Morrigan blinked, and she was back on Earth.
She wiped her bloodied lips with the back of her hand, feeling her sister’s spirit humming around her, flickering like fireflies. Although her heart was still pumping from exhilaration, she felt warm and complete, as though she’d been wandering lost for days and finally finding the path home. She looked down to see David resting peacefully in the grass, his body freed of Discordia’s spirit. She knelt by his side, tenderly brushing back a lock of rusted hair. His eyes opened, his pupils shrinking as they focused on her face.
He immediately smiled. “Hello.”
“Hello,” she echoed.
“This was how we first met in Ireland,” David remembered. “Except our roles were reversed.”
“I remember.”
He suddenly looked bewildered, sitting upright as if remembering where he was. “Did Lucius make it?”
Morrigan frowned. “What do you mean?”
David pulled himself to his feet, searching all around them. “He—he pulled me out of Tartarus.”
Morrigan’s heart gave a thump as she stood. “Tartarus? I just killed Discordia; she had your body hostage. Your spirit just returned.”
“That explains why they imprisoned me,” David realized, his energy frantic. “Where is everyone? We need to get back to the others—”
Morrigan grabbed him by both arms, halting his movement. “David,” she said sharply, “where is Lucius?”
She realized she didn’t even need to hear the words—she could see the answer reflected in his somber eyes.
“He is in Tartarus,” he told her gently. “He was there to rescue me. Morrigan, I didn’t believe him, but he told me he was dead...”
Although her body was humming with borrowed power, her mind had trouble comprehending his words, deciding to spin as her knees buckled. She knew she was slipping away from reality, but she felt David’s strong arms lifting her up, holding her tightly as he sped her across the plains. She slipped away as she heard the sound of the ocean when they arrived, grateful to be back at Anubis’s home.
david
The path to the house was radiant with torchlight, illuminating their path forward. The equally aglow windows let him know everyone awaited their return. He didn’t stop to question how he knew the way to Anubis’s house, nor did he wish to indulge in the morbid reflection of having his body possessed. Instead, he was consumed by the present, worry heightening his senses as he raced Morrigan through the front gates.
A rumbling storm brewed as they ran through, and Anubis flew out of the house to fetch Morrigan out of his arms. Libraean emerged from behind and spun David around to face him, patting his face and shoulders, while searching his eyes.
“It’s you,” he breathed in relief.
David drew his old friend into an embrace, grateful to see him again. “Morrigan has killed Discordia,” he told him and Anubis, “and Lucius sacrificed himself to pull me out of Tartarus—when I told Morrigan, she collapsed. Her body is engorged with extra power right now, so please be careful.”
Anubis looked up at the crackling, electric clouds. “I see. Let’s get inside.”
David followed them through the door, only to have his path blocked by Cahira, her expression prematurely hardened as if bracing for bad news. “Tell me,” she said through lips that barely moved.
David took her hands, and met her eyes. “We spoke directly to Fenrir,” he told her gently. “Dan is not there.”
Without a word, she pulled away from him and marched out the door. He looked to Sandrine, who nodded to confirm they should not follow. He quietly acquiesced, instead turning back to Morrigan. She’d found her legs and now stood unblinking in front of the fireplace, the flames reflected in dilated pupils. He noticed her eyes had changed color, now shades of blue and green, swirling together like the tropical ocean. He realized with a start that she held Isis’s power, finally able to see it buzzing around her like lightning in a heat storm. She caught him staring at her.
“I am going to retrieve Lucius from Tartarus,” she said.
“No,” David said immediately, vividly recalling the grim world he’d just been trapped in. “I cannot let you go to that horrible place, Morrigan. It is unlike anything we have ever witnessed.”
He braced himself for her anger, but she surprised him with calm resolve. “Let us speak alone,” she said.
David nodded and followed her outside. The sky broke into a drizzle as a loud clap of thunder struck overhead, vibrating the ground beneath their feet.
Morrigan stopped to stand before him, unbothered by the mist dampening her hair. Her light eyes burned, her face locked in calm resolve. “David, I have to.”
“Perhaps we can bring him back here,” he pleaded.
“I am not afraid of the Netherworld, David. I am its mistress.” She folded her arms in front of her. Then she added softly, “Please don’t think it easy for me to speak about him to you, but I cannot—I will not—leave him down there. Even if that means I must die myself.”
David frowned. “I don’t want to imagine what Discordia said to you in my body, in my voice. I’m quite sure she used anything she could find in my head to upset you.”
“She sent me dreams of Ireland.” Morrigan smiled sadly.
“Ah.” David looked down at the damp earth then back up towards the sky, blinking away the raindrops. The thought of Gaia weaved through his mind. “I won’t stand before you and tell you that my love for you was not deep, nor will I lie and tell you I don’t love you still. You were my first, my real true love.”
Morrigan looked away.
He grabbed her hands so that her eyes found his. “But for a very long time, I have been plagued by guilt for taking you away from Lucius. I do not regret what happened, but every decision I have ever made since that moment has been because of guilt. The only way I can ever resolve it is if I finally let you go.”
Morrigan was quiet.
“I think guilt also binds you to me. You regretted leaving him, which is why you had to convince yourself you hated him, why you had to create an entirely different world where he did not exist so you could live happily with me. Even then, you let slip that you still longed for him. I chose to ignore it—I was blinded by my own stubbornness.”
He pulled the vision forward, sharing it with her: the two Celtic deities in ancient times, standing inside their stone palace, the hollow chamber echoing their sadness.
“Please do not go,” David pleaded as Daghda, his long, auburn beard overwhelmed with gray, striking evidence that the old god had aged. “You were gone for so long, I thought you’d never return. I was weak when she approached me. I was a damn fool. Please forgive me—it was not love or lust, it was sorrow.”
