Emotionally, she wanted to get up and leave.
Rationally, she knew that wasn't the best course of action, not when they seem to have some answers, the same way she had some that they want.
But the idea of being stuck with Ronan and foremost Draven, gave her goosebumps.
It's not like she has anywhere else to go, or anyone else, alive or not, waiting for her. She's on her own.
"Now," Draven dropped down on the leather seat that's between Morringan's and Ronan's, his eyes glued on hers, "tell me about Eldric, Morringan."
She clenched her jaw, "Why should I?"
"I just saved your life," he snapped. "I need to know."
Slowly, holding her clothes onto her skin not to let them fall and stand bare chested in front of them, with a bit of struggle, she sat down on the couch, her fierce eyes staring at Draven, "I still don't trust you."
A muscle plumed on his jaw and his eyes darkening, that eerie and off feeling of him hitting her again, "We'll have to work together, if you have any hopes of going to hell or trying to find whatever Prince is responsible for sending the soul eater here. That is, if you expect to get them back, Morringan. I don't have time for games with you, neither do you."
She hated how right he was about that, "I don't like you, Draven Winterbourne, at all, you're suspicious."
He rolled his eyes dramatically, "We've been past that ages ago, Morringan, cut that talk already."
Annoyed, she crossed her arms over her chest, "So?"
Draven frowned, "So what?"
"What do you know about Eldric?"
He glared at her, as if trying to make her stop making those questions, but when she glared back, unyielding, he growled and sighed, stressed with how she managed to have an attitude even now. "I know way more than you do."
"Oh, yeah? Then how did he never told me about you, uh?" She snapped mockingly.
"He couldn't have," he countered.
"And why is that?" She hissed.
"Because he's incomplete, is he not?"
His words made her halt, "How do you know that?"
"So, you do know that," he stated, scoffing incredulous. "How much do you know?"
Morringan frowned, "Way more than you do."
"I am not joking, Morringan," he hissed at her, loudly, "I need to know how do you fucking know him, where he was, and what you know!"
"And I want to know why you want to know that!" She yelled back at him. "Is it so fucking hard?"
"Yes!" He yelled, "Because you won't believe me!"
"You won't believe me either. No one has ever, *ever*, believed me, you won't be the first!" She yelled back.
They glared at each other in an internal fight.
"Look, Morringan," Ronan broke the silence, anxious about the idea of those two fighting and not going anywhere, "we love Ophelia, she's my girlfriend, the love of my life, and she's his best friend, we want to save her, believe me. But if we have to cooperate, we should come to terms with this madness. You have something we want to know, and I'm certain that he has something you also want to know. We don't trust each other, we've always been in bad terms with one another, the three of us know that, it's old news, but if we don't do something about that and try to trust one another, working together won't happen and we won't go any bloody where with this."
Morringan's jaw dropped in shock as she stared at Ronan Blackthorn, absolutely bewildered by the fact that he had actually been able to come up with such a reasonable and smart argument in such a important moment, it baffled her more than she wanted to admit, especially because he isn't wrong.
"It goes for both of you," he stared at both, his eyes stopping on her again. "But mostly you, Morringan, you have more to lose, since you claim you lost everyone to the soul eater, you should be collaborating with us more than anything. What? Will you really let your ego and your pride blind you right now? Don't you want them back? Because I know that me and Draven fucking do, so, stopping fighting us and tell us what you fucking know, and we'll share what we know as well. Are you able to fucking do that? *Please*?"
She fully cringed at the last word, "I still hate you."
"It's not about hatred, girl," Ronan snapped stressed. "We don't like you either, but we need to put out damn differences aside for once in our life, to be able to work together on this."
It took her about five full minutes in silence, staring at them, to swallow her pride, "Was Ophelia part of your little secret society?" She couldn't help asking.
"Yes," both said, nonchalantly.
"Hah," she passed both hands over her hair, "this is so annoying," then, she laid back on her belly over the leather couch. "You won't believe me."
"Stop assuming things, and try talking about it," Draven groaned. "You won't know until we act on it."
Clenching her jaw, she counted to 10 mentally, already preparing herself for their reaction, too used to people taking her as a crazy bitch to even hope that they could actually take her seriously, not when not even her family did back then.
"Morringan," Draven groaned impatiently.
She glared at him, "Stop pressing me, bastard," then sighed. "I met Eldric little after my older brother passed away," she finally told them and both stilled up, "in the graveyard," she waited for their realization but it didn't come, so, she decided to drop it all at once, "he's a spiritual fragment of who he once was, he was chained down to the graveyard as the graveyard guardian because he was the first one to die in Winterbourne, after he was murdered at 23 years old by his stepfather Orion and left there, buried, in what would then become the main graveyard of the Winterbourne city. I am able to see all spirits and hear them, but I was only able to actually get in contact with him."
"You had an spiritual awakening?" Ronan gasped and she couldn't help gasping at his reaction, both because she had never heard of these terms and because she expected him to doubt her.
"Eldric was... dead?" Draven asked instead, haunted.
"Yes," sigh.
"Oh shit, wait, is Eldric... The Cirdle?" Ronan gasped.
Morringan's face heat up and her skin reddened almost instantly as she sat down again, looking at anyone but them, "He was... my muse, yes."
"The men you've been drawing your whole life was... ELDRIC?" Draven nearly screamed the name.
She cringed, "Yes. Stop screaming, I am not deaf yet."
"If he was dead and a spirit, how did you and him fight the soul eater?" Draven snapped in confusion.
"We had just entered the gravedigger house when a barrier was set all around us, imprisoning both of us inside, when he touched me, he was... in physical form, he was tangible," she swallowed, feeling burning in her chest, and she unconsciously caressed her lips with her thumb, staring down. "We heard the screeching of the soul eater and... and he told me what it was, that he could touch me then because the soul eater is a beast that can both wound the living and the spiritual realm, and inside its domain expansion, both things are the same, targets. He told me that normal magic can't hurt it."
Draven understood what had happened instantly, "He protected you. Eldric asked you to channel your life force to him so he would be able to use his shadow magic to fight the soul eater, didn't he? Isn't that why I found you drained there? Because as a born Winterbourne he needed too much of it to use his powers, which drained you even though you are insanely strong yourself, since shadow magic is one of the dark magic type and only dark arts can harm a soul eater."
When she met his eyes, there was guilt in hers, "Yes, but at what cost? We had just... we..." she avoided his eyes again, pain consuming her from the inside out, eyes back down on her hands. "We didn't even have time, it attacked us, I was the target but it took him away from me. If I had fought with him and,"
"You would have been gone with him," Draven told her, "you don't have dark magic, Morringan, you can't fight a soul eater, it would have taken you like it took Lia away, and your family if what you said is right. He is not dead. *I* am not dead."
She blinked, confused, "What do you have to do with him?"
His eyes darkened as he met hers, "I am him."