffin that rested against the back wall. She knelt down to pry open the clasps, the wooden lid creaking as she lifted it.
Although she braced herself, his appearance alarmed her each time she saw him. So deep was his slumber, that he looked truly dead, his skin drained of any color, his lips dry and cracked. The coffin they found for him in the Lardone vaults was lined with deep blue velvet, his rusted gold curls spread around him like a halo. Emotion caught in her throat as she stared at him, tracing the line of his nose and jaw with her eyes, longing to see his kind green eyes. No matter what Libraean said, she knew it was her fault he was gone.
She pulled herself as close as she could next to him, brushing his hair back from his forehead. His chest moved so slightly that only a vampyre could see it, a trickle of wind escaping underneath his nose. “Where are you?” she whispered.
She hadn’t expected a reply, but the silence in the hold felt particularly painful. “I hope someday you’ll forgive me for all of this,” she added, “but understand if you don’t. I just hope you’ll come back from wherever you are soon… you are still needed here.”
She heard shuffling above her and hurried to close the casket. She pulled herself out of the hold in time to see Lucius standing outside his cabin door. “Morrigan, come here,” he whispered loudly, waving her into his room.
She pulled her robe tighter against the chill as she entered his unsettled room. There were pieces of parchment strewn across the floors, some nailed to the walls, and books opened up on every available surface. She realized Lucius was just as unkempt, his hair in complete disarray, dressed in nothing but a loose linen shirt and trousers. “You took Libraean’s books?”
“I borrowed them,” he told her. “Well, I took them—they were both sleeping. But that is not the point.” He directed her to the wall where he had created a timeline out of chalk, his neat handwriting scrawled across the thick wooden planks. He’d sketched out their entire history in one long timeline from the beginning in Egypt, all the way to the present day, each one of them included. There was a big question mark that broke up the line labeled ‘L’, right between his time in Tartarus and his resurgence as Hades. Right above, she noticed that this was around the time that she and David (‘M’ and ‘D’) lived in the Otherrealms. She waited for him to explain.
“This is what I cannot seem to understand,” he began. “According to Librean’s texts, all of us died during the Bronze Age. Anubis dragged my soul to Tartarus while you and David went to the Upperrealms, where you lived until around seventeen hundred BC, when you became the Celtic deities Daghda and Morrigan. I rose around four hundred BC and of course, Librean reincarnated a handful of years before that. My point is, there is a lot of time that is unaccounted for.”
Morrigan frowned. “You were in Tartarus during those years.”
“Yes, but why can’t I remember anything specific? I can recall being in Hades with Isis right before we returned, but Tartarus remains a mystery.”
“We all lose our memories when we reincarnate, that is the law of the earth.”
“Yes, but I still didn’t remember them in the Underworld. My mind started to spin once I heard Jacob speak of angels and Watchers. I should know them—I have spent lifetimes studying history, philosophy, and the arts, yet for some reason, I cannot seem to recall exactly what the Watchers are—they are words without pictures, even thoughts of angels are hazy. And there is no logical reason for it.”
Morrigan frowned. “Perhaps you just don’t remember yet. You do have eons of memories to recover. It takes time.”
“Oh, I remember everything now,” he sighed, looking at the lines of chalk scrawled across the wall. “It has been a tumultuous whirlwind, like a nightmare I can’t quite escape from. Memories of parched earth, cities carved out stone, open seas, castles, wars, other worlds. I’m sure some things have escaped me, including the same memories you are missing, but I should remember my first days in Tartarus.”
“Do you think your memories were taken from you? Like a spell?”
“Exactly.” He brightened, grateful she understood. “I think it’s another piece of the puzzle. After Cahira pulls the memories from you, I think we should explore mine.”
Morrigan nodded, though a dismal feeling settled over her.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Cahira apprehended the room in the same way Morrigan had, complete with raised eyebrow. “It is now twilight and Sandrine is at the wheel,” she told her. “I can try to help you now, if you’d like.”
Morrigan was hit with another wave of unease. Lucius instinctively gripped her hand to steady her. She tried to smile at him but found she could not, her nerves dominating her rational mind as they followed Cahira into the main sitting area. Dan was already in attendance, Libraean and Jacob groggily joining. Jacob attempted to stifle a yawn as he wrapped his blankets tightly around him, having difficulty adjusting both to the late hours and the freezing air that drifted down into the ship. Lucius chose not to sit, wearing a deep frown as he leaned against the wall directly across from her, as if prepared to strike when needed.
Cahira had already set up the table and dimmed the lamps around them before lighting the wide candle she’d placed between her and Morrigan. “Can you travel to the astral realm, or do you need aid?” she asked her as she sat down.
“I can,” Morrigan replied.
“It will be like we are traveling there, but instead we will be traveling to the space around it, your unconscious mind. Your consciousness is not letting you find it, but I can push you there if you let me in.”
Morrigan nodded.
Cahira pulled an old watch out of her pocket, setting it on the table in a bowl, which echoed its melodic tick throughout the hold. “Stare into the light and focus on the sound,” she instructed in a low voice. “Return to the place you left.”
Morrigan glanced up at Lucius, whose eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “The Underworld,” she whispered as she closed her eyes, pulling up the memory of her woods and his worried expression as he held her hands.
“Do you think it is David?” she heard him say.
“I do not believe so…” Morrigan murmured as the ship around her began to melt away.
The Underworld
Lucius grabbed both her hands in desperation, her figure beginning to dissipate as it was pulled from the dark realm. “Please come back,” he pleaded, worry in his eyes.
She cupped her hands around his face as she pushed her lips against his. “I will,” she promised.
And then he was gone, her senses completely snuffed out only to assault her again at whirlwind speed. Her vision took a moment to focus on what stood immediately before her, a circle of ancient centaurs, peering down at her sternly.
“You summoned me?” she asked, trying to temper the surprise in her voice as her crows settled around her. A shiver ran across her barely clad skin, her eyes catching tattoos and war paint scrawled across an arm that held her spear, affirming they had called Morrigan, not Nephthys, to come forth.
She recognized the centaur standing in the middle as Sagittari, the alpha of the Carpathian Sagittaureans and the father of Chiron, the beloved teacher of the Ancient Greeks. She had not seen him for centuries, yet he still looked the same, his chest broad and carpeted by auburn hair, the same shade that covered his equine torso and limbs.
He wore a grimace as he peered down at her, crossing his thick arms. “We did not summon you. We do not need the help of any woman, even the great Morrigan. It was one of our outcasts, a fallen soldier, who you would do well to remember.”
They parted like the sea, revealing the corpse of a young centaur crumpled across the forest floor amongst the pine needles. His freshly expired fire still billowed smoke, its crackling embers filling up the lack of sound the spring woods suffered at nightfall. His fist was still clenched around a bundle of crow feathers, his human skin and horsehair matted with dried blood. Morrigan observed a deep gash across one of his legs, the other cruelly severed at the knee. She could tell by the clotting of his wounds that they had begun to putrefy long before he had expired.
Morrigan approached cautiously, wondering why such a creature had called her in his final moments. The centaur was quite adolescent compared to the rest of his herd, perhaps only a few hundred years old. His skin was still smooth and unblemished, and if one did not see his mutilation, he could have easily been a young man who had simply fallen asleep in the leaves. She knelt down, brushing back a lock of black hair from his cheek. He had been dead for only minutes, his skin still exuding a faint equine musk with a curious twist of cardamom and clove.
“I am surprised you do not remember me.”
She jumped back to see his spirit standing above his corpse. He was as handsome as she’d pictured in her mind, his eyes a fantastic shade of gold.
She froze in sudden recognition.
It was Hekate’s child, the grown version of the baby she’d rescued centuries ago in Wallachia. Isis’s child… Lucius’s child.
“I hoped to survive long enough to tell you what has happened, but it took a lot to revive such an old war goddess,” he said good-naturedly.
Morrigan had trouble steadying herself, unsettled she’d forgotten such an important event in her earthly life while simultaneously disarmed by the apparition of her current lover’s son. He stood before her in a near identical rendition of him, despite his equine appendages.
“I suppose this means you are not calling me out of spite,” she said. She noticed the rest of the centaurs had disappeared, leaving them alone in the quiet woods.
“Do not worry, I have long understood why you turned me into this creature and hid me away among the Sagittaureans. Your plan worked, I lived undisturbed and protected while enjoying a life of freedom for centuries. That is not why I summoned you.” He began to pace in a manner similar to his father, his four legs moving in the elegant rhythm that only horses can manage. “When the leaves began to tarnish in the summer heat, I discovered a woman as I hunted alone in the woods. She appeared to be lost and frightened, and for reasons I cannot explain, I immediately went to her aid. I do not have to tell you about our traditions, nor the oath we take to live our lives free from the distraction of women, yet I was never a true Sagittaurean, after all. I fell helplessly in love with her, and eventually she convinced me to have a child with her. She informed me whilst pregnant that I was the last descendent of the most powerful family of witches that had ever existed and that our child would have unfathomable power. I did not believe her, but she was a witch herself and she showed me in visions the story of my bloodline, ending with how a dark goddess called the Morrigan brought me to the Sagittaureans to protect me. She had me so deeply in love with her that I broke my vows, fleeing the Carpathian Mountains and my brethren to start a new life with her and our child.
“We did not make it far before she gave birth. I was overjoyed at first, but as I held my daughter in my arms, her mother told me her plans to murder her, that she wanted us both to consume her power. Repulsed and horrified, I resisted, leading to a fight where she injured me and escaped. My herd found me here, and since I committed the most terrible sin amongst us, they took one of my legs.”
Morrigan openly fumed. “Such archaic practice,” she muttered.
The centaur smiled sadly. “My wounds were going to kill me regardless, for she slashed me with a silver blade. After the herd left me to die, I attempted to summon you. I do not know who that woman truly is, but I believe she is a wicked sorceress. I cannot bear it if she harms my child. Please, you rescued me once long ago, and I beg of you now, please save my daughter.”
Emotion overcame Morrigan. She had assumed her sister’s ancient bloodline would end with her last celibate son, but here, another Pădurii child lived, brimming with power, with no idea who or what she was, vulnerable to forces who would steal her power by any means necessary. “Of course I will protect her,” she murmured.
The young centaur bowed to her gratefully as his ghost began to fade. “I thank you, Dark Goddess. Maybe one day we will cross paths again in the Eternal Forest of the Dead.” And then she was alone in the frigid Carpathian woods, a dead centaur at her feet.
She looked around to see if the herd was near, but they had long deserted her and the young man. She knelt down where he lay, running her fingers over his eyes so that two gold coins appeared. “Safe passage across the River Styx, that Charon carries you to your heavenly realm unscathed,” she whispered. Satisfied that Anubis would recognize the spell she left on his soul, she immediately shifted into a wolf.
She briefly savored one of her favorite forms as she took off into the woods at blinding speed. She searched the air for the scent of cardamom, picking it up easily in the seasonally barren woods. It called to her from a mile inwards, a place far away from even the most remote human villages and Sagittaurean Territory.
The crows that scoured the skies above the elderly trees called down to let her know her path was safe as she wove through the coniferous throng into the heart of the mountains. A ramshackle cabin finally surfaced, artfully hidden by pines but with telltale smoke escaping out of its fireplace. Her crows landed on the rooftop softly to conceal her arrival.
Morrigan saw no evidence of livestock nor gardens, the shack itself haphazardly built as if someone had thrown it together in neglectful haste. She crawled out of her wolf guise and into one of a cloaked old hag, scooping up a fallen branch to act as a cane as she hobbled towards the door.
It was covered only by a meager blanket, allowing the cold spring air to invade the room undeterred, as a baby cried softly from within.
“Hello?” Morrigan croaked, peering inside. She was accosted by the reek of spoiled meat, noticing heaps of raw flesh stacked near the pathetic fire. She realized they were once human.
A face suddenly popped into view, startling her enough to distract her from the repulsive revelation. The face itself was unrecognizable, but it housed a pair of eyes that Morrigan would never forget, no matter what host they took on. It was Delicia. “What do you want?” she snapped.
Her body was just as bony as the one they had once shared, petite, but with strong hands and arms. Her mouth was thin and her eyes, dark brown, both set deeply in a plain face surrounded by flaxen hair. Specks of crimson dotted her mouth and flecked her skin.
“I am lost and cannot find my way,” Morrigan said in the shaky voice of an ancient woman.
“That is no issue of mine,” Delicia growled in annoyance. Her eyes darted back and forth, searching behind where Morrigan stood.
“Is that a child I hear crying?” Morrigan croaked.
“That is not a human child, pay her no mind. How did you find me here?” she asked suspiciously. Up close, her skin seemed unnatural, as if someone had plastered another’s flesh onto her bones.
“I do not know how I got here,” Morrigan continued the ruse. “I have been lost in the forest for days. Please, let me warm myself by the fire.”
Delicia frowned. “Wait—I know you…”
Morrigan tumbled through the doorway as she snapped back into her maiden warrior aspect. She flew towards the baby, whose weak cries had turned to hysterical, high-pitched wails, responding instinctively to the shift of energy in the room.
Delicia halted her process by grabbing the roots of her hair, throwing her into the wall with supernatural strength. Morrigan had managed to claw at her skin, tearing some of it away to reveal leathery black scales. It was as Morrigan suspected—she was actually a daemon.
Her crows flew down through the open chimney, paying the fire no mind, several scooping up the baby and her blankets, the others taking advantage of the rips in Delicia’s fake flesh to tear it the rest of the way off. She tried to fight them off, but they worked quickly, setting to work on the exposed scales with their razor-sharp claws and beaks. She howled in pain, inhuman screeches piercing the air.
Morrigan grabbed the stick she had used as a cane and broke it in two, hurling the sharp end at Delicia. It punctured through her scales to her insides, impaling her against the wall. Her true form was repulsive, an aberrant reptile covered in viscous flakes. Putrid green oozed from the wound as she writhed, slowly losing consciousness.
“You think you are saving the child, but they will find it,” she taunted weakly. “I am only one of many, Morrigan. Just wait until you see what’s in store for you.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Morrigan kicked the stake to drive it deeper, sufficiently snuffing out the life of the hideous creature.
She raced out of the cabin to find the baby nestled amongst the patiently waiting crows. She appeared calm, but dangerously malnourished. Morrigan scooped her into her arms. “We need shelter, well hidden,” she told her flock. “This baby is brimming with power—they’ll be after her soon.”
The crows obediently took off into the skies. Morrigan cradled the baby against her chest, creating a sling with the blankets. Then she darted after them on foot, leaving the daemoness and her carnage behind.
The sun began to set, casting a frigid chill into the air. Morrigan remained in her semi-corporeal form, and she knew the child needed real warmth. Thankfully, the crows had discovered a small cave carved into the mountainside. She climbed up to it only to discover it was guarded by a pack of wolves.
They snarled, hackles raised for only a moment before realizing who she was. They backed away as the alpha approached her cautiously, sniffing the air around her.
“This child is under my protection now,” Morrigan informed her. “We would like to rest here, if you wouldn’t mind sharing your shelter. But no harm comes to her, not now and not ever.”
The wolf bowed her head in accord, informing the rest of her pack, who parted to let them enter. Morrigan felt the baby stir against her chest as she nestled against the wall, the wolves remaining at the cave’s entrance to provide them additional protection against the cold air. The baby still shivered, however, her little mouth rooting desperately for sustenance. Her skin had already started to mottle, barely able to make anything more than a faint squeaking. Morrigan panicked, searching the wolves for a recent mother, but all were either pregnant or beyond the age of nursing pups.
She pulled the baby close to her. “There is only one way I can help you, sweet bairn,” she whispered. “And that requires your magic. You can petition me as your guardian goddess, and I will have a humanlike form until you no longer need me. If you will it, it can be so.”
The baby could barely look at her, the light in her eyes growing dim. Morrigan began to sing a Celtic song from long ago, the Ode to the Morrigan. The garbled crooning of crows soon filled the chamber, and the wolves that guarded them added their echoing howls. The baby stared at her with wide, adoring eyes, brought back to life by the songs of the wood. Soon her little hands reached out to graze Morrigan’s hair, as if pulling her into the earthly realm.
Morrigan closed her eyes, knowing that if the child succeeded, she could save her, but she would be trapped on earth until she released her. She thought of Lucius, nervously waiting for her in the Underworld, and she felt heavy with grief. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if he could handle life on earth again. She imagined what it could be like to have him near, this child giving them a chance at what they’d always secretly wanted together. She knew he would follow her the moment she told him, but would it be the best for his mental state? His scrying pool, she remembered. The decision does not have to be mine. He will see us and then the choice will be his.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain at her breast. She looked down to see the baby had latched, her breasts now swollen with milk like they were long ago when she birthed her twins. She recalled the painful regret at not being able to nurture them, leaving them behind with her sister and wet nurse as she went into hiding for their protection. She never realized how sweet the act of nourishing a young one could be, artfully masking the discomfort. She smiled, sweeping back the soft, fuzzy hairs on the top of her head. The child had done it—Morrigan was material in the physical realm.
She closed her eyes again, suddenly exhausted, imagining how Lucius’s face would light up when she showed him his daughter. “I will call you Cahira,” she decided. “My little warrior.” And she lay back, letting the baby, her baby, bring itself back to health.
Morrigan wrenched herself back into consciousness with a gasp, immediately feeling as though she had been thrown into a fire. Scrambling to her feet, she realized it burned in patches all around her, contained in piles of crumbled stone and debris, its thick smoke overpowering the air. She looked up to see a cracked and oozing ceiling, as if lava pulsated above, waiting for the stone to collapse under its pressure so it could devour everything beneath.
Memories of the years raising Cahira into womanhood rushed into her mind, followed by the memory of her own death, torn to shreds by a direwolf. Yet this was unlike any realm of the Underworld she had ever seen. Had she been sent to Tartarus? She moved forward tentatively as clouds of ash squeezed her lungs. Her squinted eyes caught a sparkling heap of shattered stone, and as she moved closer, she realized they were shards of obsidian. The reality of her situation hit her. “Lucius?” she cried out, breaking into a sprint.
The world around her became clearer as she ran, Lucius’s magnificent Underworld palace reduced to smoldering rubble. The smog thickened the deeper into the realm she ran, nearly sending her tumbling down into an open crevasse. She stopped herself just in time to avoid falling into the tumultuous waters below, their angry waves crashing against the rocks. The water was black and smelled of rot, as if her beloved death rivers had been polluted by the ruins of a hundred fallen realms. Panic clutched her chest, for she felt it in her bones—she no longer had any power here.
She forced herself to pause, shutting her eyes to collect herself. She had lived in a physical body on earth before; she was still strong even without supernatural aid. She exhaled with new resolve and leapt easily over the harrowing gorge.
As soon as she landed on the other side, she sensed him.
She burst into another destroyed realm, this one hers, the trees burnt to skeletons, inky tar bubbling down the trunks of those that survived. Then she saw him. His body slumped over a plank, his arms tied at each end with rope, his black dragon wings ripped violently out of his back and broken around him. The only thing holding them together was their thin, tattered skin. He looked emaciated, cuts and bruises cruelly interrupting his smooth, pale flesh.
Horrified, she ran to him, dropping to her knees to take his head in her hands. He appeared unconscious, one of his eyes bruised, his bottom lip split open and bleeding down his chin. “Lucius.” Her voice did not sound like hers, trembling as her body had begun to. “What has happened?”
Miraculously, his eyes opened slowly and tried to focus on her face. The eye that had been blackened was filled with blood, gruesomely obscuring its golden iris. “Nephthys?” he croaked.
“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “You must tell me who has done this to you. Who has destroyed the Underworld?”
He coughed, tossing blood to the ground. The sight of it fueled Morrigan’s rage, anger replacing her fear. She grabbed a piece of jagged stone from the ground and tore through the ropes that held him. He crumpled to the floor, his broken skeletal wings folding helplessly around him.
“Lucius, who is doing this?” she repeated.
When she still received no answer, she swooped back down to the ground, gathering him in her arms. He laid in her lap, gazing up at her adoringly as she smoothed back his tousled hair. “You came back to me,” he managed, attempting to smile.
“Of course, I did. Didn’t you see me in your pool? When I didn’t hear from you, I thought you decided not to join me, to wait here for me to return.”
He coughed, settling back down with a wheeze. It sounded as though some of his ribs had been broken. “No,” he said, in a rattling voice, “she came here not long after you left.”
“She?” Morrigan scowled. “Lucius, the entire Underworld is ablaze. You must tell me who did this so I can stop her.”
“Oh no, my dear, it is far too late for that,” a voice interrupted.
Morrigan lunged, halted by the power of a woman standing before her, dressed in blinding red robes with icy blonde hair billowing around her. She smiled as she held her in the air, Morrigan hopelessly frozen.
“You have no power here anymore, Nephthys, or Morrigan, or whatever you’re calling yourself these days,” she said jovially. Her eyes matched the color of her dress, angry red orbs that burned like the fire roaring around her. “You do not know how long I have waited for you. Our Set refused to summon you here no matter how hard I tried to persuade him.” She released her, and Morrigan fell to the ground with a thud.
She lifted herself up to her feet, but did not rush her again, deciding instead to calmly wait and plan her next move. “You are what Delicia promised would return for me.”
The woman laughed. “Delicia, yes. One of my favorite daemons. The one who helped me birth our daughter. Which you stole.”
Morrigan’s eyes narrowed. “She is protected now.”
“Oh, it is not time for her quite yet. But her power will be mine regardless, after I have put everything in place.”
“Who are you?” Morrigan demanded.
“I am so happy you asked,” the woman said, clasping her hands together with delight. She morphed into a woman with black hair and green eyes, a perfect replica of Isis. “We can take whatever form we want,” she said in Isis’s voice before switching to a young, curvaceous woman with freckled skin and rose gold hair. Morrigan’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized David’s former lover, Gaia. “We are Chaos,” she said, pleased at Morrigan’s reaction. “It is a shame that you never considered us, that you forgot all about the place from which you were born.
“At the beginning, heka grew out of chaos,” she said in a singsong voice, “and as heka evolved into four gods who would create the earth and its humans, Chaos would quietly grow into its own palatable force. At first, we were just a breath of wind, watching as humanity blossomed, governed by the kings and queens who spoke into existence. But as one of the goddesses grew stronger, so did we—so did I.”
She began to casually pace, unbothered by the destructive inferno raging around her. Morrigan noticed she was barefoot on the scorching ground. “The earth you created has its own set of laws, all contingent on balance. Without light there is no dark, without dark, there is no light. You have all spent so much time focused on the battle between brothers, the god of dark and the god of light, that no one ever stopped to consider the shadow of the goddess who started it all.” She turned towards Morrigan as she shifted back into her twin. “I am your mirror in every aspect, except where your heart holds human emotion, mine holds nothing at all. I am completely unburdened by conscience, empathy, or love. I exist as your perfect opposition, causing strife and mayhem wherever I can because it brings me joy. While you feel and brood and serve, I am free to do as I please. In fact, it makes me laugh to think you were the one who was supposed to be a chaos goddess yourself, but you just surrendered that power to me.”
“How?”
“Come now, Lilith. Why do you think you fell so easily for Osiris and he for you?”
Morrigan felt the blood drain from her face.
Isis’s radiant green eyes sparkled. “Love is Chaos. It is the most destructive force in existence, and you were its first agent. The union between you and Osiris caused a rippling effect amongst you all, and yet, instead of that chaos staying inside you, it split away, creating me. I was finally a real goddess, the goddess Discordia, birthed out of your own heart. Your actions taught me that I could use love and seduction to my own advantage. In fact, that was my first victim, the poor goddess Aphrodite, who I murdered before I ate her flesh, infusing myself with her power. Then I realized your sister had been left unprotected and I killed her, too, taking her power and devouring her soul.”
Morrigan shrieked with rage, but Discordia was prepared, freezing her once again and lifting her into the sky. With a wave of her hand, she broke all the bones in Morrigan’s leg, the sound of shattering glass deafening in her ears. She bit her lip to withstand the pain, her entire being shaking to keep from crying out.
“Isn’t it amazing how I can bend the realm to my will, including the deities that reside in it? I got that power from your husband as he made love to me on the volcanic shores of Tartarus. Now where was I?” Discordia paused, then smiled. She sat on one of the rocks, crossing a thin bronze leg over the other. “Oh yes, seducing your husband. Back in the ancient days, I pretended to be Isis, visiting him in Hades’s palace and gaining his trust until he finally came up with the idea to bring us both back to earth and impregnate me. I think my favorite part of our Set is his ability to be manipulated—all he needs is a gentle push and his mind concocts all sorts of diabolical schemes. He was the one who came up with the idea of having children with me to protect me, but he didn’t realize that combining his power with Isis’s would make our own earthly goddesses, similar to how you and Osiris created Anubis and Horus.
“Anyway, I am the reason that Gaia girl came out of the tree powerless, for the heka was already mine and my daughters’. She was a tiny piece of Isis’s soul that I accidentally left behind. Once I found out, I set her up to die—I couldn’t risk any leftover part of Isis threatening my daughters’ power. Though, in hindsight, I regret the whole daughter experience, since it failed me, but that is another story.”
Morrigan tried to focus on her words, but both the implications of her words and the excruciating pain was making it difficult. Her lungs burned with each breath of smoky air.
“I did try to manipulate Set again after David sent him back to Tartarus, but unfortunately, he caught on. I took on your perfect likeness, making love to him exactly how you do, but he knew it wasn’t you. His love for you is not chaotic like it is with Osiris and while I can use his broken heart to manipulate him, when he is confident in your love for him, it has the opposite effect.” She sighed wistfully, staring at the unconscious Lucius crumpled on the ground.
Morrigan thought of her last words to Lucius in Wallachia, picturing herself in Delicia’s body, her hands on his chest: I can never love you the way you need me to, but your fire will always burn in my veins…
“He was intended to be the greatest chaos god of all,” Discordia interrupted in lamentation, “and he could have been such a powerful force in my army. Originally, I thought you being together was the key to provoking his destructiveness, yet you have somehow managed to domesticate him beyond reform. This is the reason I have to keep you apart—for without you, he is an unbridled force of calamitous energy that I eventually will succeed in exploiting.”
“Why destroy our realms?” Morrigan managed to ask. “Why not live in your own?”
Discordia looked delighted by the question but snapped her arm bone for good measure. It took everything for Morrigan not to scream. “I was approached by those who speak for the God of men. They want to ensure His eternal power—in other words, their eternal power. They’ve witnessed how much havoc I can wreak over the years and asked me to rid the world of all outer realms except theirs, taking the pagan gods and goddesses along with them. I have agreed, and in return, I can live forever on earth with any chaos gods I chose. They like us, for these Holy Watchers realized that the more strife exists on the mortal plane, the more humans turn to their God for help, which fuels their power. I am a helpful, necessary being to them, therefore I will continue to live on.”
“If you kill us, we will reincarnate,” Morrigan struggled to speak. “That is the laws of the earth.”
“Yes, but the laws also take your memories. You will not remember any of this when you return, and I will find your human self before you realize who you truly are. Then I will kill you and take your powers, just like I did your sister. You won’t have a realm to return to, so you will simply cease to be.”
She shifted her form again, this time into the witch Hekate, Isis’s brilliant emerald eyes behind cascades of rich chestnut hair. Gold hoops hung from her ears, colored scarves around her waist. Again, she delighted in Morrigan’s surprise. “Yes, you were right back then—I was not really your sister. After I brought Set into the world as Lucius the vampyre, I hid away with my daughters. The oldest eventually turned on me when she realized I planned to eat her to absorb the combination of Set and Isis’s power. That meddlesome Council aided her, putting me back in that damned tree. When Lucius tried to pull me out the second time, thinking I was Isis, he accidentally split her in half, bringing forth the human Gaia and sending me to Tartarus. I reincarnated many years later as Hekate.
“When you threw me off the tower into the river, I wasn’t really dead—I am far too powerful to die that easily. Instead, my soul found its way into a young nemorti whose body I used to collect the Wolf and the pieces of my brother, Ares. Then I hid, lying low until everything had settled. Though his body was badly mangled, I eventually resurrected him. That is my favorite power of your sister’s, by the way,” she added, “the power of resurrection.” She blew along her palm, sealing the fractured pieces of Morrigan’s arm bone for emphasis. Morrigan wouldn’t let herself feel relief, assuming it was only a matter of moments before she broke it again.
“Ares is currently creating a slew of immortals on earth, many of whom I will use as my personal vessels,” she continued. “It’s remarkable—not only can I take the appearance of souls who have already died, but I can slip into any soulless body I choose. I also brought back the Wolf, who is restored to his mindless, controllable version without humanity, who hunts creatures for me. Soon I will have taken out every single god and goddess that man has ever created. Except the ones who will serve me, of course.”
“Why are you telling me all of this if I will just forget?” Morrigan asked, her vision starting to waver.
Her sister’s face smiled, the eyes of the wretched creature wearing it sparkling in its mask. “Because a part of me hopes I won’t find you in time, that you will remember all of this and we can have ourselves a proper fight. Nothing excites me more than that.” She winked at her before rising to her feet. She shifted into a new form, one Morrigan had never met before, with similar blue eyes to hers and cascades of dark hair. “Come find me if you’d like. I’m thinking of calling myself Angelique.” She smiled sweetly as she raised her palms to unleash more torment.
Morrigan bore the onslaught of pain like a stone, grinding her teeth as the sensation of a thousand needles tore into her skin, the pressure breaking both her arms. The agony finally succeeded in blurring her eyesight, but she saw Lucius’s figure from the corner of it, pulling himself forward and using every ounce of his strength to throw himself around her, stopping the flow of Discordia’s power.
She could hear the creature chuckling as she readjusted, pooling more of it together, but Morrigan focused on him instead, the smell of his hair, the warmth of his skin as he cradled her, covering her with his body and broken wings. The woods he’d created for her blazed all around them, debris continuing to fall around them, their home destroyed. “Shhh,” he whispered, pressing his lips on her forehead. “It will all be over soon.”
There was blinding heat, and then, there was nothing.
The Atlantic Ocean
Morrigan’s eyes snapped open to meet Cahira’s. Tears poured out them, the formidable woman with a tight jaw and swagger melting away. Morrigan realized her own cheeks were wet, and without a second thought, she rushed to throw her arms around her.
“My daughter,” she whispered incredulously. They trembled together in embrace before Morrigan’s eyes caught Lucius’s, his own expression trapped somewhere between sorrow and shock. But before anyone could speak, the ship lurched, sending them all crashing against the wall.
“Cahira!” Sandrine screamed from the dock.
The ship started to rock back and forth with violent force, pouring frigid ocean water into the hold. Dan and Cahira scrambled to climb the ladder, as Morrigan helped Libraean and Jacob to their room, bolting the door behind them. As soon as she succeeded, she was abruptly tossed the other way, her spine smacking the wood.
“Get the weapons!” Cahira’s voice bellowed, an uncharacteristic twinge of terror tightening her words.
Lucius grabbed Morrigan’s arm as they fought their way to the storage hold. Two of the trunks had already burst open and spilled out, their contents floating in the pool of seawater. He struggled to pry the weapons chest open as they battled against the lurching vessel, finally able to grab a pistol and as many swords and knives as they could muster. They made it back on deck, and Morrigan halted immediately in her tracks.
Although she was no stranger to daemons and had just torn her way through an army of rock creatures, nothing prepared her for the leviathan rising from the tempestuous sea. Snaking out of the frothy waters was a hideous creature so massive, it grazed the heavens. At first, she thought octopus-like tendrils lashed out at their paltry boat, but she gasped when she saw at least a dozen serpentine heads, each of their jaws unhinged to display rows of venomous fangs. Although they had no eyes to accompany their distorted mouths, they snapped at them with impeccable aim, ripping through the wood and sails in the process.
Sandrine had already wrapped herself around one, muscles taut as she squeezed the life out of it as it thrashed. Several other heads tried to tear her away, but Lucius tossed a sword at Cahira who skillfully caught the blade and beheaded them all with a warrior’s cry.
Morrigan tossed another sword to Dan, who raced to the other side. Lucius took a few shots, rupturing their skulls in a spray of visceral slime, before tucking the gun in his waist and wielding his own sword. Morrigan pulled out her wings to reach the highest heads and soon the five creatures fell into a unified dance as severed heads fell down around them in gruesome chunks.
Morrigan quickly realized, however, that for each head they chopped, another grew back in its place. She slashed regardless, puncturing through the skulls that dove for her with the pointed edge of her narrow sword. It became a whirlwind of fruitless stabbing and screeching heads, acidic spit and blood flying across the poor ship that threatened to buckle under the stress, fighting to stay upright as the ocean waves crashed around them.
Morrigan dropped down to the deck, just as Lucius skidded across it, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her down into the hatch in one easy movement.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“Morrigan, you have to listen to me. This is a hydra—the more we chop off its heads, the more they will grow. It is an unkillable daemon.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” she shouted over the noise.
“We have to send it back to Tartarus.”
“How?”
Lucius smiled sadly, putting a hand on her face.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed at him, throwing his hands off her as she started to pull herself back up.
He grabbed her by the arms before she could resist, talking calmly although calamity raged above them. “Anubis once opened the portal to take me down with it.”
“Anubis is not here!”
“But your other son is. Both your sons have the power to open realms. All it takes is one of them and an abominable creature’s death to open the mouth of Tartarus. We cannot kill the hydra, but you can kill me. I can take it along for the ride.”
Flashes of David in Romania as she begged him to kill her on the castle floor. Flashes of them in the riotous Upperrealms, incensed as she sunk her knife into his chest. She was not going through that again. “No,” she snapped at him.
Lucius smiled, water running down his face, his hair in his eyes. “I suppose you really do love me.”
“There is no me without you!” she sputtered in exasperation, throwing his own words back at him as she physically shoved him away.
The ship suddenly lurched in the opposite direction, throwing him back to her. He steadied himself, grabbing her face in his hands. “We have to do this now.”
But before Morrigan could argue further, a voice surfaced in her head. She gestured for Lucius to wait as she listened.
Morrigan, I need you to bind Cahira. Dan’s voice echoed in her head.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, speaking the words aloud so that Lucius could hear.
We cannot kill this creature, but I can. It’s not just a hydra, but the remnants of Jörmungandr, my brother. At its belly is an open mouth wide enough to swallow a creature whole. Once inside, I can turn into the wolf and tear it apart from the inside out, but it will kill me, and Cahira won't let it happen.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Morrigan murmured. “Daniel, there has to be another way.”
There isn’t. The wolf killed you long ago, and it’s time for you to help me kill it for good. You must all be together to save the realms, but I am not one of you. My only job is to protect her—and I plan on doing just that.
Sorrow came over her, freezing her in place.
Bind her now or she will die too! Dan’s voice roared in her head, shaking her back into action.
Lucius searched her eyes, waiting.
“Hold off the creature,” she told him. “I must bind Cahira so Dan can end its life with his sacrifice. I must tell Libraean to open the portal.”
Already on it, madame. Libraean’s saddened voice drifted into her head. Our Wolf speaks loud enough for me to hear.
“Go!” she told Lucius.
He catapulted back onto the slick deck and slid across it, this time grabbing Cahira. She nearly sliced his head off in response, but he guided her towards Morrigan, who wrapped her arms around her from the back.
“What are you doing?” she screamed as her sword clattered to the ground, falling into the water as the boat gave another violent sway.
Morrigan took a deep breath, focusing on the water around them to steady its waves, creating a funnel that surrounded her and Cahira. Please forgive me.
“Let me go!” Cahira screeched as she fought her, digging her elbows into Morrigan’s ribs.
Lucius and Sandrine continued to chop at the hundreds of loathsome, snapping heads. Morrigan watched Dan hoist himself onto the edge of the ship, searching for the creature’s snapping belly. He threw his sword to Lucius before turning to look at Cahira. His voice was so loud and clear, Morrigan heard it in her own mind.
Cahira, as soon as I descend, turn me into the wolf.
Although Morrigan had immortal strength on her side, she struggled to hold Cahira, who now thrashed with her entire body to escape her grasp. “No!” she screamed.
With burning sapphire eyes, Dan gave her a wistful, I love you, and with nothing more, he jumped down into the belly of the beast.
The sound Cahira made jarred Morrigan to the core. “Cahira, turn him or it will be for nothing!” she cried.
“Veniunt ad me lupum!” she sobbed.
Morrigan watched as the hydra abandoned its ceaseless lunging, its heads twisting and tangling with each other as it let loose a screeching wail. A swirling tempest began to churn around it, the portal ready to open.
Lucius ran towards it to assist, throwing his arm over the edge and slicing across his flesh so that his black blood fell freely into the stormy waters. The struggling portal responded immediately, the hydra continuing to shriek and thrash as it sunk, as hundreds of skeletal hands reached out to drag it back to its home.
Cahira hung limply against Morrigan as she cried, Morrigan now holding her against her chest for comfort rather than bondage, the water she surrounded them with returning to the sea. The scent of Cahira’s damp hair reminded her of when she was a child, filling her with such pain she trembled. She looked up to see Lucius pull back his bloody arm as the creature sank, the portal swallowing up its latest prize.
And then, the waters stilled.
Sandrine rushed over to them, her stoic face distorted by empathy, as Cahira’s wails were the only sound left, echoing across the placid waters. Morrigan felt heat suddenly radiating from Cahira’s skin, forcing her to release her grasp. Yet Cahira did not move, shaking with sorrow and anger as the air around them grew hot and heavy.
“Morrigan.” Lucius’s voice reminded her that she was his granddaughter without saying so. She complied, stretching her arms up to the sky to blanket her daughter with cool rain, putting out the fires that raged within her…just as she’d done for him.
It was Sandrine’s turn to embrace Cahira, lifting her up from where she sat and guiding her back down into the hold.
Once they descended, Morrigan released her own emotions, standing still on the deck as black tears added themselves to the water streaming down her face. She wept for it all—for Dan’s death, for Cahira’s heart, for knowing that Cahira would never forgive her, for David, for Lucius, for the creatures, the humans, the dying gods. She didn’t even fight Lucius’s embrace as he came up behind her, holding her firmly against him. He didn’t speak, only kept her upright as she let herself fall apart.
Her eyes caught the threatening clouds accumulating above her, knowing the boat couldn’t handle another storm. She calmed her breath, swallowing her emotions back down where they came from. Lucius released her, turning her gently around to kiss her forehead.
“It was his choice to make. She will understand one day.”
“Since when did you become the one who calms me down?” she teased half-heartedly. She found herself enjoying his soothing warmth, suddenly wanting him to continue holding her until she fell asleep. But something in his face had changed, and he looked right past her as if he’d seen a ghost.
She turned around slowly to see David standing in the rain, staring at them in bewilderment.
He met her eyes. “What did I miss?”