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There was much debate in Ionia about the origin of children born with eyes of red and blue. Some said that the great white serpent that had created the spirit realm had long ago allowed a mortal to look past the veil, so they could protect the balance of the two realms. Others said a spirit had fallen in love with a mortal, and blessed the mortal with a crystalline blue eye so they could see into the spirit realm. Some believed the child had to be born on the night of a Blood Moon, or a Snow Moon, or a half Moon, or conceived on that night or something of the sort.
Still others insisted that a mortal had made a pact with a demon, which had gouged their eye out in exchange for the ability to cross the veil. Some claimed that the first of these children weren’t quite mortal at all, that they were half demon, or the last children of the serpents of blood and snow. A few even believed they were meant to be tributes to the spirit realm, marked by the great red serpent, mother of demons, as sacrifices to keep her children at bay.
They were called many things. Chosen. Gifted. Blessed. Cursed. Demon child, half-demon, demon spawn. Veilborn. Twice-Moon eyes, Half-Moon eyes. Their purpose also inspired many an argument—some feared them, as harbingers of the demonic, while others vied to control them, as gateways to the spirit realm. And some—especially demons—simply found themselves entranced in those two-tone eyes.
What all could agree on, however, was that they were rare indeed, and that they possessed terrible, wonderful power. And the birth of a child with eyes of red and blue was certainly something to note.
Mihira, chief exorcist of the Order of the Snow Moon, was what one might call troubled.
Morgana saw little of her mother throughout her childhood, before Mihira disappeared. Mihira had much to do, and as the Order frowned upon personal attachments, Morgana spent little time with her mother and never met her father. And thus, she was raised by the Order—the cold ceremony of its priestesses, the deadly precision of its assassins.
One day, however, the exorcist’s young daughter woke up screaming in her chambers, tears streaming down her face. Priestesses rushed to her room to calm her down, but the tears wouldn’t stop as the girl wailed about how she saw a horrible demon every time she closed her eyes.
It wasn’t until Mihira herself appeared at Morgana’s door that the girl’s cries quieted, lowering to abrupt sniffles as her wet eyes found her mother. Mihira brusquely dismissed the worried priestesses from the room and closed the door, sitting at the edge of Morgana’s bed with a sigh.
Mihira looked down at her young daughter, a slight, pale thing. She reached out to brush a strand of Morgana’s silver hair from her face. Her eyes, the eyes Morgana had been told so many times that she shared, looked undeniably tired, rimmed with shadows.
“Hello, Morgana,” said the exorcist, continuing to run her slender fingers through Morgana’s hair. “I hear you had a nightmare.”
Morgana nodded, unable to suppress a sniffle. Her mother’s skin was cold as it brushed Morgana’s cheek, and she fought not to recoil at the contact.
Mihira didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “I’ve been told your first word was demon. ”
The girl nodded again. She couldn’t remember saying it, but she could remember the horror on the priestesses’ faces when she did.
Mihira sighed again. She looked at Morgana for a long while, her eyes of blue and bloodred boring into Morgana’s own.
“I wish I could comfort you,” the exorcist finally said, “but this is the reality of our blessing.” She closed her fist in Morgana’s hair, and Morgana winced. “You will see demons every day of your life. Their kind is drawn to ours.”
She loosened her grip, once again gently threading through Morgana’s silver hair. “My, how you’ve grown,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “You’re a beautiful, brilliant girl, my love. You are purity. You are sanctity. Nothing, not demons, nor the agents of the Blood Moon, not even the Order, can take that from you.”
“What do I do?” Morgana blurted. “About the demons?”
“Do?” Mihira looked at her curiously. “Oh, there’s little you can do.” She stood, and the faint light glinted off her silver wings as she stretched them. She leaned down to leave a gentle kiss on her daughter’s forehead, soft and cold as snowfall. “Just remember that it is you who pulls their chains.”
“Hello, Morgana.”
Morgana refused to turn around, her wings stiffening as she folded her arms across her chest. “Xolaani,” she said, the syllables brittle as she spat them out.
“What’s wrong, little exorcist?” Morgana felt the demon’s claws on her shoulder, and she suppressed a shudder. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Don’t touch me,” Morgana muttered, brushing Xolaani’s hand away. “What do you want, Xolaani?”
The demon Xolaani had haunted Morgana since she was a child, and if the demon was to be believed, she’d done the same to Morgana’s mother. Known in the old stories as the Bloodweaver, Xolaani was an elder demon, said to have existed since the world was still young. Though she was a demon, and a cruel one at that, she seemed to possess no desire to pass into the mortal realm, like many of her brethren often asked of Morgana.
“Want?” The sound of the demon’s blades scraping against the stony ground made Morgana nauseous, grating at her skull as if Xolaani had carved it open. Her laugh was worse, though, a discordant choir of cackles as she turned to face Morgana. “Only company.”
Morgana met the demon’s masked gaze unflinchingly, squaring her shoulders. The demon looked less human than many of her brethren—she was impossibly tall, towering over Morgana even as she’d inherited her mother’s height. She cut a severe figure, rail-thin and uncanny, with long limbs and sharp, jutting bones. Her two crescent-shaped bloodletters gleamed in the Moonlight, looking almost like an extension of her arms.
“What troubles you, little exorcist?” cooed the demon. She raised her arm and gently, just shy of splitting Morgana’s skin, used the flat side of her blade to tilt Morgana’s chin upwards. Her mask was carved in the shape of a monstrous smile, and the eye slits—one on the left side, three on the right—glowed brightly as she returned Morgana’s gaze.
Morgana held her breath, knowing the edge of the bloodletter was a hair’s breadth from her throat. Carefully, she reached up to pull the blade away, and the demon did not resist.
“What does it matter to you?” she said. “You always enjoyed my torment.”
“You wound me,” pouted the demon, letting the blade fall to her side again. Morgana’s eye twitched as it clanged against the ground.
“I could,” Morgana mused, raising her eyebrows. “Shall we test it?”
“So much like your mother,” rumbled Xolaani. She spoke in many voices, a chorus of cruelty. “Mihira was so spirited in her youth.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me of my mother,” hissed Morgana. “You are not fit to say her name.”
“Your mother was mad to her last breath,” laughed the demon. “And so shall you be, little exorcist.”
Morgana’s wings flared out as she stiffened. “I am not my mother.”
“No,” agreed Xolaani. “She’d be ashamed of what you’ve become, wouldn’t she?”
Morgana nearly lashed out at her, but stopped herself as she reminded herself that that was what the demon wanted. She took a deep breath, remembering her lessons. She was above her rage, her pain. She was as cold and sharp as ice, as a finely-crafted weapon.
“I am Morgana, chief exorcist of the Snow Moon.” She spread her wings, staring down the demon with her head held high. “You, foul demon— Xolaani —do not scare me.”
The demon bristled at the use of her true name, though the horrible smile of her mask was unmoving. “Good girl,” she said, sounding pleased as she dragged her bloodletters along the ground, turning away from Morgana with a flourish.
“Allow me to look after the boy.” Morgana inhaled deeply, pushing her shoulders back. “He’s young. He’ll be confused, scared—who knows if he’s ever stepped foot outside their temple.”
“This is the boy you delivered from the Blood Moon temple, yes?” Illaoi’s massive arms were folded across her chest, her muscles taut.
Morgana nodded. “Soraka says he is in good health.” She bit the inside of her cheek, then said, “He.... His eyes are like mine.” She forced herself to meet Illaoi’s eyes, though her head stayed respectfully bowed. “He has the blessing. Let me guide him.”
Ahri’s ears twitched, and she stopped toying with her orb. The fox-spirit rolled over on her dais to face Morgana, tilting her head coyly as her tails ruffled. “Oh?”
“You’ve found a successor, then?” Illaoi said, her brow rising in surprise.
“Perhaps,” Morgana replied. “I’d like to offer him a choice.” She hurried to amend herself as Illaoi’s eyes narrowed. “We do not know his character yet. Perhaps his strengths are more suited to another area. I’d like him to understand our Order, and for us to understand him, before assigning him a role.”
“He may be dangerous,” warned Illaoi. “He is Blood Moon. Who knows what lies they have placed in his mind.”
“That’s what Varus is for,” Morgana said with a slight smile. She laced her hands gingerly. Her wings felt heavy at her back. “He’s just a boy. He should feel welcomed, not forced.”
Illaoi frowned thoughtfully. “It is a nice thought,” she said. “But you understand, Mistress Morgana, that there may come a time where we do not have a choice.”
“Morgana is wise,” Ahri said languidly, rolling over onto her back. “And still young. She won’t need a successor for years to come, Moon willing.” She rolled back over and sat up, her orb of magic bobbing. “Let her help the boy grow accustomed to our ways. This is a delicate situation—her touch may be just what it needs.”
“I trust you, Great Fox,” Illaoi said, bowing her head to the fox-spirit in deference. The high priestess peered down at Morgana again, her eyes cold. “You will guide the boy, then. And should he be called to exorcism—by choice or by necessity—you will train him as your successor, if able.”
“Yes, High Priestess.” Morgana bowed deeply. As she rose, she saw Ahri wink at her from her peripheral vision.
“Morgana,” Ahri said as Illaoi left the sanctum, Morgana following dutifully.
The exorcist turned over her shoulder, looking over her wings. “Yes, Great Fox?”
“I’ve told you, exorcist, call me Ahri, ” said the fox-spirit with a teasing smile. Her humour faded as she sat up, though, her tails unfurling hypnotically behind her. “You have a kind heart, Morgana.” The magic within her orb darkened, changing from a pale blue to a bloody violet. “Don’t let it be the death of you.”
You are a temple. Every bone in your body, every hair on your head was chosen by our leaders, was placed by the hands of our faithful. You must be both shelter and stronghold, a place of worship and war. You hold the heart of the Order within you, and the Order’s you will be until your final breath.
You are an idol. You were shaped from silver, gemstones placed for your eyes. Countless will fall at your feet—the wretched, the tortured, the depraved—and beg for redemption. To them, you will be beauty. You will be perfection. You will be salvation. You will be an example, and icon, an ideal.
You are a door. You stand at the precipice of flesh and spirit, a gateway to the world that lies parallel to ours. It is through you that demons will return to their rightful place, and it is your strength that must keep them there. Under lock and key, bar and chain, you will keep the evil and madness that would plague this world locked away.
You are a weapon. You were forged from steel, sharpened in battle, washed in blood. You must be cold, you must be precise, and you must be deadly. As the Order wields you, you will cut through the dark and demonic. You will be their destruction. You will be their reckoning.
Morgana woke with a start, her heart in her throat as she gasped for air.
She touched her chest as she gained her bearings, finding herself in the familiar darkness of her chambers, the eternal Moonlight of the spirit realm only a fleeting memory.
Morgana stretched her wings, cringing as they tingled with numbness. She glanced down at Varus, still sleeping peacefully beside her. Varus slept like the dead, like he hadn’t closed his eyes in months. Morgana was grateful for it—she would rather not wake him with her nightmares. At least one of them could get some much-needed rest.
The exorcist flexed her wings again. The wings of silver and crystal, worn traditionally by the Order’s chief exorcists, had been fused to her body when she’d ascended to the role in the wake of her mother’s disappearance. There were still burn scars around where the wings had been joined to her skin, and her bones still ached from their weight.
She thought of the boy sleeping just the floor below her. Shieda Kayn. According to both Soraka and Varus, Kayn slept much like she did—sparsely, and restlessly. Kayn, however, slept with a scythe at his bedside.
An image briefly crossed her mind, of Kayn with his back bare, the tattoos the Blood Moon cult had branded him with on full display, as silver wings were fused to his skin. She banished the thought with a shudder.
Shieda Kayn held a demon within him. Unlike Morgana’s demons, however, Kayn’s demon was bound to him, tethered to his very soul through ceremony and blood. She remembered the pain and fear in his two-tone eyes when he’d told her, the ache of a wound riven open at birth that had never healed. She was reminded of the haunted, hollow look she’d always seen her mother’s eyes, her only blemish that powders and pigments couldn’t hide.
“I hate my wings,” Morgana had whispered to Varus in the dark. She surprised even herself with the confession; it was never something she’d admitted, not even to herself. She hadn’t even realised it was true until the words left her lips.
Varus’ calloused fingers traced the metal’s graceful arches. “Why?” he asked, though the way he said it sounded more like How? How could you hate something so beautiful?
Many thoughts flitted through Morgana’s head. She thought about the searing pain she’d felt when the wings had been bound to her. She remembered a cloth had been placed in her mouth, and her hand in Soraka’s, to prevent her from crying out. She thought about how she saw her reflection sometimes, this imposing, winged woman with eyes of blood and ice, and nearly uttered the word mother. She thought about Shieda Kayn, and the tattoos that had been etched into his skin before his voice had deepened and hair began to grow on his lip.
“They make it hard to lie down,” is what she said to Varus. Varus kissed her then, and she forgot her hatred, if only for a moment.
She looked down at him now, still deep in the throes of sleep. In the faint light cast by his enchanted arm, and that of her eyes, she could see his chest rising and falling rhythmically, and the battle scars scattered across it. The others had been wary of Varus at first—they said he was unstable, that he was too consumed by vengeance. But Morgana had seen a bruised and bloodied heart and quivering hands, and guided him to Ahri’s sanctum after offering him her own.
She couldn’t help the lingering feelings of guilt as she watched him sleeping beside her, little prickles like the beginnings of frostbite. What would the others say if they knew about her attachment to Varus, that she’d bared to him her body, her soul?
What would her mother say?
Morgana pushed the thoughts from her head with a sharp breath. She leaned down to kiss the archer’s cheek, then tucked her wings in and lay down, wrapping one around the both of them. There was hatred, and fear, and pain, but it was moments like these Morgana remembered there could be peace, too. She would do everything in her power to help Varus and Kayn find it.
Perhaps one night she could find it, too.