Chapter 16
The memory was scattered, as if it blipped from one moment to another even if it was longer than my memory of Thorn standing over me. This one called to me in a different way…the bits and pieces of it crawling forward with each step I took.
I walked with my Kitana in my left hand, tossing a light bomb into the tunnel. My mother walked beside me, her swords strapped to her back, a whip coiled at her hip. She didn’t age, and really, she didn’t look much older than me. “You think that the gorgon will have advice?”
My mother scrunched her face, strands of her bright red hair floating around her face where it had escaped her braid. “I fucking hope so.”
Blip.
We were inside the tunnel, and the impenetrable black had swallowed any light we tried throwing at it.
Going by feel, I should have been afraid.
The gorgon was an old monster, one stirred up by the Rifts opening, crawling out of the depths of mythology like some sort of horrible joke.
But I had Mom with me, so how could I be truly afraid?
Blip.
Screaming.
Blip.
A flash of movement, the sound of scales across rock and metal.
Blip.
The memory was gone, and I stood in complete and utter darkness, the only sound that of my breathing, in and out, picking up speed as the feeling of the memory caught me more than the full memory itself.
Fear.
Panic.
Not great emotions when I was pretty sure I was up against a formidable enemy.
The slither of scales against rock, over a piece of metal that screeched in protest, echoing my memory. “Well…well…well. I am rather surprised that you would dare step foot inside my home, little Tracker.” Her voice was like silk, smooth and soothing despite the obvious anger in each word.
“I was young and stupid the last time I was here, wasn’t I?”
Her laugh was immediate, coming from my left. “You aren’t sure?” Her words whispered from the right of me.
Fuck. I was going to die if I didn’t figure this out. Sweat slid down my spine, reminding me that I was alive. For the moment.
“I…lost my memory. And this place…I feel like it’s important. That you are important.” I didn’t think I could fight her and not be in deep shit, and while my memory of my life was a pile of nothing, my understanding of monsters and when to fight was not.
I went to my knees slowly, raising my hands over my head, the darkness around me absolute. Feeling that while I was trained to fight there were times to be smart.
“I don’t even know why I was here before. I only saw a piece of a memory. There was a woman beside me, with red hair. I think she is my mother.”
Even saying those words outlaid felt strange. Because I wasn’t sure.
A huff of air that I felt against the right side of my face, the gorgon’s breath rippling my hair, smelling of sweet flowers and citrus. “Rylee is who you saw, and yes that is your mother. She came to ask for something I wouldn’t give her, and so she cut off one of my snakes.”
I didn’t move, didn’t dare barely breathe. “I…I am sorry I don’t remember any of it. Can I ask what she wanted of you? Or if you know where I might find her?”
“Hmm.”
The flick of what I was sure was a forked tongue tickled between the fingers of my right hand. “You have been branded by the Storm Lord? That is…unexpected.”
While I wasn’t sure where this was going, I rolled with the conversation in the hopes that firstly I wouldn’t die and secondly, she might give me information. “He agreed to have a little girl saved, if I bonded myself until the third full moon. Three months.”
A low hiss rolled out of her. “Three moons are not three months. Three full moons…you’ve been fooled, young Tracker. Typical man, taking more than is offered freely.”
My throat dried. “How long is it?”
“While our moons still come as regularly as ever, the full moons only rise once a year.”
I slowly lowered my hand until I was leaning forward. “Ah fuck.”
“Indeed. Perhaps your death would be better than to stay with the Storm Lord. He is perhaps, with the exception of the Dark Witch and one other, the most powerful magic user in our world. And the most volatile.”
“The Dark Witch being the one who trained him?”
The shakes were starting deep in my belly, because I did indeed feel a fool and yet…for Rana I would have given him the three years if I’d been pressed. “I…would have done it for the child. He lied, but I would have done the time for her.”
I pushed myself back up to a full sitting position.
“You are different than your mother, little Tracker. I find myself wanting to let you live.”
“You wanted to kill her?”
A heavy sigh rolled through the cavernous space and a light flickered, giving way to shadows.
“Her story was one for the ages, of love, and sacrifice…of saving our world, giving everything she and her mate were…to make it a better place. When her mate died something died within her. The heart that made her was different after he was gone. After her child died.”
Me. I was that child.
Her words stung my own heart, and I fought tears I didn’t fully understand, pain that demanded to be known.
The gorgon coiled herself near the flame, layer upon layer of dark scales set upon one another, the upper body of a woman perched on top. If I were to guess, she was a hundred feet long uncoiled.
She wore a long-sleeved shirt that looked like it had been shredded badly, her hair fell well past her waist, not snakes as I’d thought, but just hair. “They only become snakes when you feel threatened?”
“So you remember a few things then?”
I shrugged. “Mostly about surviving.”
“Hmm.”
I nodded. “Hmm.” And then I waited on my knees as if in supplication to a queen.
“You may come closer.”
I paused, took off my weapons, laying them on the floor before I stood and walked toward her. Pushing her for any information wasn’t going to be an option, I would get what she would offer willingly and nothing more. Which meant I had to be patient and non-threatening.
There was no voice in my mind to accompany this realization—it was all me. I held my hands out so she could see that there was nothing in them. The light grew stronger, the flames of several more candles lighting as I drew within ten feet of her.
Her face was slim and long, which made her large round eyes only that much bigger. Human eyes, but dark, the colors shifting within them like her scales. The glimpse of fangs hanging below her upper lip. “You trust me enough to lay down your weapons.”
“I don’t think if I tried to fight you, I’d survive.” I shrugged. “And as far as I know there is no one that would grieve me if my mother believes me dead, so I would rather—”
“Impress me and hope for the best?”
“You have to admit, it’s not the worst idea.” I laughed and spread my hands wide. “I mean…I think that whoever did this to me wanted me dead. You’d be doing them a favor.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” She tipped her head and beckoned again to me. “Let me touch your face, I may be able to discern who put the spell on you.”
I closed the distance. “I believe it was Thorn. She’s the only other memory I have, and it is not pleasant.”
Her hands hesitated. “Then I shall tread carefully.”
Long pointed fingernails pressed into the softness under my jaw, all the way up along the edge of my face, her thumbnails driving hardest into the space between my eyebrows.
While I felt nothing, she snatched her hands back after only a moment. “You are correct. Thorn did this to you.”
I found myself telling the gorgon about finding Thorn, about the two seemingly different parts of her and the fact that she seemed to be hunting me.
About how Doran had claimed I would not be able to do anything but find my own way, slowly learning my past and memories.
That no one could tell me the truth of who I was or had been.
“Hmm.”
I waited for more than the ‘Hmm’ that seemed to be her standard answer. And when it came, I wasn’t sure that I liked it any better than the hmm.
“The shaman is right and not. He did not see the full amount of the curse laid on you…even how you look is not as I remember—your hair was darker, your eyes different, your body is close but still…You smell the same, you sound the same, but you do not look the same. The curse was not meant to kill you, though…hmmm,” she twisted around reaching for something above her head.
She pulled down a large book that had to weigh fifty pounds by the size of it.
She held it cradled easily in one hand as she flipped through, then flicked a few fingers at me. “Out with you, I must research this.”
“When should I come back?”
“When you have found me something to eat. I like birds.”
Sorrow’s refusal to enter made more sense—he had to have known. “A karruk do?”
“Ah yes, those are my favorite! Sorrowbirds are a close second.” She never looked up but again waved me out, her nails clicking against one another. I backed away, scooped my weapons and found myself stumbling out into the light.
Lucky stood by the entrance, and he grabbed a hold of me in a crushing hug. “Didn’t you hear me yelling for you?”
I patted his arms. “No, sorry I was…I was in too deep I guess.”
“Fuck it all, ladybug I didn’t want to leave the kid, but you were in there, and there was a smell of snakes. I hate snakes. Like seriously, they freak me out the slimy ugly squirmers.” He shuddered and finally let me go.
“No, no snakes. But I don’t think there’s a way through.” I lied through my teeth to him, because the gorgon, well I didn’t think she’d appreciate how Lucky spoke about snakes. “I’m going to do a bit of hunting, see what I can find.”
Sorrow cocked his head. “Me?”
“No, I’m not hunting you, silly bird. A karruk? Wanna help?”
I followed Sorrow as he led me west of the camp, angling south toward a forest that was lush and thick, the smell of different fruits and berries so heavy in the air I knew there was no way that I wouldn’t find something to get for my new friend.