Morella Fenwick's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Morella carried the broken mirror shard to Mirella Sweetmire's cottage. Mirella was her closest friend in the swamp, a bog fae who knew its oldest stories. Flowers and mushrooms grew from her hair, and her eyes glowed without blinking. She took the shard in both green hands and tilted her head too far to one side. "Oh, she's awake," Mirella said, smiling. "Your grandmothers worked so hard to keep her asleep. They were right to be scared." "Who is she?" Morella asked. Mirella traced the woman trapped inside the glass. "The one your bloodline buried under the throne. They drowned the hall to drown her. If you free the throne, you free her too." She said it gently, like good news. "You already cut the roots. She's climbing now." Morella's stomach dropped. She still owed Lyris payment to learn what chained the throne. Only the siren had seen the full truth below. She needed the rest of the answer before the buried woman finished rising. Lyris found her at the pool's edge, half out of the black water, sea-green hair plastered to her shoulders. The siren smiled with sharp teeth. "You come when you want something. You still owe me, little queen." "Name the price," Morella said. Lyris lifted a dark pearl from the water. It swirled with green and violet light, and a low hum came off its surface. "This holds the voice of the deep. The whole story of your drowned hall. I'll trade it." Her violet-blue eyes narrowed. "For your name. The one your mother called you as a child. Not Morella. The true one." Morella hesitated. She had already given this siren her earliest memory of belonging. Now her name too. But the woman in the shard was climbing. "Take it," Morella said, and spoke the name aloud. Lyris shivered with pleasure and pressed the pearl into Morella's palm. It warmed at once. Voices poured into her head. Her ancestors had not ruled the drowned throne. They had stolen it. The woman beneath was its true queen. They chained both queen and throne under the black water and called the theft a birthright. Morella's hands shook. Her whole claim was a lie passed down as pride. A voice spoke behind her. "How wonderfully tragic." Liliana Nightshade stepped from the trees, silver hair bright, black wings folded, glowing freckles scattered across her pale face. The dark fae had always doubted Morella's right to rule. She held a shard of her own wing, shimmering violet. "I warned you thrones belong to the strong, not the born." She smiled. "Your grandmothers agreed. They just lied about which strength." The pool stirred. Far below, the green light flickered, then pulsed. Something was rising toward the surface. Morella closed her fist around the pearl. She had her answer at last. The throne was real, the hall was real, and the queen she had freed was coming to take it back.