She’d let them all believe she needed more rest, but she wanted to do anything but sleep. Instead, she lay motionless on the bed, staring up at its rose-colored tester and the chandelier that seemed wasted in the perpetual state of darkness she kept her room in. She still heard Libraean’s weeping through the walls, still felt the smoldering hatred burning off Cahira, and was lost in awkward sorrow when David was near. She knew deep down she was avoiding Lucius, which he seemed to sense and respect, but she missed him around her. She couldn’t believe how easily they’d fallen together in this life, such a stark difference between times in the past when all it seemed they did was fight. Even so, it seemed blatantly insensitive to focus on that when the rest of the house was in mourning, each one of them bearing their own respective burdens whilst nestled in their rooms. Although she loved all who slept behind its walls, she longed to be freed from the collective weight of sadness.
She hurried back into her room and rummaged until she found the feathery black coat Lucius had delivered to her. She marched back to the balcony through the giant windowed doors and hurdled herself off it, landing with a gentle thump on the enclosed porch below. She startled when she realized someone was already standing there with their back turned, before she recognized Cahira’s combative stance.
“Please don’t go,” Morrigan said quickly before she had the chance to avoid her.
Cahira crossed her arms as she faced her. “I cannot help the anger I feel,” she said. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, snowflakes catching on her hair and fur-lined coat. “You cannot expect me to forget what has happened so that you might find peace.”
Morrigan folded her hands at her waist. “I understand.”
Cahira sighed, turning her gaze back out into the distance. The snow wasn’t heavy enough to fully stick, swirling instead around the fallen leaves that cluttered the distant forest floor, the wind shaking the bony, twisted branches of its trees. “I know why you did what you did,” she continued, her tone softening ever so slightly. “You were forced to make a quick decision. Had it been me, I likely would have done the same. However, you might have raised me as a child, but Dan picked up where you left off. He was everything to me for a very long time. It might have taken a hundred years for me to finally accept how I felt, but I did come to love him. I finally told him, after all that time, and then he was taken from me. You have to understand my fury.”
“I do,” Morrigan said quietly, once again swept up by emotion.
Cahira shifted her golden-brown eyes back towards her, their radiance suddenly so similar to Lucius’s that Morrigan took a step backwards. “Then you will understand why I intend to bring him back.”
Morrigan almost protested, biting her lip to stay quiet.
“You, David, and Lucius have been running into each other in different bodies for eons. Dan was once a god himself—I am certain his soul still exists and will reincarnate, but I’m not waiting that long. I’m going to open up hell and pull him out.”
Morrigan couldn’t help herself. “Lucius was once impatient trying to retrieve Isis from her tree and it didn’t fare well for either of them. It’s actually the reason you have a piece of her soul. Do you want to potentially sever Dan’s soul in that way, after the lifetime he spent as a split entity, tied to that horrible wolf?”
“I’m not Lucius,” Cahira argued. “You know as well as I do that I have more power than any band of Druids. I also have you, Lucius, and Anubis with me—the original Underworld triumvirate. If there is anyone who can bring someone back from the dead, it’s one of you.”
“Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should,” Morrigan insisted. “Death is a transition, one that Dan chose of his own free will. Truly loving someone means letting them make that choice for themselves, regardless of our own desires.”
“You can cease with the maternal advice now,” Cahira said coldly. “I am no longer the young child you once knew—I technically have been on this earth longer than you. And I’m honestly not surprised to hear you won’t help me—in fact, I anticipated it.”
Morrigan sighed. “I’m sorry I bothered you. I was just restless and needed air.” She turned to head back into the house.
“Do you feel up for a fight?”
Morrigan blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Do you feel like fighting? We’re about to be attacked. Sandrine just warned me.”
It took Morrigan a moment to comprehend what she said, but Cahira took off without waiting, heading into the slumbering port city towards the water. Morrigan darted after her, weaving through the twisting alleys to meet Sandrine on the beach. As they grew closer, Morrigan noticed the heads rising out of the ocean and immediately summoned her crows. The shimmering onyx birds fluttered in as if they’d been perched in impatient anticipation for her call. She threw off her cloak and caught the knife Cahira tossed in her direction.
The emerging sirens had chosen to wear human-like legs, though they were still covered in oily scales, armed with weapons made of sea shells and bones, their fingernails sharpened into points. They’d also shed the guises they used to lure mortal men to their dens for feeding. Their eyes, piscine and oily black, sat above mouths filled with rows of tiny fangs, with two slits where their noses should be and gills slashed along their necks. They advanced and Morrigan’s inert adrenaline came rushing in, sweeping away her melancholy as it reminded her that her natural instincts for combat were just as strong as her whirlpool of emotions. She relinquished total control, joyous as she rushed into the throng of grotesque creatures.
There was no pause, no distinction between the screeching crows dominating the sky and the harpy-like screams rising out of the sirens of the sea. They held up impressively against the three strongest warriors the Earth had ever borne, nicking and barbing Morrigan’s skin as she twisted to avoid the skillful thrusts of their weaponry. She managed to behead a few as her crows swooped down to pull at their gooey, aquatic skin. Sandrine’s arms bore a few angry gashes as well, but her sword continued to send sliced appendages to the ground, the severed pieces flopping like fish kept out of water. Morrigan was unable to find Cahira until the sirens finally began to retreat, clearing enough space that she could see her silhouette marching towards another creature all together as it headed towards them through the mist. Morrigan moved to assist, but Sandrine stopped her with her arm.
“That is the creature who once killed Dan,” she told her. “She wants this one for herself—it will do her good.”
Morrigan frowned, for the advancing creature was large enough to give her pause, hideously misshapen as it lumbered forward. But she acquiesced, pirouetting her way through the rest of the sirens until the last one retreated under the surface of the water. It was apparent they didn’t care enough about Discordia’s war to risk total annihilation, slinking back into the depths of the ocean lest they lose more of their tribe. She took a few moments to collect her energy, before joining Sandrine and trudging back up the shore. Cahira remained out of sight but again, Sandrine shook her head when Morrigan started to speak. “She is quite capable on her own,” she promised as she wiped the siren slime from her healing arms.
The snow picked up around them as Morrigan bid her crows a regretful farewell, watching as they became nothing more than black clouds in the night sky.
They were both startled by a loud thump at their feet. Morrigan looked down to see a severed head rolling across the bank. Remarkably, it appeared as if it had been chopped off once before its final severing, a fresh, angry gash expelling black blood from its rancid flesh, cut veins sprawling out onto the sand like the tentacles of a jellyfish.
Cahira jumped down from the cliff above to join them, completely drenched in vampyre blood, her eyes so wide with exhilaration Morrigan had no doubt of her paternity.
“What is that?” Morrigan asked, pointing to the head.
“Ares, the Greek god of war, also known as Dragos to David and Dan in fifteenth century Wallachia,” Cahira explained, skewering the head with her sword so she could lift it up for Morrigan to see.
Morrigan wasn’t sure if she could call what stared back at her a face, rather a swollen patchwork of putrid flesh holding dead eyes shot through with crimson.
“Angelique brought him back to life after Dan hacked him to pieces,” Cahira explained. “He is the one who has been creating other blood drinkers and demons around the world. He was technically my uncle.” She admired the head with a sigh. “But not anymore.” She marched down to the shoreline and tossed the head into the water with a flip of her sword. “Take this back to her,” she yelled to the sirens. “Let her know I’m still not impressed!”
Sandrine crept up behind her, placing a neutral hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps we should go back and tell the others.”
Morrigan could see the internal war brimming behind Cahira’s stoic expression, a drive and rebelliousness not often sated, even when she stood victorious after battle. She swallowed, for she saw both Lucius and herself reflected in Cahira’s temperament…but she wondered how much of it was from Discordia. After all, Cahira shared her blood as well. Fortunately, Cahira softened with Sandrine’s touch and nodded before she headed back up from the shoreline. It was apparent Sandrine had the same calming effect on Cahira’s rage as Morrigan did with Lucius, which Morrigan was grateful for. Though a small tinge of jealousy wiggled into her heart, a longing to have such a bond with the child she now remembered.
Cahira strode past, surprising her by patting her shoulder. “Good fight.”
Morrigan smiled, grateful for the small gesture. She tucked the borrowed knife into her boot and retrieved her cloak from the cluster of rocks. She winced as she wrapped it around the battered frame her body still worked to heal. The snow finally reached a steady fall, collecting in little drifts around the beach, and she followed the footprints that her daughter and her companion left as they deserted the frigid beach, side by side.
Lucius almost knocked her from her feet the moment she entered the chateau. “Where were you?” he demanded, trying not to appear frantic.
“Angelique sent sirens,” Cahira explained as she fell onto one of the newly upholstered couches. She pulled off her water-logged boots, seemingly oblivious to the mud they dripped onto the cream-colored rug.
David and Libraean joined them, apparently having heard the commotion from their rooms. Libraean wore a pair of silk pajamas as though he’d just awoken, while David wore his standard frown, wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows. The tension in the room squeezed at Morrigan’s chest.
“Are you certain it was Angelique?” David asked Cahira.
“I would have brought you Ares’s head, but I threw it into the ocean after them,” she replied.
