Chapter39
Captain Morgana Silversword
Aday and a half after their imprisonment, the party was dragged into a huge open chamber, not unlike the one where they’d found the Sphere. Their hands and feet were chained, and they were each led in by a faceless captor. Morgana tried to get a good look at them, but despite noticing differences in their attire – Yorick’s captor had a crystal amulet around his neck, and Gorlag’s was wearing skirts instead of trousers – they were still indistinguishable.
Arnault stood in the middle of the room clutching a crooked dagger in his hands. Next to him was a familiar sight: a pedestal, on top of which floated the Supremacy Sphere. Moonlight filtered down over it through a skylight directly above it.
Morgana had spent most of her imprisonment trying to sleep; she knew she’d need to be on top form for a fight if there were to be one. Calamity, Yorick and Thrormir had whispered all through the night, but all Morgana had heard was that their cells were blocking their magic. She wondered if that were true in here, too.
“Welcome,” Arnault said. “You’re just in time.” As the light coming through the ceiling brightened, so did the Sphere. Morgana figured it must be close to midnight.
“Let us go,” Calamity shouted, her voice on the verge of breaking.
“I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” Arnault stepped over to Calamity and lifted her chin with a long, bony finger. She set her jaw and glared down her nose at him.
“Then just fucking kill me already,” she snarled.
Arnault sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, that just won’t do.” He went down the line to each of us, looking us in the eyes. “I need someone who’s desperately clinging to life.” He walked down the line of them, poking his dagger out at each of them, until he reached Morgana on the end. “You,” he said. “You just might do.”
Morgana’s chest went cold. She was a soldier; she would do what needed to be done to get the job done, even putting her own life on the line if needed. But Arnault was right. She didn’t want to die.
Just when Morgana thought the Sphere couldn’t possibly get any brighter, the cloaked figures, led by Arnault, began to chant. The light of the Sphere began to change, turning from blue to a more purple colour, and then from purple to red. Thankfully Arnault dropped his knife from Morgana and walked away, consulting a tome on the far side of the room.
The Sphere was almost the colour of blood when she heard Yorick muttering.
At first, Morgana thought he was chanting along with the cloaked figures, but then she saw Thrormir’s shackles drop to the ground, and before his captor knew what had happened, he was racing across the chamber.
The chanting turned chaotic around them as the others – both the captors and the members of the chorus – realised what had happened. Arnault had his back to the party, but he turned around as he saw Thrormir try to knock the Sphere from the pedestal, only to be burned by its touch.
“Do mine next!” Morgana called to Yorick, but he just shook his head.
“I need my magic! Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan.”
Morgana looked back over to Arnault, who had descended upon Thrormir, his dagger drawn. There was a struggle, and with Arnault’s cloak swirling around them both, Morgana struggled to make out who was winning.
The other cloaked figures moved to intervene, but suddenly a strange swirl of patterns and colours appeared in the air, and the figures began fighting each other instead. Morgana looked over at Yorick to see him grasping the crystal amulet around his captor’s neck and a piece of his tunic to power the spell. The captor hung there, looking up at the swirls as if mesmerised by them.
Thrormir emerged from the fray with the knife, and Morgana whooped along with the rest of the party; it was clear from Yorick’s reaction that this was the plan. But the whooping turned to gasping as, instead of attacking Arnault with the blade, Thrormir ran back over to the pedestal. He locked eyes with Morgana and mouthed the word “sorry”.
Morgana frowned, and then realisation dawned, but she couldn’t get free of her shackles to stop him. Instead she could just watch as he dragged the dagger across his own throat, his blood trickling down onto the Sphere.
Then the Sphere shattered, and everything went dark for Morgana.
Chapter40
Jack
Morgan had been late to the game, which hadn’t surprised me; I knew she’d been to York and back today for her interview. But that hadn’t stopped me from watching the clock on my phone as I’d waited for her to arrive.
I hated feeling this way again. The last time I’d felt so anxious and insecure had been at the end of my relationship with Aria, where every single decision we made – where to live, what to do, what income we made – was based on her. Her opinions, her desires. I was just a support character in her life, too; maybe that was why Chloe had triggered me so badly when she suggested that was what I was in the group. But it had certainly been true in that relationship. And being a support character, it had been my job to pay attention to everything about her: her moods, her needs, the things she wanted, the hints she dropped… Making Aria happy and keeping her in business had literally been my full-time job for years.
So now, feeling that way about Morgan was awful. Not only had I been actually supporting her in the lead-up to the gala, but she was making decisions as if I would just fall into line no matter what she chose. Hell, I’d spent the weekend on my own paddling up and down the river like I’d wanted to last week, and I hadn’t been able to stop myself from obsessing the whole time. Even being on the water couldn’t quiet my mind like it usually did.
And I’d meant what I’d said; I did love her. But I had also promised myself that I would never let anyone else make me feel that way. I’d never allow myself to be in a life where there was no room in the frame for me.
So when Fatima surprised me by remembering to kill off Thrormir, it meant more to me than just a character change in our D&D game. It was symbolic of the fact that I didn’t exist just as a refuge for the people in my life. I wanted to have my own moments; my own glory, so to speak. As long as Thrormir existed, that wouldn’t have happened in-game. And as long as I let Morgan treat me like a support character in her life, it wouldn’t happen in reality, either.
“Did you know he was gonna do that?” I heard Chloe ask Morgan after the game as we were clearing up. Everyone seemed a little bit shellshocked.
