A Thousand Year Obsession ✔

52. Don't Hold On To What Is Already Gone

52. Don't Hold On To What Is Already Gone

When I opened my eyes, all I saw was glittering gold. I sat up off a sparkling white marble floor, pressing my lips together tightly as I ran my hands over its surface, and yet, felt nothing. I stood warily, pinching at the folds of the pale red gown I wore. I spun a little, watching distantly as the silky fabric twirled outwards at my ankles. My midnight curls fell over my eyes and I brushed them back as I glanced up around me. I stood in the center of some extravagant gallery with walls so smooth and creamy they appeared to be made of pearl and arching rafters constructed of pure gold. Between each tall, round golden column crystalline windows stretched upwards in a Gothic display of grandeur. It was as big as a ballroom, as stunning as a castle, and as breathtaking as love. It left me with a feeling so indescribable it wiped my mind of all thoughts until all I was was awe.

I walked slowly forward beneath the glittering rafters above, my face alit with the golden sunlight bearing down lightly from the windows. But I couldn't feel the sun's warm caress, or the cold marble beneath my bare toes, or even the soft texture of my clothes. I walked, yet I wasn't walking. I breathed, yet I wasn't breathing. I saw, and yet, I wasn't seeing.

I stopped, and turned in a circle, slowly, observing the beautiful room around me. I glanced back where I'd first appeared, then where I was heading. But it was as if I'd never moved at all. I was in the exact center of the hall again.

I pinched my arm. And I felt no pain.

"It isn't what you're thinking."

I started at the voice, the cold, familiar, creaky voice, spinning around and tensing when I noticed the tall figure of an old man standing only a little ways away, shrouded in an ash-grey robe. He turned towards me and I swallowed a gasp of recognition.

It was the Great Sorcerer Alaric. And for the first time ever, his features were no longer coated in a watery blur.

His hair and beard were the same, silvery white, thinned and stringy, his hair reaching down to just below his shoulders, his beard to the middle of his torso. But that was the only thing recognizable about him.

His eyes weren't the gentle warm eyes you'd associate with the elderly. They were cold, narrow and piercing, dark with a terrible overshadowing evil. His lips were turned down into the most menacing of snarls, the last remainders of his eyebrows bent together, the wrinkles in his forehead, his cheeks and around his eyes prominent and drooping with malevolence.

"This isn't a dream, Morgana." He murmured slowly, ominously. "This is death."

I swallowed harshly. "I'm dead?"

He didn't reply for a while, only folded his hands behind his back and turned away again.

"You failed me." His voice was like ice. "You failed Merlin. Because of you he's dead. Because of you'll I'll never pass on. If only you'd gone to Arien. If you'd gone to Arien none of this would have happened. Merlin did not have to die."

I curled my fingers tightly, and though I tried to swallow it was as if a boulder blocked my throat, a blade digging into my heart. And still, all I had the strength to say was, "What do you mean, 'pass on'?"

Alaric didn't move, his words so cold, so emotionless they stuck me like needles over and over again. "This is purgatory, Morgana. Those with unfinished business remain here until they finish what needs to be finished. It was my duty to right the mistakes of my brethren. I was supposed to guide you down the path that would end with the Immortals dead, but both you and your brother alive. Only, Merlin is dead. And now I will never pass on. I will never know what is on the other side. I will vanish from existence entirely. I will become oblivion." He turned back slowly, his eyes like freezing flames, digging into my skull with a glare capable of ripping my bones apart. "And it is all your fault."