MORGANA AND MORGAUSE: THE REBIRTH

PREFACE

The night air was sharp enough to slice skin.

Snow fell in thick, silent sheets, covering the forest floor in a pale shroud. It wasn’t just cold, It was ancient. The kind of cold that remembered every death ever spilled into its soil.

She ran anyway.

A woman in a tattered black cloak, heavy with child, stumbled between twisted trees. Her bare feet were blue with frostbite. Her breaths were short and ragged, but she dared not stop.

Behind her, voices cut through the wind—rough, angry, vengeful.

“She’s in the woods!”

“Don’t let the witch birth the curse!”

“BURN HER!”

Torchlight flickered between the trees like angry fireflies. Shadows of men and pitchforks. They weren’t here to capture her. They were here to erase her.

Her heartbeat roared louder than the storm, louder than the wind. Each step was a defiance of death. But the pain… oh, the pain.

It started hours ago, deep in her spine, low in her belly, growing stronger with each passing moment. Now, her contractions came like waves crashing through her. Each time she fell to her knees, she left red in the snow. There would be no midwife. No fire. No kindness.

Just her.

Just the storm.

Just the two unborn creatures within her, writhing as if they, too, knew what was coming.

She ducked under a fallen tree and gasped as another contraction bent her in half. Blood poured from between her legs, steaming against the cold.

She screamed.

The men heard.

“THIS WAY!”

Panic surged through her like fire in her veins. She could barely stand. But as thunder cracked above and lightning split the sky, she saw it

A mouth of stone.

A cave, narrow and jagged, hidden behind layers of ice and vines. The forest itself seemed to part for her, just long enough.

With the last surge of her strength, she dragged herself into the dark. Snow swallowed her footprints. The wind howled louder, as if trying to cover her tracks.

And the hunters passed.

One paused at the edge of the trees, torch raised. He stared into the shadows for a long time. Then he spat on the ground and turned away.

Inside the cave, the woman collapsed against the wall, shaking violently. Her fingers scraped rock. Her teeth chattered. But she was alive.

And she was no longer alone.

The cave was cold and wet, filled with dripping echoes and ancient silence. The woman’s cloak was soaked with blood and snowmelt. Her body was failing. But still, she fought.

She crawled deeper, trembling, until the storm was nothing but a distant scream.

Then the real pain began.

She screamed again, this time not in fear—but in the agony of giving life.

Her hands found sharp stones, and she clenched them until her palms bled. Her back arched as the first child came, inch by inch, limb by limb, into a world that did not want her.

Lightning flashed through the cracks of the cave ceiling.

The baby cried.

A girl—eyes wide open, black as void, already aware.

The mother wept, her hands shaking. “Morgana,” she whispered.

But there was no time to rest.

The second came fast—and silent.

This girl did not scream. Her eyes were pale, eerily calm, as if she’d been born knowing the world and hating it. Her tiny fingers curled into a tiny, perfect fist.

“Magause,” the mother breathed, sobbing harder now.

The thunder grew louder.

Snow blew in swirls at the cave entrance, but the wind refused to enter.

The woman gathered both twins in her arms and raised them up, toward the sky she could no longer see.

“Let the earth bear witness… Let the heavens remember… these daughters of mine.”

The storm stopped.

For one sacred moment, there was peace.

Then, her body gave out.

Blood flowed faster than her breaths. Her limbs went cold. Her eyes dimmed. She smiled through the agony, one last act of love etched on her face.

And then… she was gone.

The babies lay against her chest, one blinking slowly, the other now watching the shadows gather above them.

The cave, ancient and knowing, sealed its mouth with snow.