Chapter 264: Why? What is it you want from Morgana?

Kaelen opened his mouth.

But nothing came out.

"For you". The words moved through him slowly, and GLACIUS, which had been snarling since Astraea walked in, went silent in the way ice goes silent before it cracks.

He thought of the Sanctum. Auryn’s great gold head lowered toward him. I can sense your dragon deteriorating already. He thought of two hundred years of searching: selections, villages, cities, border keeps, every girl with the wrong eyes or the right ones, every false dawn. He thought of how many winters he had stood on the northern wall and cursed whatever had hidden her.

And somewhere in that same stretch of years, a child had been learning to be small. A child in a cold village, with a mother who had managed to keep her hidden for years, who had learned how to hold her breath when her hands grew warm. Learning that the thing inside her was a danger. Learning to smile at strangers so they would not look closer.

Someone had taught her that. Someone had stood between her and everything that would have come, and had paid for it with years of silence.

Kaelen’s throat worked.

He had wanted a name to hate. He had been given a debt instead.

"I did not know," he said at last, and his voice scraped. "I thought we were being kept from her."

"You were," said Astraea. "And she was being kept from the world. Both are true."

He looked away, at the fire, and did not speak again for some time.

"And there is another," said Astraea.

Draeven’s eyes sharpened.

"Someone of her blood is not her friend."

The room tightened by a degree.

"Blood," Thorne said softly. "You mean family."

"I mean what I said." Astraea replied.

"Her mother?" Kaelen asked abruptly. His eyes had come back. "Elara. Is it...."

"That is not mine to give." Astraea replied.

"It is a simple question." Kaelen shot back at her

"It is a very large one." She did not raise her voice. "And I will not answer it for her. If you wish to know, you will have to ask her. She may tell you. She may not. But it will be her word, and not mine."

Kaelen’s hand clenched on the arm of his chair. The frost spread another inch.

"You are very free with riddles for a woman who came here to help."

"I came to warn." Astraea turned fully toward him. "And you are very free with your temper for a king who wants to be trusted."

A pause.

Thorne made a small, strangled sound that might have been a laugh. Draeven looked at the floor, and his mouth twitched.

Kaelen glared at both of them.

"Fine," he said. "Fine."

"What do you want?"

It was Thorne who asked it.

He had said very little. He had sat in his chair in the long shadows with his fingers laced and his dark eyes fixed on the witch, and now he spoke into a silence that had grown long.

"You say you are not hunting her. You say you are only waiting. You have come here and told us a great many things that are useful and a great many more that are not, and you have kept the rest back." His voice was quiet and level. "Why? What is it you want from Morgana?"

For a moment, she looked almost amused.

"Do you think," Astraea said, "that you are the only ones who have waited?"

Nobody answered.

"You have waited two hundred years. I have waited...." She stopped. Something moved behind her eyes, vast and tired, like the shadow of a very large animal passing under ice. "I have waited longer than I can say. And I have watched many come and go who were not her. I will not tell you what it is to wait that long. I would not wish it on you."

"That is not an answer," said Thorne.

"It is the only one I have." She replied.

"You will not take her from us."

It was Draeven who spoke, and his voice was very low.

She turned her head.

"Would you?" he said. "If you could?"

"No." Astreas replied.

"You are certain." He asked.

"I am." She held his eyes. "I will not take her from you. I will not take her from anyone. She is not mine to take, nor yours. That is the whole of my meaning." Her voice dropped. "But I cannot promise that others will not. And I cannot promise they will fail."

A log shifted in the grate. A shower of sparks went up the chimney.

"The ancient dragons," Draeven said slowly.

He saw her still.

"They told us to bring her to them. In the Sanctum. As soon as possible." He had not meant to say it. He watched her face as he spoke. "We have told no one outside this palace. Not a servant, not a council member. Not even Cedric."

"No," said Astraea.

"Yet you knew."

She said nothing.

"You said others," Thorne murmured. "A moment ago. ’Others will not fail.’ Those who would take her." His eyes narrowed. "You meant them."

"I meant many," said Astraea. "I will not pretend the dragons are not among them. Their need is real. I do not doubt it. It is as old and as great as yours." Her voice lowered. "But need is not the same as claim. And I think you know that."

A long moment passed.

"If they ask for her," Kaelen said, "we will weigh it."

"Yes."

"And if she does not wish to go."

"Then she will not."

"Even if they command it?"

"Even then." The smallest smile crossed her mouth. "I think that is what you have been trying to ask for a good while."

Kaelen exhaled. His shoulders eased by a fraction.

"Yes," he said gruffly. "It is."

Astraea turned to go.

She had come halfway to the door when she stopped, and the stillness of the room tightened. She stood with her back to them, her white hair falling nearly to her knees, her slender hands hanging loose.

"There is one thing more," she said.

"Then say it," said Draeven.

"The mask."

He felt it before she spoke. A cold line ran down his spine.

"It was made ten years ago, by the one I will not name. It was a good mask. It held her through a childhood, a harvest, a fever, a famine, a hundred hard nights in a cold village. It held her through the first stirrings of her power and the long grey weeks in the palace’s servants’ quarters." Her voice was quiet. "And it is failing."