Maji curled her knees up to her chest and hid her face. She didn't know how long she'd stayed there, but it was long enough for Trina to recover a bit.
'Don't worry, Maji.' Trina said, though her telepathy betrayed her feelings. She was more worried than Maji. "We'll get her back."
Maji searched the feelings Trina sent though their link. There was a trace of something she couldn't grasp. Something far back and kept away.
'We won't.' Maji stood from her spot. 'She's safe, physically, with him. We just need to be with her.'
Ana climbed slowly to her feet on shaky legs and stared into Maji's eyes.
No words came through but Maji could feel the sentiments. Anaral would follow her to the ends of the Earth for Ellie.
"Are you coming?" Ana asked Trina, aloud.
As if she needed to ask. Trina reasserted her Cosmetic Magic and beamed with her angelic smile and perfect hair.
Like so many times she'd gone on missions for Morpheus, she had herself a team. They were ready and willing and devoted to their cause. The two of them stacked their hands, Trina's magic wrapping around them. Maji reached out to lay her hand on top, as she had so many times as the leader of the team.
She felt a familiar tug at the base of her skull.
The glass coffin no longer surrounded her and the knot no longer bound her Silver Cord. She gazed hazily up at the soft white ceiling until a dark figure obstructed her view.
"Wake up, Pet."
Maji screamed and reached to claw at the collar, but her body was still too numb. He lifted her with little effort and placed her on something soft. Her mind was so blurry. She let her body relax into the soft cushion and embraced the touch of strong hands in her hair.
Something reached out through the haze, some from her reaching for something lost. Ellie.
Maji sprang up, throwing the hand away from her head. He tried pushing her back to the bed. She pushed him away with strength she didn't think she had and raced from the room. She was no more clothed than the last time she'd been here, though the reality of muscles, unused and cold, slowed her. She threw herself out the door and into the hallway. Magic buzzed through the tiny silver ring around her neck.
"Pet!" Morpheus called. The name had lost all its charm. "Marjorie Knight!"
Maji chose a direction and ran. She didn't know how fast Morpheus was. She'd never tested it. And she didn't know how much slower she'd become in her months of pregnancy and her years of instillment. But still she ran. She threw open doors that she knew led to more hallways, stairways, and corridors. She threw herself through mazes and traps doors, throwing herself away from her disgruntled ex.
'Maji?' Trina's mind voice called in her head, past the collar and past the loud sounds of her own racing thoughts.
'Trina? I can't find Ellie, and he's after me!'
Maji felt Trina break away for a few moments before Ana's presence appeared, stronger than she'd ever felt it. Had Ana lost her Collar? She heard rapid, heavy footsteps following her own. Morpheus was catching up.
'I'll be there in a moment!' Trina said.
'No! Get Ellie! Help her!'
'But Maji!'
'Go!'
Maji cut off the connection and refused every attempt to connect. She kept him chasing her for as long as she could before she fell exhausted in a room without an exit. This would be a good place to die.
Chapter 11
Elliana's heart raced as she ran through the hall. She could hear Trina and Ana behind her. She'd been given her powers back, or maybe she'd broken loose of her father's control, so her speed and agility came back as well. She wished she knew how to do real magic and not just the pathetic tricks Professor Smith had taught her.
She had to save her mother! She wasn't entirely sure why. Something inside of her pulled her forward. Trina'd told her what her mother was doing and Ellie couldn't let that happen. She had to go find her. She could feel her mother straight ahead of her, like she felt her own arm. She was weak and tired but still alive.
Which meant that her father was toying with her.
Her father who'd always been there for her. Her father who'd put a collar around her neck to dull her magic. Her father who loved her and protected her. Her father who'd locked her mother away so she'd never know her. Her father who loved her. Her father who was going to kill the only thing that felt right in this world.
Ellie was far from sure but something pulled her forward.
"Ellie!" Ana rounded the corner behind her. Ellie didn't want to wait but she couldn't just leave them there. Even if she'd never met Trina, she felt something there. Maybe she was just feeling her Mother's connection. She slowed down slightly. She could feel her mother's power steadying. As far as she could tell, Father wasn't hurting her. He's probably talking. He always talks.
Where did that thought come from?
Ellie stopped and looked back to the others. There was something happening within her, like a growing. An outgrowing.
Her body felt tight and unnatural. Not her own.
"Ellie, it's alright!" Trina gasped, "She'll be fine till we get there..."
"They're in the next hall." Ellie said.
"If we storm the room, he'll kill her." Trina studied her for a moment, concerned. "If we sneak in, we may be able to save her."
Ellie had little choice but to follow them. She let Trina and Ana go ahead of her and followed them silently. Trina kept looking back at her as if she were a puzzle to be figured out.
Ellie could tell where her mother had stumbled along the hall. She could tell what had happened, where, and how. Things she should be able to feel along the carpet of her manor. She could feel her mother's fear and she could tell it wouldn't be long before Morpheus did kill Maji. But there was nothing she could do. She wasn't just marching towards the fight, she was already in it.
This hallway was darker than the others and pieces of glass crunched beneath their shoes from a shattered lighting fixture. Was it Maji's doing or Morpheus’? Ellie took Ana's trembling hand and felt it relax. When had she become the strong one? She reached out and tried again to touch her mother's power. She found nothing but resistance. It wasn't just the collars. It was a bit them, yes, but if Maji reached back, they would touch.
Her mother knew how badly it hurt to know and see and feel what was happening but not be able to help. Of course she knew all about helplessness! She knew what it was like to have a loved one in danger and not be able to do anything about it. Maji had seen her newborn child taken away from her and then was locked away in another world. Of course she knew helplessness! And Ellie could feel all of that in her.
But still, she wouldn't reach back. She resisted the pull of her very own magic and refused to reach out to her daughter, whose magic felt like a missing limb to her. Ellie had always felt this, a numb ache in her spirit. For seven years, she'd felt it and felt it sharply when her mother finally woke. And her mother was resisting her.
Ellie looked down at the small shoes that had been put on her feet and felt really out of place. She felt that she should be bigger, older, and better in the time that she'd lived already. Sure, she was short and didn't eat like her father told her to but she doubted that the feeling was just for that. She should not be this young. She didn't feel this young.
"Ellie!" Ana whispered, signaling for Elliana to join them in a wooden doorway that she knew all too well led to the room where her mother was cornered.
"Father's in there." She said in a voice that sounded entirely to high to be her own.
"Can you get us a position?"
Ellie tried her best to show Trina the scene that unfolded behind her own eyes.
Her mother on the floor, shaking with pain. Her father standing over her, horrible light in his eyes, terrible power in his hands.
Trina threw the door open almost immediately. Morpheus spun around and unleashed what he'd been holding for Maji in their direction. Trina deflected it, though not easily, and Ana took Ellie and got away fro
m the battling two. Maji would have distraction enough to escape.
Several crashes later, Trina fell into the hallway with Morpheus sauntering out behind her. Her cosmetic magic was gone and every wrinkle and flaw was stripped bare. Ellie looked into the angry dark eyes of her Father and felt something turn in her stomach, conflicted feelings for the man who'd cared for her all her life.
But there was the pull deep in her chest. She charged on her own father with fists flying. She closed off all her connections with anyone but him and forced all the power she could through that connection. All the anger and hurt that was flooding in through that hole deep inside her. She threw herself into every hit, every kick. She bit, she clawed, she tore away at his shields. She fought like a cornered animal, desperate and scared, filled with emotions not even her own. When she finally finished, she saw that he stood before her with barely a scratch on him, while her knuckles and wrists and knees and toes were broken and bruised and bleeding.
The tears swelled up in her eyes as she fell to the ground, torn between relief and frustration that he was unharmed. She reached out to her mother but she found nothing. She searched the room with her mind but found no trace of the woman she'd fought so desperately to save. She reached out to Ana, still curled up, terrified, against the walls, and found nothing but hurt and memories.
A younger Morpheus, his hand outstretched to her, "You will be mine."
An unchanged Anaral, taking his hand, "Yours."
A ring. A Collar. A satin sheeted bed.
And then nothing but Astral.
The memories stopped and Anaral shot herself at Morpheus like a bullet from a gun. She threw as many punches as she could until Morpheus had her pinned against the wall. The golden collar hummed with the effort of holding her back. She turned her head away so Ellie wouldn't see the tears as she lost consciousness.
Ellie felt it too. The haze of magic filling the hallway as Morpheus, unburdened by the need to protect himself, put all of them to sleep. She let herself go back to the safety of Astral, where Trina and Ana were already waiting.
Her mother was barely there, like a projection losing power. She hadn't been able to stop her father from hurting her. Ellie was pulled into bruised arms and buried her face quietly into a shaking shoulder. She felt almost whole, like if she could just crawl inside this magic, so close, she could be complete. Trina's hand combed through her hair.
"Be calm, little one." Trina whispered, putting her hand in Maji's hair, "I think I see now."
Ellie watched her, curious.
"Reach out to every part of yourselves." Trina said to mother and daughter, "Physical, Mental, and Spiritual."
Ellie looked to her mother and saw the slightest hint of a nod. She closed her eyes and calmed her breathing. She didn't know exactly how it all was supposed to work, but she felt something like instinct kick in. Like she'd done it a million times before. She reached out to her fingertips, the alien ones and her own which reached out further than her childish body, and to the tips of her toes, much further, longer, stronger than the ones she'd been stuck in.
She reached through every strand of hair, every shed of skin, and every bead of sweat. She reached her entire self and felt the painful constricting, stretching, and readjusting that she knew was what she had really been reaching for.
She felt something inside her: a familiar presence that had always been there but always out of reach. Like a missing piece of herself. She let it flow through her, change her, and make her better. She was better.
A tear hit Ellie's face. She looked up into her mother's eyes. Her real eyes.
Maji felt her spirit reaching out for its missing piece, buried in the body that should be her daughter.
But it wasn't her daughter. Never had been. The missing piece of her own soul, forced into a body that should never have been.
Ellie stood on longer legs and pushed her hair from her face. She'd changed so drastically, grown so fast. But every part of her knew that this was her. This was right. Her skin was pale and her nose was too large. But it was hers. And Maji's.
Maji pushed herself from the grass and put her arm around Ellie's shoulder, as if to kiss a warrior goodbye. Elliana felt for Anaral and found her slowly drifting in and out of consciousness. Still alive, unafraid but not able to hold on much longer.
But where was Morpheus? Morpheus who had ripped her from her whole, put her in a body fake as a doll, and raised her as his own.
Elliana searched her links for her father. She could feel him in a safely locked room with a comfortable chair. His breathing was slowing. He was coming in after them.
"Mother," Ellie said, stomach coiling with how right her voice was, "Maji. Ana needs help."
Trina closed her eyes and focused, "She's alive but she needs to be moved somewhere safe. She didn't get gated to the safe house."
Ellie searched her mother's mind, the missing whole of her own, and found the Safe House where Jakob, their friend, had been waiting for their return. If they were hurt, wounded, or unconscious, they would be automatically gated to him. They must have cast the same magic on her but not Anaral.
Morpheus lifted from his body and appeared on the Astral Plane with the three of them. Even with her increased height, Ellie was much shorter. He towered over her and felt for her through the link.
"You think a Transformation will help you?" He asked.
"I don't." Ellie said, "What good is another Transformation on a fake body?"
Morpheus shifted. There was nothing left he could do, no way to salvage what he had lost, and he knew it. When Morpheus lunged at her, Ellie was ready for him. He used the same kinds of magic that he'd used before to defend himself. But Ellie was stronger and faster this time. She met him blow for blow and found herself still standing when he fell back.
"I can't let you walk away from this." She said.
Ellie took Morpheus by the hand and pulled him back to her. She assessed their entire beings till she could feel everything, mental, physical, and spirit. She closed her eyes and heard his sharp intake of breath as she took him to the one place she knew where he would have no power.
It was a place she'd once created for herself. A place where he was immaterial.
Maji watched as her daughter and former lover disappeared before her eyes in a puff of smoke. She reached out and felt her daughter's strong, stable energy. Matters were well in hand. Elliana was not alone. She had never been, really. Maji needed to follow them. She searched the link and knew exactly where they'd gone.
She closed her eyes and felt her entire body disappearing into the Hell that she'd seen before. The ground was the same charred black that it had been the last time she'd seen it. Anyone who didn't know better would assume that a volcano had erupted itself to rubble.
She looked along the horizon for Ellie and Morpheus. She knew that the battle had been fought before they'd come here and that Elliana had won. Ellie, that missing piece of herself. The girl who now looked like a clone of herself. The girl who kind of was a clone of herself.
She found Ellie several yards away, standing over a begging, broken man. Maji rushed to her clone's side and took in the torn clothes and singed hair that damaged her appearance. Ellie herself, however, seemed unharmed.
"What happened?" Maji gasped, taking a burnt strand in her hand. At least they could be told apart now.
"One last attack." Ellie said calmly, "And I stopped him."
Maji looked down at her ex, bare without his cosmetic magic. She remembered her own weakness, the weakness at his hands, when he had suspended her body and locked her magic away from her. She'd been stripped bare too. But now he was exposed and she was strong.
Maji saw Ellie's hand wrap around something that was barely visible, like a thin, silvery thread, at the back of Morpheus’ neck.
His Silver Cord.
With a small nod, Maji gave her permission. Ellie was a part of herself, wronged just the same. It was at her discretion to do what had to be done.
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Ellie took the Silver Cord from her own neck and wrapped it gently around his. This was the only way. He snapped his jaw open in a silent plea.
With a smooth movement, Ellie ripped his Silver Cord and bound it to the spoiled land beneath them. The hot black rock took the Cord immediately into itself. He would be in prison there, forever. His mental screams echoed through Astral as he struggled against the rock that slowly crept up his Cord. The charred blackness chipped off in places but continued to climb. The hand he held around the Cord was soon covered with ever climbing crust.
Elliana and Maji watched as the black rock consumed him completely. His screams silenced as the hard soil buried him deeper and deeper, further from the surface. When his cries had died out completely, Maji looked at the resolved face of her other self.
Ellie's silver cord tied her to a fake body. A body that wouldn't exist without Morpheus's magic. Ellie was tied to nothing.
Maji pulled on her own Cord to take them to the safehouse. Trina was waiting there for them.
"Is it done?" She asked.
"At a price." Maji said.
Elliana's form was fading in and out. Without Morpheus's magic, she was little more than the piece of soul taken from Maji, doomed to run dry and fade away.
The funeral was quiet. Mages came from all around to see with their own eyes. Some with dread for the next leader to emerge, some with relief at the end of a tyranny. Maji shook hands as condolences came in for her lost daughter, found in the same room as her father. Cause of death: heart failure. For both of them.
As the crowd finally dispersed, Maji felt a strong hand grip her shoulder from behind. She grieved the life that could have been more than either of the official deaths. Only a few people could really understand. She squeezed Jakob's hand.
She couldn't help but remember his frightened eyes the morning all of this began. Her sacrifice and the sacrifice of her coven. Then she'd sacrificed Ellie, too.
"I know where you want to be." He said softly, "We'll join you shortly."
With that, Maji was dismissed.
She went upstairs, where there was no one to bother or distract her. She sat down in her usual, straight backed chair, and opened her eyes to the small cottage, a tiny piece of Astral she'd created for herself and her other self.