Mist spilled from the ground, curling up around the stone like smoke. A pillar of light split the fog. The veil parted like curtains of silk.
Tidefall Keep appeared through the mist—distant but real, perched on cliffs that shouldn't exist.
Hmm, she hadn't rescinded my invitation. Interesting.
When I reached the fortress, I had to take a deep breath, knowing this visit would not be an easy one. Nothing with Morgan was. I stood there a moment, glancing up and further still as I took in the intimidating structure. It appeared lessbuiltand moreexcavatedfrom the cliff itself, as though a fortress had grown from stone and storm. Portions of the structure disappeared directly into the cliff face, as though the sea had carved the keep into existence.
Like the Weirstone, the walls of Tidefall Keep were sheer black basalt streaked with silver veins. A single, weather-worn bridge spanned a chasm where the waves crashed far below—an approach that felt more like a challenge than a path. At low tide, the base of the cliff revealed archways to half-flooded caverns Morgan used for rituals, summoning, and private councils with the spirits. At high tide, the sea rose so violently it pummeled the rock with a sound like the heavens splitting.
I crossed the bridge until I stood before the fortress, where I gazed out toward the endless gray waves crashing below, stirring memories of tides past and storms yet to come. A raven cawed, wheeling overhead through a sky bruised with dark clouds. That was Morgan's way of letting me know that she was aware of my presence.
Brushing off tendrils of damp hair that clung to my forehead, I turned toward the enchantment-veiled doors. I didn't knock. I didn't need to.
"Morgan, I know you know I'm here."
The double doors creaked open as if the keep itself took a breath before allowing me entry. Inside, the air held a chill, tinged with the scent of burning sage and saltwater. The halls glowed with blue witch-flame flickering from sconces carved into the rock. Shadows danced along the stone walls, each step echoing like whispers.
Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting forgotten queens with serpents coiling around their waists and women crowned with bones—remnants of a magic that kept bloodlines in balance long before Arthur had claimed his throne.
As I'd mentioned, this was not my first time here. But my visits earlier had been for far more enjoyable reasons.
I moved deeper into the labyrinthine halls, following the witch fire that erupted along each sconce, leading me forward. The architecture echoed the sea's flow; circular chambers opened before me with spirals and vortices, mirroring currents and tides. The witch fire led me toward the Great Hall, where Morgan sat awaiting me, always at the heart of where power converged. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs far below provided a constant, thunderous rhythm that seemed to pulse through the walls of the keep.
But it wasn't the grandeur of the hall that made me pause in the archway—it was what filled the space around Morgan's throne: ravens. Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, perched along every available surface. They lined the windowsills like sentinels, clustered on the carved stone pillars that supported the vaulted roof, and gathered in dark, shifting masses along the edges of the room. Their obsidian feathers gleamed with an otherworldly sheen in the witch fire's blue glow, and their black eyes—countless pairs of them—all turned toward me as I entered.
The birds didn't caw or rustle. They simply watched, as if they were extensions of Morgan herself, sharing in her ancientknowledge and power. The silence they maintained was more unsettling than any cacophony would have been, creating an atmosphere of expectant tension that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
"Vaelen, what do you want?" she greeted me from where she sat on a black throne in the center of the room.
"Now is that any way to greet an old friend?"
Morgan rose from her throne, annoyance appearing across those sharp yet stunning features. Her midnight-black hair fell in waves over bare shoulders, the gown she wore—deep purple edged with silver embroidery—exposing her bounteous breasts as well as the network of fine silver scars along her collarbone. The result of dangerous magical experimentation, she'd once told me while I traced them with my tongue.
"Old friend?" Her emerald eyes glittered with flecks of gold that seemed to dance like trapped fireflies. "Is that what we are to one another?"
She descended the dais with deliberate slowness, each step a calculated movement designed to draw my attention to the curve of her hips, the sway of fabric against skin. The scent of sea spray and something darker—nightshade, perhaps—clung to her.
"I believe at one time we were more than just friends."
She raised a single brow at me, but a smile nearly took shape on her mouth. "We were never friends, Vaelen."
"No?" I walked right up to her, wanting nothing more than to kiss that sly smile off her beautiful mouth. "Then what would you have termed our relationship?"
"Fucking," she answered with a small laugh. "We were fucking, Vaelen."
"Ah, you harm me, my lovely lady."
I reached out to take her hand, and she allowed me, so I brought it to my lips.
"No one can harm you, Vaelen," she responded. "Because in order to harm someone, it follows that they would have to possess a soul to harm."
"Ah, you welcome me with daggers."
She shook her head. "I don't welcome you at all."
"Such cold words for such heated memories." I moved closer, remembering the taste of her skin, the way she'd gasped my name on wave after wave of bliss when I'd buried myself inside her. "Or have you forgotten how you begged me to—"
"—if you've come all this way to reminisce about past indiscretions, you're wasting both our time."
