Page 16 of Midnight Kingdom

Morrigan nods but drops her gaze to the floor below her. “Yes, you have no other choice.”

“We came all this fucking way,” Revenant starts and his eyes are furious. “We risked our lives.”

“And you continue to risk your lives,” Morrigan fires back at him, her eyes narrowed and angry. “Which is why you must leave as quickly as you can.”

Eilish moves closer to the mysterious woman and sits beside her, ignorant to the hesitance in all of our eyes. None of us trusts Morrigan—the truth is in our body language, our tone of voice and the way we look at her. But, Eilish does believe her. She trusts the Midnight Queen, though I’m not certain why.

“There must be a way,” Eilish says.

“You,” Morrigan says as she gives Eilish a smile. “You are the way, but the way is not ready yet.”

“I don’t understand,” Eilish says and shakes her head.

“You are Succubus and you are angel. Light and dark in one vessel,” Morrigan says. I don’t like the term, “vessel,” as though Eilish isn’t a person, but an object.

“But what does that have to do,” Eilish starts but Morrigan interrupts her.

“You are the living manifestation of the equilibrium, the balance of all things,” she continues.

“The balance?” Eilish repeats, clearly lost.

Morrigan nods. “But, you must maintain that balance.”

“How?” Eilish asks.

“If you feed from darkness, then you will become darkness. If you feed from the light, then you will become light. But if one outweighs the other, chaos ensues,” Morrigan responds.

“We need to leave,” Cambion says and faces me with concern.

CHAPTER FOUR

CAMBION

The Castle in the Sky

Morrigan looks at me with apprehension in her startling gaze. I remember the last time I spoke with her. It was over one hundred years ago.

We stood within theTemple of Desolationand drew on the ethers. Even then, Morrigan’s power amazed me. But here in this room, I don’t recognize the being I once looked up to for guidance.

Morrigan was always a cunning sorceress, a self-proclaimed deity, and she was capable of seeing millennia into the future. Is it possible that my brother and Variant found a way of syphoning the power of the Midnight Queen? Is it possible that Variant and Theren grew powerful enough to usurp control of the Midnight Queen? To force her to bow to them rather than the other way around?

Yes, I believe it is possible.

Probable? Not exactly.

“What happened to Abedon? He was your guard, your right hand,” I say.

Sadness creeps into Morrigan’s gaze as she fidgets with the sleeve of her gown. “He was killed.”

“Killed?” Dragan repeats, disbelief and shock warring in his tone. Abedon was almost as powerful as the Midnight Queen, herself. Thus, Dragan’s surprise is understandable.

She nods. “Killed by Variant and Theren.”

“How?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I do not have the time to enter into long conversations and neither do you. You are already on borrowed time, as it is,” she finishes but then noticing the question in all of our eyes, she takes a deep breath before responding. “Suffice to say, I will never forgive myself for what has happened to the realms. But I fear without my power, I am useless in this fight. It is best to leave me here.”

We’re running out of time, but there’s no way we can force Morrigan to do anything she doesn’t wish to do. With or without her power, the Midnight Queen is not a being any of us have the strength to take on and win. Her determination alone makes her dangerous. And we need her as an ally, not an enemy.

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