Chapter 219: The Dragon That Masked You Sure Is Ancient

Until she reached a door that was different.

She didn’t know how she knew which one it was. There was no sign, no marker, nothing that distinguished it from any other door in the corridor. But when she saw it, she knew. With absolute, undeniable certainty, she knew.

The door seemed to shimmer slightly in the late afternoon light that streamed through the corridor windows. Or perhaps that was just her imagination.

Morgana stopped in front of the door.

For a moment, she simply stood there, Then she raised her hand to knock.

But before her knuckles could make contact with the wood, the door swung open silently.

No sound. No creaking hinges. No servant opening it in response to some subtle signal Morgana had missed. The door simply... opened. As if the chamber itself had been waiting for her, as if it had recognized her presence and decided to welcome her inside.

Morgana’s breath caught in her throat.

She looked at the open door, then down at her raised hand, then back at the darkness beyond the threshold. Her mind was screaming questions....Who opened it? How did it open? What is happening?

But she said nothing.

There was nothing to say in the face of the inexplicable.

She stepped over the threshold, crossing from the mundane world of the palace corridor into something that felt fundamentally different. The air changed the moment she passed through. It became cooler, charged with something she could taste on her tongue...magic, ancient and subtle and impossibly complex.

The door closed behind her with a soft whisper of sound.

Morgana heard the soft click of the lock engaging, but she didn’t turn around.

She was transfixed by what lay before her.

***

Morgana found herself in a chamber that was breathtaking in its beauty and austere in its cold elegance.

High stone walls rose up on either side, and large windows looked out over the palace grounds. The light streaming through was pale, ethereal, giving the entire space an almost dreamlike quality. The furnishings were minimal, a bed draped in white silk, a single chair upholstered in pale blue, a table with a few books and what looked like ancient scrolls.

But it was the woman standing by the window who captured Morgana’s complete attention.

She stood in silhouette against the pale afternoon light. Her white-blonde hair hung down her back like spun silver, and it seemed to catch and hold the light, shimmering with a luminescence that no normal human hair could possess. Her frame was slender but not fragile, there was strength in every line of her, in the way she held herself.

When Astraea turned to face Morgana, it felt like the universe itself was shifting.

Her pale blue-gray eyes were the most ancient things Morgana had ever seen. They weren’t the eyes of a young woman, despite the youthful face that housed them. They were the eyes of something that had watched centuries pass. Something that had seen empires rise and fall.

And when those eyes fixed on Morgana, Morgana felt as if she was being truly seen for the first time in her life.

"You’re her," Astraea said simply, her voice carrying a note of something that might have been relief or might have been the weight of destiny finally arriving. "You’re actually her."

Morgana found her voice, though it took effort to push sound past the tightness in her throat.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," she said, and she was proud that her voice remained steady, that she didn’t sound as terrified as she felt.

Astraea moved from the window with a grace that seemed to defy the normal laws of movement. She didn’t walk so much as flow across the chamber, her white-blonde hair trailing behind her like something alive. When she reached the pale blue chair, she settled into it.

"No," Astraea agreed. "You don’t. But you will."

Morgana stood in the center of the chamber, unable to move closer, unable to turn away. She was caught between two impossibilities, the need to flee and the inability to do anything but stay.

"Sit," Astraea said, gesturing to a seat across from her with a languid movement of one pale hand.

Morgana didn’t question the command. She didn’t wonder why she was obeying without hesitation, didn’t question her own acquiescence. Something in her recognized the authority in that simple word, recognized it as coming from something ancient and fundamental and utterly in command of its own power.

She crossed the chamber and sat down.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

The silence stretched between them, growing heavier with each passing second.

It was as if the moment itself was suspended in time, waiting for something, hanging in the balance between what had been and what was about to be.

Finally, Astraea spoke.

"They can feel it, can’t they?" she said, her pale eyes never leaving Morgana’s face. "That you’re something they’ve been waiting for? Something their bodies recognize even if their minds don’t understand it yet?"

Morgana’s breath caught. The casual way Astraea mentioned the kings, the certainty in her voice, the fact that she seemed to understand the connection between Morgana and Kaelen and his brothers, it all sent shivers racing down Morgana’s spine.

"The kings?" Morgana asked, her voice small.

"The dragons inside them," Astraea corrected gently. "They sense you, Morgana. But they’re still conflicted."

"Conflicted about what?" Morgana asked.

Astraea leaned forward slightly.

"Because of the mask on you," she said.

Morgana’s entire body went rigid.

The mask? The way her power had been hidden, concealed so she won’t be detected by the mages in the palace?

How did Astraea know about the masking?

Astraea tilted her head slightly, studying Morgana with those ancient eyes, as if she was reading the questions that were now screaming through Morgana’s mind.

"The dragon that masked you sure is ancient," Astraea said, her tone carrying something that might have been appreciation or might have been awe. "Very ancient. And very, very powerful."