“I’m dead, David. You are only visiting,” Lucius explained impatiently. “I’m surprised they let you stay down here as long as you have been. I can’t even begin to tell you how poorly this place is managed now. Now go. I’ll distract King Demon, and you find your way back to the rest of them. It’s not a difficult endeavor; once you reach the old meadows, you’ll see the portal. Tell Cahira I’m sorry I couldn’t send her lover back with you.” He started back down the Hall of Giants.
“Lucius,” he tried to stop him.
“Go, David.”
“You’re a bastard for murdering me.”
“That’s more like it.”
“But you didn’t have to come down here to rescue me. It means a lot that you did.”
Lucius finally paused his stride. He looked back at David and shrugged. “Well, you know I enjoy any opportunity to make you look bad.”
And before David could say another word, he marched down the great hall, leaving the giant wolf and his brother behind.
morrigan
The savanna was hauntingly beautiful at dusk, the moon burning a gold disc into the sky as it rose above the horizon. A warm breeze drifted across her skin, its very scent wild and untamed, holding a hint of promise.
He stood against an acacia tree with his hips forward and his arms crossed, looking more like the alluring Lucius than her quiet, contemplative David as he stared at her with hungry eyes.
“I wondered if you’d know to find me out here,” she said, letting a smile glide across her lips.
“I knew you would run when you learned of my brother’s lies,” David said. “It seemed logical you’d go to the place where the moon shines the brightest.”
“Is it you who has been sending me dreams of Ireland?”
“Perhaps.”
Morrigan drew closer as the breeze picked up around them. “I’d forgotten those days,” she said dreamily, reaching her hand up behind his head. He smiled before she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his, knowing she was kissing a stranger.
When he opened his eyes, he immediately jumped back, taking in his new surroundings with alarm. “Where did you take us?”
Morrigan smiled, standing serenely in the bleached sand as a thin black snake wove around her bare feet, her crows circling above. She saw her image reflected in the pupils of his eyes—a blend of every goddess she’d portrayed—tall and regal, wearing billowing black with hair that matched, her arms and tattoos exposed, blue eyes rimmed with smudged kohl, her hand clutching an obsidian staff that ended in a python’s head. One of the crows landed on her shoulder, settling his wings as he apprehended David with a resounding squawk. Beside her stood a wolf with fur as black as the rest of her familiars, all patiently waiting for direction from their queen. “You can stop pretending to be David now.”
Discordia shifted back into her blonde-haired, red-eyed physique, her ruby lips pursed with annoyance. She looked out of place in the morose, ethereal realm Morrigan brought her to, a blinding sore against the peaceful grayscale. “It took you long enough to realize it was me,” she huffed. “I can always count on you to be distracted.”
Morrigan apprehended her calmly. “I’m not distracted now.”
Discordia cast a disapproving look at the gradient silver sky and the black waters that crashed against the sand. In the distance, sharp black mountains cut through smoky white fog. The air sighed around them. “Where is this place?” she repeated in disgust.
“It took me a moment to remember,” Morrigan began as she gazed across the waters, “but I once created the realms. Isis created the life that dies upon the Earth, but I created the spaces where death is reborn. We are in the Middleworld, the place between the realms. A place you cannot harm.”
Discordia scoffed, though her eyes betrayed her concern. “I always find a way. I’ll consume your powers soon enough and then it will be mine.”
“I have thought much about the events in my life,” Morrigan continued as if she hadn’t heard her, “wondering why you’ve been such a persistent annoyance throughout my life, and I’ve come to a conclusion. At the beginning of time, there was heka and chaos. Until one day, the two merged and birthed a pair of twins: the Great She. All was well until the day one of the twins fell in love, which birthed chaos as a separate entity. Chaos might have broken away, but it was nothing without heka. It was forced to feed off others to survive. Chaos wanted so badly to be a goddess in her own right, but she couldn’t, even though she walked in their footsteps and made love to their husbands. She began murdering other goddesses and absorbing their power, but in doing so, she simply became pieces of them sewn together—not the real deity she longed to become.”
Morrigan turned to her, watching her face twitch and twist at her words. “Finally, she decided to kill every god and goddess so she could be the only goddess standing, giving her all the power and prestige she craved. But it will not work, Discordia. Even if you kill us all, you will still remain a sad, empty shell filled with the stolen souls of others.”
“You know nothing of what you speak,” Discordia snapped. She shifted into the image of Isis, Morrigan’s twin staring back at her with violent green eyes. “I am the one with heka now, and when I take the rest from Cahira, I will be the most powerful goddess on Earth.”
“My sister was far more brilliant than you give her credit for. Cahira does not have Isis’s heka. It is safely hidden away. And even if you did manage to find it and steal it, it won’t help you.” The crow on her shoulder let out a squawk of agreement.
“You will still be alone. You can surround yourself with minions, you can make deals and raise demons, you can steal the power of others. But you will never have true devotion, never feel the love and loyalty of family.”
Discordia gave her a smug look. “I’ve made love to both David and Lucius in so many different ways, Lilith. Your words do not upset me.”
Morrigan shook her head, offering her a sad smile. “You had to trick them to do it. You could have had your own life, your own realm even. You could have found your own lover, bore your own children. But you chose to take over my sister’s life and mine—and you failed. You cannot fake true love, nor can you pretend your way into having another person’s life, no matter how appealing it might be.”
Discordia’s face twisted horribly as she spoke, shifting through different faces before slipping into Gaia’s form.
Morrigan laughed. “She’s actually the one that sent me to you.”
With a furious screech, Discordia opened her palms, letting the fire she’d stolen from Lucius fly freely from her hands.
Morrigan barely flinched, dropping her staff to extend her own hands. In an instant, she felt them all around her—David’s wind, Lucius’s fire, Isis’s heka—blended with her waters and the spiritual powers of her sons. The pulsating, black energy gifted to her blocked Discordia’s stolen fire, driving it backwards. She sputtered, dismayed as she tried to push harder, shifting into her many forms as she tried to match the strength radiating from Morrigan. The crows began to circle and caw, creating a cyclone above them, riddled with flashes of lightning that threatened to strike at her command.
“Show yourself,” Morrigan demanded as she inched closer, watching the chaos goddess falter and fade, unable to bring forth strength that was her own.
Discordia screeched with frustration as she submitted to her preferred avatar, her white-blonde hair whipping around her face as she struggled to keep Morrigan from advancing.
“No, the real one,” Morrigan ordered as she pulled power from the depths of her soul. She heard her sister’s wild battle cry reverberating in her mind as she worked through her, slamming Discordia to the ground.
The stream of power was broken as the imposter goddess crumbled. She balled herself up in fear, shaking as Morrigan stood in wait. The magic Morrigan had invoked twitched around her like electricity, snaking around her form, waiting to strike.
Discordia gingerly uncoiled, pulling herself to her feet. She was a mirror image of Morrigan now, tears streaking down her face as she stared at her with manic eyes a piercing shade of blue. “I hate you,” she screamed.
Morrigan marched up to her double without hesitation. She thrust her fist into her chest and cracked her ribs in one solid movement, capturing Discordia’s fearful eyes with her own as she ripped the still-beating heart from her chest. She stared in shock and horror as Morrigan promptly sank her teeth into it, releasing the blood of a hundred stolen lives. Chaos let out a defeated whimper before she crumpled to the ground, splitting into dozens of snakes. They slithered to Morrigan’s feet, up her legs and into her skin, her body seamlessly absorbing what was meant to be hers. The heart she held transformed as well, coiling around her fingers before finding a place on her arm, turning itself into another tattoo.
