Chapter Thirty-Three – When love turns to envy.
~Shontae~
I had never been so grateful for my ability, because my own emotions were clouding my perception.
The only thing I wondered was how Likosa could have kept so much of herself from me while we spent so much time together.
I thought about all the secrets I shared with her.
Every question she asked, I answered honestly.
I offered up information she didn't request because I thought that was what we were supposed to do.
I paid so much attention to her, trying to build something organic and real, because I’d never been able to do it before.
When you can’t read a person, this is how it goes. They can keep things from you because they have the right to.
Yeah, Likosa had the right to her secrets, but did this count?
I was in another world, in a fight to save myself and her, and her own secrets were spilling out in front of me.
I wished they did not inspire such sadness and anger.
How else was I supposed to feel? As the garden flooded with bodies, my thoughts flooded with doubt.
Did she intentionally deceive me? Maybe not, but she wasn't completely honest, and I could not ask her for clarity.
All I had was an instinctive emotional response, and the best thing I could do with that growing resentment and grief I felt was to use it on the people who attacked us.
I mean, what better way to take them out than to make them feel so distraught that they lose the will to try?
But as I saw their bodies collapse, I realized this would probably require a call to the therapist when I got home.
“You cannot have her!” Niukshi screamed as, once again, she realized her numbers may not be enough.
Rayna, Jericha, and Whitney were so damn impressive.
They’d mention working together to develop their skills, and they used them in tandem.
Jericha tossed bodies in the air, and Whitney and Rayna knocked them down with a blast of power.
Rayna snatched people up, disappeared, and returned empty-handed just moments later.
Watching them was like watching a dance, and once Niukshi realized the performance wouldn’t favor her, she raged.
“I will end you!” She blasted another flame at Likosa as I wrapped Glimuret in a blanket that dropped her to the ground like the others.
“She is my daughter! I only want to know her!” Likosa fought back.
There it was again, the truth being shouted out across a hectic field.
Bodies flew left and right, knocked by sonic blasts, fire, water, and now shadowy veins that whipped from Jericha.
Instinct drove my actions as I defended myself and still listened to their argument.
I heard every word, every confession, every emotional outpouring as they went back and forth about secrets, lies, broken trusts, and a daughter.
It continued, battle cries and emotional outpouring until the last of Niukshi’s people were laid out. Her anger was palpable as she realized four women armed with rage and pithy quips had completely overwhelmed them.
She was the last left standing, drenched in water that continuously poured onto her through the combined efforts of Whitney and Likosa.
They gave her no time to recover. Once she seemed to lose all steam, a mixture of roots and shadows captured her hands and ankle.
Jericha pulled her to her knees, where she continued to spit curses at us, threats that if she got free, she would make us suffer.
I wrapped a blanket of calm around her, but she was like Likosa, able to fight back.
It sizzled against her heat, but I kept trying.
“Niukshi, stop this,” Likosa insisted, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she would not give up. If given the chance, she would fight again, and she would continue fighting until one or all of us had died.
“Mom?” a small, quivering voice broke the tension, and my heart slammed in my chest.
All eyes turned to a girl who looked like the perfect blend of Likosa and her.
I had no expectations of the child they spoke about, but this young girl, who looked to be a teenager, was so obviously Likosa’s child.
She stood at the bottom of the steps that led up into the house.
Her hands shook at her sides as she took in the brutal scene.
“Let her go. What are you doing?” She screamed, tears falling from her face.
“It's okay,” Niukshi called out to her. “Ashanu, go inside.”
Likosa held her up and looked at Jericha with a small nod.
“Are you sure?” Jericha asked.
“Yes, please, let her go.” Likosa’s shoulders dropped. “I don't want her to see her mother like this.”
Everyone pulled back at the same time. I removed my emotional blanket that struggled to calm her. The rains ended, and Jericha’s vines retracted. As soon as she was free, the girl ran to her mother.
“Ashanu?” Likosa said in a broken voice as Niukshi wrapped her arms around her child.
“Mom, who is this?” The girl looked at Likosa, and I felt her wonder and confusion.
She probably already recognizes her. They look just alike!
“No one. Go back inside while I handle this.” Niukshi patted her daughter's shoulder. “It will be over soon.”
“How can you say I’m no one?” The pain in Likosa’s voice broke my heart all over again. “After everything we’ve been through, a lifetime, and now I am simply no one?”
“Likosa, I don’t want you here.” She spit back. “You know that. I don’t know why you’re acting like this is a surprise. No one wants you, not in Kinasha. We haven’t for a long time. Your name doesn’t even come up anymore.”
“You turned everyone against me.” Likosa stepped back from her.
“Because of your own actions. And now, you have no place here,” she cried. “You have these people here to help you without explaining why you were cast out to begin with, don’t you? So typical of you.”
“Niukshi, don’t do this.”
“She is a betrayer.” Niukshi scowled at us as she described someone none of us recognized.
“A manipulator. Let me guess how she got you all to come on this fool’s journey with her.
She promised you everlasting peace and love, that she would give you whatever your heart desired.
She would be there for you for the rest of your life, and you all fell for it, the mask she wears as an honorable woman. ”
Her eyes met mine, and I knew she could sense the unspoken feelings between Likosa and me.
“No, she didn’t,” I spoke. “She promised us nothing, and we’re still here.”
“Yeah, because she’s our friend,” Rayna spoke up. “She owes us nothing in return for our help.”
“Your friend? Well, did your friend tell you her history here?”
We were all silent.
“I thought not.” Her dry laugh was like tears on my eardrum. “Let me enlighten you.”
“No.” Likosa snapped. “I will not stand here and allow you to continue to lie on my name.”
Likosa turned to us and dropped her emotional shield. I felt how vulnerable this moment made her feel. She held my gaze as she spoke, and it was as if we were alone.
“Niukshi and I are both from prominent families here in Kinasha.
That's how we came to know each other as young girls.
We bonded quickly, and soon, a loving bond formed.
There was something beautiful about how we both challenged and softened each other.
It felt like the perfect balance until we were older.
“Once it was time for us to take our places in society, work to benefit our community, things changed. Because at some point, at least in her eyes, I outgrew her. The challenge that drove us pushed me further than Niukshi. And she couldn't take it. Isn't that right?”
Likosa glanced over her shoulder at the woman who still clung to her daughter.
She said nothing. Likosa continued.
“I felt her jealousy and her envy, but I hoped it wouldn’t last. I believed she would find her fire again and that she would continue to grow.
But that's not what happened. While I planned for the future of our world, our future, she turned her back on that vision. Jealousy corroded the love that once existed between us. Instead of taking action to improve herself, she chose to eliminate the person who inspired her self-doubt. I only wished that it wasn’t me. ”
“You were going to leave me.” Niukshi bit her lip, and her eyes turned red. “You thought you could take on the problems of the universe, and you didn’t need me by your side to do it.”
Likosa turned fully to face her. “I was hoping to save other worlds, and I wanted to take you with me.
I told you about my visions, how I could see these beautiful places dying.
My goal was to help those worlds survive because it would be better for ours if they did.
But you couldn't handle the fact that it wasn't your idea. When the others cheered for my brilliance, you cursed it.”
“We were supposed to stay together, Likosa. Remember the dreams we had? We wanted to have a family. But you got so wrapped up in your own desires, you forgot about me. And then, you betrayed me.”
“I betrayed no one. Stop.” Likosa threw her hands up.
“Stop with the lies. All these years later, and you're still telling the same lie.
How did I betray you? Niukshi, I gave you everything you ever asked for.
I would have laid down my life for you. I bonded with you, created new life with you. But you couldn't see outside yourself.”
“That’s not true.” Tears fell from her eyes as she held tighter to the young girl.
“It is, and you know it.” I couldn’t see Likosa’s face, but I heard the weight of her own tears in her voice, the way the sound trembled as she forced the words out.
“How dare I have dreams of my own? How dare I aspire to do something with a greater impact? You turned admiration into hatred because of the pressure from your family. Or do you not remember the nights you cried in my arms about how your parents wanted you to be more? How many conversations did we have about that? How many times did I try to lift you up while you asked me to slow down?”
“Likosa…”
“Even when you cheated on me, broke the sacred trust between us, I kept that to myself because I understood what you were going through.”
“Shit.” I heard the whisper, but I couldn’t tell who said it.
“Even my forgiveness wasn’t enough. You asked that I lower myself, break myself down so you could appear stronger, bolder.
I understood it. Someone of fire should outshine someone of water.
I get it, but that's not how it went, and instead of you trying to better yourself, you took the coward’s route.
You campaigned against me, had your friends back you up.
I will not pretend to understand how you managed it, but you kicked me out of this world without the Council's approval.
Do they even know that's what happened, Niukshi? Or did you go behind their backs like you did mine?”
“They don't know,” the young girl spoke as her arms loosened around her mother's waist.
“Ashanu. No.” Niukshi tried to stop her.
“Let her speak,” Likosa said.
“You’re Likosa?” There was a heartbreaking hope in her voice as she looked up at Likosa, and I saw for the first time that same spark of pink.
“I am,” Likosa said softly.
“You're my mother?” she asked.
“I am.” Likosa nodded, and her hand lifted. She wanted to reach out to the girl, but she stopped herself.
“The story of Likosa Matuit was that she left Kinasha.
They say she became so enamored by other worlds, she could not bear to remain here.
With their family. With her daughter. That is what I've been told my entire life, that your desires for exploration of the universe took you away.” She looked up at Niukshi.
“She said you might come back someday, but that I should not hope for it.”
“You told her I abandoned her?” Though rage burned in the energetic field around Likosa, she kept herself composed.
“There is a monument of you near the students' grounds. Every day, I get to see you and hope you will return, but you are honored. People said you were bold and brave and that you and your heart were too big for this world, and I took comfort in that.”
“I would never have left you if not by force.” Likosa stepped closer to her daughter as Niukshi tried to pull her back.
“I have tried for longer than you can imagine to get back here. Years away from Kinasha pass much faster. Fourteen years is what you’ve experienced away from me.
Where I was, it was nearly one hundred.”
That broke me. Tears flooded my eyes and fell quickly down my face. A hundred years, she’d been trying to get home, carrying the pain that wrapped around her.
And you were getting pissy about her not telling you everything. Shame on you!
“Were it not for my friends, I don't know that I would have made it. But I am here, and I am so sorry I missed so much of your life.”
The pain in her voice was so raw, I wanted to swathe them in a blanket of comfort, but I knew they had to endure it.
I knew this young girl needed to feel the emotions, the same grief her mother had, to understand the truth, the weight of Likosa's words.
And Likosa needed to feel the love and the longing affection of her daughter.
She needed to know someone in this world missed her.
“You came back for me.” Ashanu smiled.
“I came back because I could not live an eternity without knowing you.” She pulled a small medallion from her pocket, and when she held it up, the center of it swirled until an image of a small baby appeared.
“Ashanu, you have been my guiding light, the one that kept me fighting to come home. You are my daughter, and you are my greatest love.”
“She is not your daughter. She never was. Yes, I cheated on you. Do you think it stopped just because you simply asked me?”
“What?” Likosa’s attention snapped to Niukshi. “You lie!”
“Ashanu is not your daughter. So you came back here for nothing.”
“That is not true.” Likosa looked at the girl. “She has my eyes.”
“It is the truth.” Niukshi pulled Ashanu further away and stepped in front of her. “So now you can leave. Go away, back to where you came from. Take your friends with you.”
“We can get a test.” Ashanu poked her head from behind her mother. “That way, we’ll know for sure!”
“Ashanu,” Niukshi groaned.