His rged power, that beautiful golden-red energy that had defined what he’d beco, began flowing from him in visible streams. Not being torn away violently, but pulled, extracted like water being siphoned from a well.
And with the power ca everything else.
His mories, too, she wanted to see how Jaenor had grown up.
She wanted to see how her boy had beco such a terrifying force.
She stretched, luxuriating in having a physical form again, and when she spoke, her voice was silk over steel.
"Finally."
She looked at her hands, flexing her fingers experintally.
"A body. An actual, physical body. I’d forgotten how wonderful they are."
Then her black eyes fixed on Jaenor, still suspended above her, still convulsing from having expelled her, and her expression softened into sothing almost tender.
"My son," she said quietly.
"My beautiful, powerful, perfect son. You’ve done so well. Grown so strong. Beco exactly what I needed you to beco."
Rena’s voice cut through the shocked silence, small but carrying clearly.
"No. No, that’s not possible. Jaenor’s mother was... She died when he was young. She—"
"That’s what you believed; that’s what you were told," the figure interrupted, her black eyes shifting to Rena.
She looked back at Jaenor, and genuine affection showed on her face.
"I am Suyajna. And I am his true mother. I gave birth to him. Raised him. Loved him in my own way. And I’ve been planning his entire existence since before he was conceived."
Morgana finally released Magdalyna and moved to stand beside Suyajna.
When they looked at each other, the connection was obvious. The way they moved was in unconscious synchronization. The familiarity that spoke of intimate knowledge.
"You were the woman she loved," Magdalyna whispered from where she lay bleeding.
Magdalyna was aware that Suyajna had secretly been eting a woman, but it was kept hidden from the sin demons and from herself, too. No matter how many tis she asked, Suyajna never revealed it.
"You and Morgana. You’ve been working together all along."
"For decades," Suyajna confird, reaching out to take Morgana’s hand.
"Since before Jaenor was born. Since I first conceived this plan."
She looked at the assembled audience, the shocked companions, the kneeling Magdalyna, and the seven Sins who were staring at her with sothing like religious awe.
"Let tell you a story," Suyajna said, and her voice carried a force that made listening involuntary.
"Because you people have been with my son all this ti, I will tell myself."
"A story about what I was, what I beca, and what I’m going to be."
*
Suyajna began, still holding Morgana’s hand, still standing beneath where Jaenor hung in chains. "Older than the Seven Sins. Older than the Separation. I existed before humans had civilization, before they had language, before they had fire."
Her black eyes seed to contain infinite depth.
"I was powerful. A daemon god in the truest sense—worshipped, feared, commanding forces that shaped reality itself. I was sovereign, answering to no one, bound by no laws except those I chose to follow."
Her expression darkened.
"And then I was killed. Not destroyed completely—that’s almost impossible for beings of my level. But reduced. Shattered. Scattered across realms to prevent reformation."
"But I reford anyway. It took centuries and cost trendous effort, but I pulled myself back together. Returned to physical manifestation. And was imdiately hunted again. Killed again. Scattered again."
"The n of the Ascended," Suyajna said, and her voice dripped with venom.
"Those pompous, self-righteous beings who claim to govern reality for everyone’s benefit. They decided I was too dangerous to exist. That my power, my nature, represented a threat to their carefully ordered cosmos."
"So they cursed . Every ti I reford, I would be tracked and killed. Generation after generation. Denied the ability to accumulate power, to reach my previous heights, to beco what I once was."
Her hands clenched into fists.
"For millennia, I suffered this cycle. Death and rebirth and death again, never allowed to truly live. And I grew to hate them. The Ascended, the Sovereigns, the divine beings who claid to know better than everyone else how reality should function."
Morgana spoke now, her voice gentle as she addressed their shocked audience.
"I t her fifty years ago. She’d reford again and was hiding in the mortal realm, trying desperately to avoid detection long enough to achieve so asure of real existence. And I..." She paused, emotion flickering across her usually controlled face.
"I fell in love with her. Imdiately. Completely. This being of trendous power and terrible pain, who just wanted to exist without persecution."
"She was the most amazing human I have ever t; her origin energy was so pure that she could have beco an ascendant just in her early twenties, but she remained in the mortal realm. She was different from those powerful beings; she wanted to control things, watch them as she stood in the sidelines. I was srized by her sches and plots."
Morgana was blushing.
Then she said, "Nobody understood , not even my father. That’s why I had him killed by the coven; I made them think that they were a threat."
Jaenor was barely conscious, and he could hear them, and the pain he was going through made it even worse. His beast was already contained by the demon horde; one of its heads had already been cut off. It was roaring and screaming for Jaenor.
Suyajna snapped her fingers, and then the beast fell to the ground.
Everyone stood frozen, baffled.
Then she said, "Where was I?"
"Yes, Morgana."
"I t her a couple of tis, disguised, and then later I revealed myself, and then we beca lovers," Suyajna continued.
"And in our ti together, we conceived a plan. A way to break the cycle. To not just escape the Ascended’s curse, but to surpass it. To beco sothing they couldn’t kill even if they tried."
"The Arkwright bloodline," Suyajna said.
"Imnse potential and powerful. Capable of wielding both aura and origin energy, of achieving fusion that others considered impossible. If I could create a child of that bloodline, if I could carefully guide their developnt, nurture their power while remaining undetected..."
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