42. Chapter 42
Chapter 42
B efore heading into the mines, Plume pulls me aside. "Viola, you need to see your family."
I had nearly forgotten about them in the chaos of the prior night and the hurt of this morning. Add in the visit with Vic, and all I wanted to do was get to the mines and then get out of this city.
I come up short, Tulip bumping into my back with a laugh. "I suppose we do." I look at Plume and feel my emotions drain from my face. She has this look of pure hope in her eyes as if she thinks this could be nothing but a good visit. As if meeting extended relatives could be anything more than awkward at best.
"But it has to be a short visit, and then Mace and I are heading to the mines," I firmly tell her.
It's hard to break her spirit, so with that, I let her lead the way to the house Bean directed them to last night.
Flecks of red paint hang on by a mere thread to the door of the Foxgrove home, and the force of knocking would send them flying, the fact that they're still attached mocking my inability to raise my fist to the door. Plume notices my hesitation and knocks for me, allowing me the opportunity to step behind her.
Family relationships seem like more her thing, anyway.
Bean opens the door, his face lighting up when his eyes land on Plume. "Plume! Good to see ya again. I see ya brought the whole crew. Can't say I'm surprised, but I had hoped you'd take me up on my offer." A flirty dances across his face as his sight trails across her figure.
"Offer?" I whisper into her ear from behind. Plume shoos me away with her hand, but the back of her neck looks pink.
"Is your Pa home? I've brought Viola."
I look at Bean and give him a quick nod. His face contorts with shock. "Oy, what happened to your hair?"
"It's a long story, Bean. Are we able to talk to your Pa?"
"PA!" Bean yells over his shoulder into the home. "You feel like meeting some kin?" He listens, and though I don't hear anything, he seems to because he motions for us to enter the house.
Inside, the home is small and cramped, similar to my own in Dalery. The furniture has seen better days, but it's all still perfectly functional. Sitting on a wide, threadbare sofa is an older man with curly dark hair and terracotta skin only a few shades darker than mine and Bean's. His nose is wide, and he wears a forced smile. But the shape of his brown eyes, the way they turn down at the corners, stops my heart.
My mother's eyes.
As we file in, I move slowly, standing against a wall opposite Bean's Pa. The man could be around my father's age, and though his expression is wary, there is unmistakable warmth within him. Once the five of us have settled, Bean flits over to the sofa and tosses himself down next to his Pa. "Pa, her mam's a Foxgrove."
The man turns his head to the side, the curls tickling his left ear as he does it. "Was she?" He allows the silence to stretch, willing me to talk first.
I understand that. He is reticent to give up family information to someone who is so clearly inhuman and her fae traveling companions. It's not like, at this point, he could see any resemblance between me and my mother.
"My mother's name was Rila Foxgrove," I say quietly, unable to control the slow tap of my fingers against my thigh.
"You're Rila's girl?" He rises to his feet and swiftly walks across the room, hands on the sides of my face. I yank myself from his grip, hands reaching for the hilt of my blades, but Plume is there, hand on my wrist.
"Viola, he's not attacking you." Her need to say that out loud embarrasses me, and I fight to release the tension in my shoulders.
The man, Pa, steps back, hands palms up towards me. "She's right, I apologize for startling you. You look so much like her, and I haven't seen her since I was a boy."
I look like my mother? The thought never occurred to me, and certainly, how could I now, with all the changes I have undergone? I cock my head to the side, looking at the man. "No, I apologize. I… I can be a bit jumpy," I say by way of an explanation. "Rila was my mother, yes. She met my father shortly after she moved to Dalery, and they wed and had me."
He sits back down on the sofa, and I take a step to follow him but think better of it, opting instead to perch on the arm of a chair a little bit closer to him. "So that's what happened, huh?"
The shock must be evident on my face because he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and runs his hands down his face. "I'm Ritter, her younger brother. Her Ascension year, she just never came back. It broke our parents' hearts. They assumed the worst until the next year when they caught sight of her at the Race's opening ceremonies. She wouldn't speak to them."
Ritter's grief is old but evident as he continues to speak. "Our parents didn't much care for the Race. We did it, and that was it. Rila, though, wanted to win. I guess that's why she left us."
"It is. All she cared about was winning. My whole life, she trained me to have the best chance possible to win." I sigh, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't think she and my father intended to have kids before they won, which is probably why it took her so long to win. Children are a bit of a dead weight when it comes to that type of goal." I keep my eyes on the ceiling, unwilling to meet the gaze of my traveling party. I can only imagine the pity in their eyes right now.
"So she did, then?" Ritter asks quietly. "She won?"
My body locks up, and I hear a sharp inhale of breath from Tulip. I have but a split second to decide if I am going to lie to my only living relatives about everything that has transpired.
"She did win, yes. My Ascension year, she and my father won."
The words float around the room like a poison. One wrong breath could spell our ending.
Ritter smiles at that, sitting back on the couch. "Well then, I bet she's enjoying it. You won, too, yeah? You're here with these fae after all, and Bean filled me in on the rumors about you."
This is the point where I could tell them the truth. I could make sure that any relationship I have with these two men comes from a place of honesty. I risk a glance at Mace, his green eyes dull and sad, and he immediately looks away from me, giving me no guidance. Morrow is next to him, and he narrows his eyes and gives the smallest shake of his head. He knows what I'm thinking about, and he's telling me not to.
But despite Morrow's warning, I can't bring myself to lie to Ritter and Bean. I can't risk alienating them. I thought I was alone in the world, and yet sitting in front of me is an uncle and a cousin that I could get to know.
"I hate to tell you this, Ritter, but Mother is dead. Father as well. They didn't live long after they made it to Ytopie." I keep my voice as steady as possible, fighting to keep any emotion down. My mother was brutal, but she was still my mother. She still deserved better than she got. "But she won. That was the most important thing to her."
Ritter's face drops a bit, but he nods tightly and then meets my eyes. "Honestly? She died a long time ago for me. But I can't say I'm upset to meet you. It's nice to know I got more kin out there."
"Kin that's a God, Pa! If what everyone is saying is true," Bean adds.
Ritter's eyes widen as he stares me down. "You're a God?"
My body clenches with discomfort, and I duck my head. "That's what they tell me. Trying not to let it go to my head."
At my words, Morrow raps his knuckles on my skull. "To be fair, you've got white God hair now. I think that's the definition of it going to your head."
Mace and I stand side by side in the mine, trying our best to ignore one another even though he's giving me a lesson on magic.
"Intentions for this are easy. Do you see the bits of iron ore there?" I nod, following the direction of his hand. "All you need to do is visualize it coming to you and direct it to the carts. It shouldn't take too long for us to fill them."
"Right, okay," I say, with the cautious optimism that this will work.
He's barely looked at me since we left Ritter and Bean's house. The conversation there flowed easily and naturally after the initial awkwardness wore off, and I was sad to leave to come to the mines. I never had family other than Mother and Father, so to sit with two warm men who wanted nothing more than to welcome me into the fold was something else. Bean was massively eager, begging to come along with us, but I gently turned him down, preferring to keep my only living family far away from the chaos that is my life.
After all, all of my family dies.
Besides, I think his interest was less in our mission and more in Plume.
When it was time to leave, Ritter thanked Mace and me for giving him a day off and told me he'd repay me with ale the next time I came through Colris.
I plan to take him up on the offer. It might be nice to have some family that cares about something other than the Race.
Mace clears his throat and gestures for me to extract some of the ore.
How did we get here?
It's like all of the electricity that was between us, everything that drew us into one another, has vanished without a trace. It makes me wonder if it was ever real to begin with. His hands on me in his home, the feel of our bodies pressed against one another, the curve of his fingers inside me when he laid me back on his desk, the way he tied my ankles together on the ship. All of it feels like a dream, something that happened to another version of Viola in another life.
Of course, I was unfair to him. But that doesn't mean I was wrong. We're trying to stop a God. We don't have time to dive into the level of conflict I feel about being attracted to the man who holds some culpability for almost every traumatic incident in my life. I can't even begin to think about the chaotic swirl of emotions that rile up inside me every time I look at him .
I should hate him. Part of me does.
I hate the way he smirks at me when he thinks he's got a secret that I cannot possibly figure out.
I hate the way that he presents himself to the world as this scary, stoic leader, but he's actually warm and thoughtful.
I hate how he acts like he's okay being isolated and alone when really he's longing for someone to share his life with.
I hate that he thought that person could be me.
I hate that I thought that person could be me.
With every aggressive, chaotic thought, I pull more ore down, my eyes drifting closed as I work automatically, no longer needing to look at what I'm doing. I don't want to catch a glimpse of him.
I don't want to see the way his hair clumps with sweat and points above his eyes, making his face even more severe.
I don't want to see the green in his eyes that has gone dull since our conversation this morning.
And I certainly don't want to see his mouth curve into a pointed smirk.
Because I hate that he made me feel this way.
I hate that he made me feel at all.
I have spent so long cutting myself off from everyone. I let Link in, and he died. I let Max in, and she died. I let Tulip in, and she nearly died.
For the longest time, I have accepted that I do not deserve the kind of things others get in life. I am not the person who gets to have a calm, normal life.
At first, I didn't want that normal life. I wanted to push further and further into the Race so I could get to Ytopie. Truthfully, though, how can you want something you have never had a chance to comprehend?
I think Max may have been right about me never being able to find satisfaction in that kind of life.
Could I ever have been the person to settle down, have a few kids, and cuddle up in front of a fire reading?
Of course not.
Someone like me doesn't deserve a life like that.
I'm lucky that I was deprived of that choice when I set off this chain of events that is leading me to become a God of all seasons.
Lucky. What an odd concept.
No part of my life has ever felt like luck to me.
I open my eyes and look at Mace, swirling with the silver magic that pulls the ore from the cave, the soft, muted buzzing of the magic somehow soothing me in its familiarity. Looking at his profile, the relaxed way his jaw slacks with concentration bubbles up feelings in me again, so I turn my back to him.
It's selfish of me, so incredibly selfish, to want him to want me despite everything.
He doesn't deserve to be pushed through this with me. He didn't sign up for this when he kissed me in his office.
Flashes of him on the grass outside the Palace when Shadow became an actual snake, of us on the stag, of him holding me after the gala, of his face broken and bloody, fill my head.
"Viola! "
His voice breaks through my thoughts, and I turn around to see a cart of ore flying towards me.
He's trying to throw magic at it, but it's moving too quickly. He can't get the chains he created from the ore to wrap around it.
I don't think, I just throw my arms up to stop the movement, and the blue of Ice magic flows from me, wrapping around the mining cart.
And it stops.
But it's not frozen, encased in ice.
It is frozen in place.
Himureal's words come back to me at that moment.
Ice freezes.