Page 69 of The Mourning Throne
Lex dragged his ruined leg forward, leaving no trail. Not-Lex never bled.
Morgan’s hands trembled, not enough to count.
He reached out.
If he touched Lex, it would be over. It always ended at that moment.
Not this time.
His fingers grazed the brand.
Lex split open. Clean down the middle. Ribcage pulled apart like a zipper. No organs inside. Just smoke.
Morgan watched the ribs float away. Shredded skin hanging weakly on, waving like the white flag of surrender.
They blinked out of existence.
One. Two. Three.
Twenty-four.
When he looked back down, there was a second Lex.
Throat slashed.
Lids peeled away from the eyes. Too much white next to all that tan.
He mouthed words Morgan couldn’t understand.
A third Lex, almost too far out for Morgan to recognize it was him. A wave of blond hair, his back turned, head tilted up toward the faces in the dark.
Blood soaked into the back of his shirt, right over the spine.
“You can keep the rest,” the third Lex called. “This one’s our favorite.”
The second Lex reached out, and Morgan jerked back.
But the red was seeping from his own hands now. The wrong kind.
Blood this time.
Nothing remained intact after all of this. Nothing was evermeant to survive.
Morgan stepped forward. Maybe. There wasn’t ground beneath him, but he moved all the same. Each motion left a smear behind. Gone when he turned his head.
No.
No, this wasn’t right.
He’d thought this. This had happened.
All of this had already happened.
Woman.
Man.
Fingers.
