The cavern beneath Morpheus's manor was so still it felt like even the stone was holding its breath. The only sound was the low, sickening churn of the black liquid in the pit, its surface shifting as if it possessed a pulse of its own. Shadows danced faintly across the walls, cast by no visible light, only the pale, faintly glowing skin of Morpheus himself where he knelt, robeless, at the edge of the pit.
Herpo stared at him silence that conversation rumbling in his head.
Finally, his voice came, low and hesitant, a whisper that trembled with something he rarely showed,
"Why?"
Morpheus did not look up. His lips kept moving soundlessly, muttering something that might've been words or might've been prayer.
Herpo took a step down. "Why, brother? I cannot understand. Just tell me. Explain it to me. You say this is the path to victory, but even then…" His voice cracked, then steadied. "Even then I feel the same anger as you. The same sorrow. The same sadness. The same agony. Yet even with all that, I cannot understand why you are doing this to yourself."
Another step. The wards clung to his robes and then slipped off like water. "How will you look into a mirror if what stares back at you is the very thing you hate most?"
For a heartbeat, only the black pit moved. Then, Morpheus's voice answered, hoarse and thin, but carrying a gravity that made the cavern tremble.
"Agony."
The word hung in the air.
"Agony," Morpheus repeated, louder now. "I feel it. Every time I die." Slowly, he lifted his head, and for the first time his voice sounded its true age — not the vibrant, terrible youth he'd forged for himself, but something older, cracked, and full of splinters. "I was a fool, Herpo. My method of being reborn… it was faster than yours. But much more foolish."
He clenched his hands over his knees. "Every time I die, I am subjected to unimaginable agony." His voice rose, echoing against the stone. "It is horrifying!"
The cavern shuddered as the word bounced around them.
"I fear it, Herpo." His eyes flicked to his brother now, wide, unblinking, raw. "I actually fear death. Not because it means I've lost, but because it means I must endure that agony again. It feels as if my soul is torn apart and crudely stitched back together over and over and over. It is AGONY!"
He slammed a fist onto the rock. The pit rippled as if in sympathy.
Herpo had stopped halfway down the steps. His hands trembled.
"The only thing," Morpheus hissed, his voice breaking with something like despair, "the only thing that will bring my soul peace is to create agony for those who took everything from us. They took our family. They took our brothers. They took our mother and father. They took our friends. They took everything."
His shout echoed like a thunderclap in the chamber.
"That is the only thing that will bring my soul happiness," Morpheus said, softer now, but shaking, his face wet with something that might've been sweat or tears. "And gladly, Herpo—gladly—I will suffer that agony for eternity if it means I can give it back to them. I fear if I do not succeed this time, I will never succeed again."
Herpo's throat closed as he stared at his brother kneeling at the pit's edge. For the first time in decades, his voice cracked not from rage but from grief.
"I… I understand."
The words echoed softly in the cavern.
"I understand, brother. Truly. For the first time in so long, I think I finally understand you."
Morpheus's shoulders stiffened at the words, but he did not turn. His head bowed even lower, his hair falling like a curtain over his pale, feverish face. "Then you understand," he murmured, his voice a tremor of steel and sorrow, "that I am willing to do anything it takes to succeed."
His voice sharpened suddenly, rising like a blade unsheathed. "This—this is what it takes! If becoming like them is what it takes for us to finally—finally—"
His hand slapped the rock, and the cavern seemed to quake. "Finally have a chance of keeping them at bay. Of locking them away. Of killing them all."
He looked over his shoulder now, eyes burning. "This is the only chance we have, Herpo. The only chance I have. I must take it. You know that."
Herpo stepped forward, one trembling hand stretched toward him, the other curling into a fist. "Yes," he said, voice hollow. "I understand. And because I understand, let me do it."
Morpheus blinked, the fire in his eyes flickering into confusion.
"You were always the strategist," Herpo whispered, his hand still out. "Never the fighter. Let me take your place. Let me be the one to walk into the fire."
Morpheus turned fully now, pale and gaunt in the flickering shadows, eyes glistening like wet glass. "No," he said softly, but the word carried more weight than any curse. "No. I will not let you do this to yourself."
Herpo's laugh was low and bitter, echoing strangely in the cavern. "Then how can I let you do it to yourself?"
His wand slid into his hand almost without thought. The movement was smooth, automatic, like drawing a blade. The faint light from the bubbling pit glinted off its polished wood.
Morpheus's eyes flicked to the wand, then back to Herpo's face. Sadness flooded his features like a tide.
For a heartbeat Herpo saw something—no, felt something. The mirror-clear eyes of his brother were no longer seeing him but something else, a flickering vision bleeding into the air between them: Morpheus, falling backwards into the pit, the black liquid swallowing him whole, a faint, almost peaceful smile on his lips as he whispered, I love you, brother.
Herpo gasped, stumbling back. The vision evaporated but left his heart thudding in terror. "No…"
He snapped his wand up, every muscle in his arm trembling as he tried to focus, to summon any spell that could bind, restrain, anchor—anything to stop what he knew was coming.
But Morpheus was already moving.
He rose from his kneel in one smooth motion, pale hair catching the dim light like silver threads. His eyes lingered on Herpo, soft and unbearably sad. "Forgive me," he murmured.
Herpo's lips parted in a soundless plea as he aimed his wand. The cavern erupted in a flare of blue magic, chains of force shooting from the wand tip—too slow.
Morpheus turned, arms opening like wings, and let himself fall backward.
"No!" Herpo roared, the word cracking as it left his throat. The chains struck empty air, dissolving into sparks.
The black liquid rose up like a living thing to meet Morpheus. For an instant, his pale face hovered above it, and he smiled faintly. "I love you, brother."
Then he was gone. The pit swallowed him whole.
The cavern went still. Only the bubbling of the black liquid remained, and Herpo, wand still raised, staring into the void where his brother had been, his breath coming ragged and broken.
—
A/N: I have been waiting to write this scene since I started this novel. Wow