Recognition hits as he moves into the light. She's seen him once before, wrinkled and blood-soaked and wailing in a brightly lit room, before her father steered her out and shut the door.
The Omen coming towards her is a grown man sure in his movements, though there's a beastly poise to how he holds himself. The Erdtree's shine colors in the features that lie buried in her memory as stagnant shadows. He halts by the largest throne, and before he can speak Melina stutters a step forwards and says, "You're the one Mother and Father abandoned."
Despite the distance between them and the whisper of her voice, he chokes on whatever he meant to say.
She runs her words by herself again. Oh. "I apologize. That was uncalled for. But how did the ruling of Leyndell fall to you? Should Miquella not have... he could not be persuaded to leave the Haligtree." Morgott the Grace-Given. An Omen, but one recognized by the Greater Will.
By the law of regression, all things yearns to converge. Curses and blessings might, too.
Still, there really must have been no one else at all to take the position. An Omen to rule the golden city. A shardbearer of divine blood, lone eye alight with grace. The younger brother she would have wanted to meet were she still wholly Godwyn, or whole at all. Beneath the curse, she finds much of their father in his features.
But he's in her way.
He hunches faintly, similar enough to Maliketh before a jump that Melina tenses. The cane creaks in his grip. "Which branch of our bloated family spawned thee?"
"I am Melina, but, before this, I was called Godwyn the Golden."
His expression clears, and he straightens. "Godwyn. Should I hail thee sibling?" He approaches again, languid, measured and unhurried. Backlit by the tree, his shadow stretches long across the courtyard. "How many have sought audience claiming themselves Queen Marika returned, or my lord father, or Godwyn the Golden? Now thou shalt order me aside that thou mayest claim thy rightful crown. The Erdtree doth not admit the unworthy, Melina."
She retreats, four steps to each of Morgott's. "I haven't returned to contest Leyndell or the Elden Ring. Only to speak with my – our mother. I've no desire to stand against you if it can be avoided." None of which applies to the Tarnished who brought her, but she won't say so now.
"Thou carest not for a crown, merely for a meeting with the long-lost queen none have laid eyes upon ere the Shattering. Because thou art Godwyn."
"What would you accept as proof?"
His mouth twitches without settling into a smile. "Nothing. I've not met him. Thou shouldst have chosen Lord Godfrey's name to sully."
"Then allow me to speak of our father – "
"Queen Marika is not even inside of the tree. Whence didst thou learn otherwise?"
She halts at the archway before the stairs, and Morgott stops as well, resting the end of his cane on the ground and watching her as a cat might a particularly offensive bird. Does he not know, or is he lying?
Lying, or he wouldn't have stayed his hand this long. He's fishing, and not very well, for how much she knows. If he wanted information, he should have pretended to believe her claim from the beginning, but maybe his pride couldn't accept that – he is the lord of Leyndell, and humility is no virtue for a monarch.
She answers, "From our mother."
Morgott's lip curls. He starts forwards again, still that easy pace that offers her a handful of seconds before he reaches her, and in the face of it she stands her ground. "Spoken echoes linger here, words of Queen Marika. Shall I share them, what she said to you?" He makes no move to reply, so with time drawing short she says, "'Lovelorn son.'"
The first syllable stops him in his tracks, though nothing of his expression changes.
When she makes the same offer to the Tarnished, she means it as, if not kindness, then preparation, and only that. They haven't the background to understand how unusual the ability is. To the Grace-Given Omen, however, it won't prove her as Godwyn, but it will at least prove her as someone uncommon.
Into the long, aching pause, he demands, "And the rest?" A wartime ruler. Every interaction a conflict; every hesitation a loss. It should not have come to this, sibling pitted against sibling, but Morgott was never allowed to be her brother, was he?
"'Reign ye well in Our shadow,'" she finishes. The words seem unlike Marika: she was rarely so sentimental as that, offering well-wishes with no addendum attached. It must have happened, but Melina doesn't... surely it must have happened.
Morgott purses his lips.
Then he sighs, and, without further preamble, gold coalesces into a giant-slaying hammer in his off hand, he props its weight on his shoulder, and he leaps.
Melina throws herself back, and the hammerhead comes down on her previous position like a falling star. She's never before seen grace employed as a golden replica of the highest levels of Carian sorcery. She grabs the railing as the impact shudders through the stairway, and with her other hand she draws her knife and gathers a remnant of Death's power along the blade.
"Ah," Morgott says, "I missed."
Melina flings her curse, the glow of it blending into the fading vestiges of Morgott's weapon, but he leaps aside with little fanfare, turns as he lands, and starts prowling back in the direction of the tree without so much as a break in his stride.
Melina keeps her blade raised, but he neither initiates another murder attempt nor even looks at her. "Thou dost not act like Godwyn," he calls over his shoulder. Melina bites her tongue to refrain from pointing out that they've never met. "Lofty reputations make disappointments of us all."
She narrows her eye. "What did you do that for?"
"I was within my rights, little trespasser." He stops walking, planting his cane. "Whoever thou art, thou camest in vain. Thou wilt find nothing here for thee, so be off while I still have a leash on my temper."
Oh. Their father's moods passed Godwyn by in order to end up here. "I have no wish to fight you, but I did not come this far to fail."
"Thou hast no say in thy fate. Even should I admit thee – " he doesn't add over my dead body, though she hears it loud and clear " – the Erdtree denieth passage to the unworthy. Thou art no exception. Leave. Perhaps thou art the ghost thou claimest; Godwyn did not die a true death. But thy time as heir has passed and gone, and thou'rt yet another pest cometh to bear maggots in Queen Marika's eternal legacy." He turns to look at her, pressing heavily down on the cane. "I would prefer... not to commit fratricide. But thou art an imbecile if thou wilt gamble on my missing twice."
No negotiation here. If she stays another minute, he'll come for her again. She thought she might have a chance once he believed her, but he won't give her the chance to talk him aside because he doesn't want to back down.
"You won't give me a choice," she says, and means it as a question.
"A relative of mine after all. Not one of you can take being told no." A sword takes form in his hand.
She cannot match him in battle when nothing of divinity remains to her. She finally takes a step back and lets her shape disperse. Even with her unseen, Morgott's eye tracks her unerringly as she retreats through the archway.
