The Dream Garden whispered.
It always whispered.
Morris walked its winding paths with the quiet grace of a memory refusing to fade. Blue willows curved low, their leaves dripping silver, catching echoes instead of dew. Flowers bloomed in impossible shades, their petals quivering when spoken to. The air shimmered faintly not with heat, but with the ache of things half-remembered.
This was a place caught between realms. Between illusion and law. Between dreaming and becoming. A garden conjured from the sleep of dead gods.
Humans had once debated its existence a flickering myth on the edge of old scrolls. Some claimed it was where angels wept before falling. Others said it was the last place Lucifer wept before war.
But only one truth mattered now:
Morris came here to hide.
A porcelain cup hovered beside him, steaming softly with tea brewed from dream-hibiscus and ash root bitter, precise, the only thing that dulled the cold inside his bones.
He took a slow sip.
And his heart beat again.
Once.Then again.A third time.Too strong.
He stopped walking.
His breath caught.
He closed his eyes and cursed softly beneath them.
It was happening more often now.
The first time, it had been a tremor a pulse like wind brushing through a forgotten hallway. The second, a dull knock behind his ribs.
Now it was drumming. Thudding. Breaking rhythm.
This wasn't how it was meant to happen.
His heart or what remained of it should have stayed cold. Inert. A fragment. Powerless unless returned to the other pieces sealed away in distant, cursed vaults. The Moon Goddess had made certain of it.
But now…
He pressed one hand against his chest, fingertips digging into the silk of his robe.
"Damn it."
The rhythm stuttered. Then surged.
He dropped the cup.
Porcelain shattered at his feet, and tea hissed as it soaked into the dream-drenched earth.
His knees nearly buckled, but he forced himself upright. The Dream Garden did not allow collapse. It had no mercy.
His face contorted in pain.
No one knew.Not even Ivan.Not even the Nether Court.
If they did…
He gritted his teeth.
They would tear him apart.
Because a beating heart this heart meant instability. Weakness. The binding between Lucifer and Morris was ancient, delicate, and absolute. One soul. One body. One will.
But the heart?The heart was Morris's.The boy who died. The heir who never ruled.The mortal the Queen ordered murdered beneath a silver moon.
If that boy's heart began to rise…
It meant the god inside him would begin to splinter.
Power. Memory. Control.
He could lose himself.
He leaned against a carved stone pillar, his breath ragged now. His skin had gone pale the sigils across his throat dimming, then glowing again like a heartbeat of their own.
And then
Her voice brushed against his mind like a breeze through lace.
"Why are these shoes so tight?""I look like a fool. Why do I even care what they think?"
Elowen.
Her thoughts were not directed at him. But they reached him. Because of the mark. Because of the binding. Because of the damn soul-thread that tied her to him like a wound refusing to close.
He didn't mean to laugh but it escaped, breathless.
A low, bitter chuckle.
She was murmuring nonsense to herself about shoes and court dresses, and somehow it reached him, wrapped around his ribs, and made his heart beat harder.
His hand shot to his chest.
Pain. White-hot.
He gasped breath stolen mid-laugh.
The mark on his own chest — hidden beneath layers of woven silk flared like a brand. Elowen's pulse echoed in it. Not literal, but spiritual. A rhythm not hers, but meant for her.
He collapsed onto one knee in the grass of the Dream Garden, teeth clenched.
His body trembled.
His eyes glowed faintly then flickered.
"Not now," he whispered. "Not yet."
The boy within him Morris stirred. Yearned. Reached toward light he'd been denied.
But Morris didn't want to be reborn.
He wanted her.
He wanted Elowen.
And Lucifer wanted to burn that part of him to ash.
The contradiction was killing him.
Not visibly. Not yet. But the cracks were showing.
In silence, he dragged himself back to his feet. No witness could see him falter not in the garden, not in the court, not even in his reflection. He straightened his robe. The sigils began to calm. His skin cooled.
But the drumbeat behind his ribs remained.
He exhaled, long and controlled.
He could still manage it. For now.
But the pain…The consequences…Were growing.
He turned to the empty air beside him and whispered:
"Elowen… what are you doing to me?"
No answer.
But the silence felt warmer than it should.
And then, in a breath of shadow, he vanished pulled from the garden like smoke into a wind. The flowers did not move. The willow did not sway.
Only the broken cup remained.
Still steaming.
Still hot.
Still beating.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The throne room of the Nether Court was a sanctum carved from midnight.
The air inside was still but not peaceful. It was the hush of a room that had heard too many oaths broken, too many names burned in blood. Braziers along the walls crackled with black flame, casting long shadows across the obsidian floor. The walls whispered if one stood too close. Sometimes the whispers were your own voice. Sometimes not.
Morris sat alone on the high throne, one leg crossed loosely over the other, a porcelain cup in his hand. The tea had long since gone cold.
So had he.
From a distance, he looked untouched like marble given breath. His robes of black and silver draped like funeral cloth, every line crisp, every fold deliberate. His face was unreadable. No emotion stirred there. Only stillness. And power.
But beneath the silence, his chest ached.
A steady, unnatural thump beneath his ribs foreign and traitorous.
He raised the teacup and sipped slowly, though he no longer tasted anything.
It was getting worse.
The more he resisted Elowen's presence… the harder the heart beat.
The more he tried to ignore her thoughts drifting into his own, the louder his soul seemed to fracture.
He needed to go. To leave. To dig deep into what remained of his cursed self before something irreparable happened. If the heart continued beating without the other fragments near, it could destroy the binding. It could destroy him.
And if the Court knew that if Ivan ever even suspected...
The throne beneath him would not be his for long.
With a flick of his fingers, the shadows twisted near the base of the dais.
"Ivan," he called. Quietly. No need to raise his voice in this realm.
A moment passed.
Then, as if summoned from smoke, Ivan appeared, tall and lean, clad in a long coat of ash and violet silk, his silver mask pushed back over his brow. He bowed deeply.
"My lord."
Morris set the teacup down on a floating disc that shimmered beside him.
"I'm leaving."
Ivan blinked once. Then straightened.
"…leaving, my lord?"
Morris's voice was calm. Flat.
"I need time in the Field of Souls. A few days. Maybe more."
Ivan's face lit like a match. "Then… it's time, isn't it? You're preparing for the rise the convergence. You're going to gather strength, to ready your full form for the invasion."
A faint flicker passed behind Morris's eyes. "Something like that."
Ivan grinned, bowing again reverent. "This is good. The court will rejoice. They've waited centuries for this moment. The vessels are already moving. With your return from the Field, nothing will stop us."
Morris said nothing.
He let the lie hang between them.
Because the truth?
He wasn't going to train. Or ascend. Or prepare for war.
He was going to dig into the wound pulsing inside his chest, the cursed rhythm that was threatening to undo the god he had become, and possibly revive the boy he had been.
Morris had lived lifetimes suppressing weakness. He had buried Morris the mortal so deeply beneath Lucifer the fallen god that not even dreams could reach him.
But now that heart… that heart was knocking.
Begging.
Bleeding.
He could feel Elowen's imprint on every thud. Her laughter. Her defiance. Her humanness.
And it was unraveling him.
He rose from the throne.
"I won't be reachable," he said, descending the steps toward Ivan, who immediately stepped aside. "The Field demands full silence. You'll take over all mystical affairs until I return."
Ivan bowed again. "Of course. Your absence will be honored and protected."
"One more thing."
Morris's eyes glinted not cruel, but serious. Quietly desperate.
"Elowen stays here. Under your protection."
Ivan's brows twitched.
"My lord?"
"She cannot go back to the human world. Not yet. Not without guidance. You will begin training her. Teach her to control what stirs inside her. Help her awaken slowly safely."
Ivan hesitated. "She'll ask for you."
"Then you'll tell her I'm away on urgent business. Nothing more."
Ivan studied his master's face.
Morris didn't blink.
"…Very well," he said finally. "It will be done."
There was a long pause. The air in the room thickened.
And for a moment, Ivan thought he saw something flicker across Morris's face not weakness, but grief. Or the ghost of it. Like a king watching a memory fade before he was ready to let it go.
But the expression was gone before it could be named.
Morris turned from him.
The shadows peeled open behind the throne, revealing a corridor of smoke and runes the path to the Field of Souls, a place only few dared enter, and even fewer left whole.
"Guard her well," Morris said.
Then, without another word, he stepped into the darkness and vanished.
The court trembled faintly at his exit.
Ivan stood alone for a long moment, staring into the emptiness Morris had left behind.
His heart swelled with purpose.
At last, he thought, my master is preparing for war.
He turned and walked from the chamber, already drawing up plans, unaware that the devil he served was not preparing to conquer kingdoms...
…but to confront his own unraveling soul.