Chapter 26 Dying in Someone Else's Memory
MIREYA'S POV
"We don't have time for this!" I shout at Azraeth, even as Celeste's blood-soaked form lies unconscious on the cathedral floor. "Seraphina has the children!"
"And rushing in without a plan gets them killed faster." Azraeth's voice is maddeningly calm. "We need to prepare. Train. You're not ready."
"I don't need to be ready. I need to save them!"
He tosses me a blade—one of the training swords from the armory. "Then prove it. Show me you can fight without your powers drowning you."
I catch the blade, fury making my hands shake. Through the bond, I feel his determination. He's testing me. Now. While children are dying.
"You're insane," I hiss.
"And you're wasting time arguing." He draws his own blade. "Attack me."
I lunge. The moment steel meets steel, the world fractures.
I'm not in the cathedral anymore.
I'm standing in a burning field, smoke choking the air. Bodies everywhere—witches and demons, allies who died defending me. The blade in my hand isn't a training sword. It's real, and it's covered in blood.
Angels surround me. Dozens of them, their white wings stained with ash. And at their center stands Seraphina, beautiful and terrible, her star-metal blade gleaming.
"Morwenna." Her voice cuts through the screams. "Surrender, and we'll make it quick."
I—Morwenna—I lift my chin. "I'll never betray him."
"Then you'll die for him."
She moves faster than thought. The star-metal blade pierces my chest, and agony explodes through every nerve. I can't breathe. Can't think. The pain is everything.
"MORWENNA!" Azraeth's voice, raw with horror.
I see him fighting through angels, shadows erupting around him like a storm. But he's too far. Too late.
I'm falling. The ground rushes up. Strong arms catch me—his arms—and I look up into golden eyes that hold five hundred years of grief before I've even finished dying.
"Don't leave me," he begs. "Please. I can heal you. I can—"
"You can't." Blood fills my mouth. "Promise me. Promise you'll survive this. Promise you'll find me again."
"I promise. I swear it."
His tears fall on my face. The last thing I feel before darkness takes me is his lips on my forehead and his broken sobs destroying him.
Then nothing.
I'm screaming.
The blade falls from my hands, clattering on stone, and I'm screaming Azraeth's name because I'm dying, the star-metal is in my chest, I can't breathe—
"Mireya!" Hands grip my shoulders. "You're safe. You're not dying."
But I am. I felt it. The blade. The blood. The cold spreading through my limbs.
"Breathe. Look at me." Azraeth's face swims into focus, his expression gentle in a way I've never seen. "You're Mireya. You're in the cathedral. You're alive."
My chest heaves. No blade. No blood. Just the soul mark burning where Morwenna was stabbed.
"What—what happened?"
"Past life memory." His hands are steady on my shoulders, grounding. "The bond must have triggered it during the fight. You experienced Morwenna's death."
I can still feel it. The pain. The fear. The way his voice broke when he begged her not to leave.
The way he loved her so completely that losing her destroyed him.
"You loved her so much," I whisper.
His expression shutters. "Yes."
"And you've spent five hundred years waiting for her to come back."
"Yes."
Something inside me cracks. "Then why are you wasting time with me? I'm not her. I'm just the body she's wearing. The soul that got stuck with her memories."
"That's not—"
"Yes it is!" I shove him away, anger covering the hurt. "You see her when you look at me. You compare everything I do to how she would've done it. Every time you call me Morwenna by accident and then correct yourself. Every time you look at me like you're trying to find her in my face."
Through the bond, I feel his guilt. He can't deny it because it's true.
"You don't want me," I say, and my voice breaks. "You want her. I'm just... I'm just what you're stuck with until the real thing comes back."
"Mireya—"
"Don't." I back toward the cathedral depths, shadows rising around me protectively. "Just don't."
"Where are you going? The children—"
"I'll save them myself. Without you. Without needing the ghost of your dead love to tell me how to be good enough."
I run before he can stop me. Down corridors that smell like incense and decay. Past rooms full of forgotten prayers. The bond screams at me to go back, but I ignore it.
I find myself in the cathedral's lowest level—the crypt where we almost completed the bonding ritual before everything went wrong. Ancient tombs line the walls. Darkness presses close.
I collapse against cold stone, finally letting myself cry. Not gentle tears. Ugly, choking sobs that tear out of my chest.
I died. I felt Morwenna die, and it was terrifying and painful, and the worst part was knowing she died happy because at least Azraeth loved her.
No one has ever loved me like that. No one ever will.
Because I'm not Morwenna. I'm the broken, angry thing left behind when you strip away everything good about her soul. I'm the darkness without the light. The rage without the mercy.
"Quite the pity party."
I spin. A woman emerges from the shadows—beautiful, with dark hair and eyes like crushed diamonds. Power radiates from her in waves.
"Who—"
"Lilith Blackthorn." She smiles, and it's not kind. "The High Witch who cursed your bloodline. The one who's been very, very patient waiting for the perfect moment to claim what's mine."
Fear spikes through me. "Get away from me."
"Oh, I don't think so." She moves closer, and I realize the shadows aren't responding to me anymore. They're responding to her. "You see, while you were busy having your little breakdown, I was busy placing a binding spell on this entire level. You can't use your demon powers here. You can't call for help through the bond. You're just a scared little girl who finally realized she's not special."
I try to summon shadows. Nothing happens.
"What do you want?"
"Your blood. Your bond. Your power." Lilith produces a blade covered in runes. "I'm going to cut you open and take everything that makes you demon-touched. And when Azraeth comes running to save you—because of course he will, he's predictable—I'll capture him too."
She lunges.
I dodge, but barely. Without powers, I'm just human. Weak. Exactly what I've always been.
The blade slices my arm, and my blood hits the floor. Where it lands, runes begin glowing—a trap circle I didn't see.
"Perfect," Lilith purrs. "Your blood activates the ritual. In about three minutes, every drop of demon power in your veins will be mine. And you? You'll be nothing. Again."
My vision blurs. The runes pulse brighter.
Through the bond, I feel Azraeth's sudden terror. He knows something's wrong.
But the binding spell keeps me silent. I can't call for help. Can't warn him.
Lilith laughs. "Scream all you want, little girl. No one's coming to save you. You're going to die alone and powerless, just like you always feared."
The runes burn brighter.
And I realize with horrible clarity—she's right.