Chapter 29 #2
Her arms fling around me so tightly, I almost yelp.
I’m so taken aback, I stand stiffly in her grasp for a moment, before slowly raising my arms to return the gesture.
Tears sting my eyes as I inhale her familiar scent.
I don’t know how long the embrace lasts.
But when it’s over, she points to the chairs and instructs us to sit.
“We have a lot to catch up on,” she starts. “And I’m assuming you probably have many questions. But first I need to know how you got here and who knows that you’ve come.”
I try to speak. But the words clog in my throat. Overwhelmed, I glance at Cygnus.
“We started trying to find Ruin a few weeks ago,” he starts, eyeing me for permission to continue. I jerk a nod, and I’m relieved as he takes over, recounting our entire struggle through the gates.
When he finishes, Mother’s eyes flash to me. “And how did you get to Crown City?”
I’ve been dreading this moment. I find my voice and do my best to explain.
Again, I’m expecting rage and disappointment.
But Mother just listens silently, nodding, with her lips pressed tight.
When I tell her about my work on the omnidraught, I also brace for Cygnus’s reaction.
I expect him to sneer at my mistakes or to scoff at the arrogance of accepting such a critical assignment.
But he listens with a calm expression that mirrors hers, and both of their eyebrows rise in astonishment when I conclude that I’ve finished it.
“How is that possible? Have you tested it on patients?”
I shake my head. “No. I just worked from Ragglestaff’s notes, because the queen said it was too dangerous for me to travel to the quarantine zone. But that’s where you were, right? How did you get here?”
Her face wavers with a whole series of emotions I can’t name.
“I never made it to the quarantine zone,” she admits thickly.
“I got apprehended on the road by the Frumentari. I managed to fight my way out of it, but I was injured in the process.” Mother peels down the neck of her tunic, revealing a nasty scar that plunges from her collarbone across her chest. “And then I couldn’t travel for weeks.
I hunkered down at an inn near the border, but by that point, the area was crawling with soldiers looking for me.
I needed to contact you, but I couldn’t reveal anything about my location without risk of the letter getting intercepted. ”
I try to process this. It’s hard to imagine so many soldiers pursuing my mother—peaceful, dutiful, studious Melia. It’s even harder to imagine her fighting her way out of something.
“And then I got word from our spies that you’d been taken by the empire.”
“You have spies?” I repeat numbly. “How?”
Mother draws a deep breath. “Because I help lead the rebels. I have for almost nineteen years now.”
When I glance at Cygnus, he looks as confounded as I am.
“Once I found out you’d been taken by the Verdish, I was desperate to reach you.
As soon as I gained the strength, I rallied a unit to extract you.
But on our way to the Hartlands, we got apprehended again.
This time by Queen Soleste’s soldiers. I expected them to kill me immediately, but instead they just locked me away.
I learned from the other prisoners that Soleste has been absent traveling; I assume she was waiting to kill me herself when she returned.
Before she could get the chance, I got in touch with some old rebel contacts.
They helped me escape, and we’ve been trying to find a way to get you back since. ”
I feel my Talent begin to boil. “And why would Soleste want to kill you?”
“Many reasons.” Mother looks down at her hands. “I’ve known Soleste since we were girls together. She wasn’t born into royalty. She was just a commoner from the Ironwoods, like me, but with a very uncommon Talent.”
“A siphon.” I nod. I know that much from the legends.
“Yes,” says Mother. “She can draw magic out of anything with a touch, including other bloodborne Talents. She can steal portions of other people’s power without them even realizing, and she has never had any qualms about doing so.
By the time she was your age, she was already the most formidable Elven wielder in history.
Among her stolen Talents was the ability to control minds. Including mine.”
The pain that crosses her face threatens to rip out my heart.
“But the magic wasn’t enough for Soleste,” Mother continues softly. “Her ambition was insatiable. So, eventually, she set her sights on the Crown and secured a marriage to Prince Amos—Evermore’s presumed heir at the time.”
Cygnus and I exchange looks.
“Is Amos the Heir of Evermore?” I ask eagerly. “Is he still alive?”
“No.” She shakes her head, and my spirits sink.
“After he married her, Amos became a shell of himself. He wouldn’t leave his chambers or speak to almost anyone.
He finally passed about two decades ago, but most people thought he was dead long before that.
You have to understand the kind of power she wields.
When you’re in front of her, Soleste can make you forget who you are, what you care about, every person you’ve ever loved.
That’s what she did to him, and it’s what she did to me. ”
“For how long?” asks Cygnus.
“A little under three hundred years,” Mother says. “I served her through the duration of the Long War. I was at her side during the fyres, and when she led the last of the Evermoreans underground, before she turned the Hartlands over to King Verdin.”
I’m trying to visualize the horror Mother experienced. I simply can’t comprehend it.
“But why?” Cygnus asks. “Why would she do any of it?”
“I don’t know.” Mother bites her lip. “I have never been able to understand her decisions. Soleste is the reason we lost the Long War, on so many levels. She destroyed the mind of our king, only wielding her power when it was convenient. She never joined our warriors riding onto the battlefield. When she led the Evermoreans underground, we thought Ruin was going to be a temporary sanctuary to rebuild our strength. Instead, she sealed every gate with magic except the one in her castle. She and her lackeys can come and go as they please, but the rest of us have been trapped underground ever since. You two are the first to open one of those gates.”
Cygnus and I exchange another look. I imagine he’s as astonished as I am.
“But how did you get out?” I ask.
Mother’s hands have started to shake. She clasps them tightly. “Do you remember the stories I told you about Faeries and name day gifts?”
I swallow. “Yes?”
I’m very still as I wait for her to continue.
“Before King Amos died, Soleste became pregnant. And when the baby was born, Soleste allowed the Faeries to visit Ruin for the name day ceremony. However, instead of bestowing a gift, the Faerie queen proclaimed that she’d seen a vision: that the child would manifest a Talent that would one day rival Soleste’s. ”
Heat is rising through my blood.
“The only thing Soleste ever feared was the Heir of Evermore,” Mother continues.
“The prophecy says that the heir will be granted the power of Gods—the kind of power it would take to rival a siphon. And yet, before the whole court of Ruin, the Faerie queen declared that the heir had arrived and she was none other than Soleste’s newborn child.
The instant the Faerie queen spoke the words, Soleste struck her down with a thought. And not just her.”
Mother has gone very pale. “Soleste slaughtered every single person in that room. Except for me…and her daughter.”
The words sound as though I’m very far away.
“I don’t know why she spared us. It makes no logical sense,” she continues.
“After all these years, my only guess is there is a part of Soleste that can feel love, and that part of her…couldn’t bring herself to do it.
At least not in that moment. Soleste stormed away, and I remember just clutching the baby, looking out at the carnage, and that’s when I felt it.
The tight hold she’d had over my mind, all those years I hadn’t been able to disobey—it just shattered. ”
Her eyes fill with tears. “The child was in mortal danger. Soleste would eventually change her mind about sparing her. I knew it was just a matter of time. And I think, somehow, my desire to protect her baby overrode her magic. So I carried the child into the queen’s chambers, and the last unsealed path out of Ruin, and just…
walked out. I smuggled her out of Crown City and carried her over the wall. ”
Blood pounds against my temples. The air in this room is suddenly too thick to breathe.
“The only way to keep the child safe was to hide her. If Soleste had any hint of her whereabouts, she would have stopped at nothing to find her. And if the child herself knew what she was, and Soleste managed to get her hands on her, she’d be able to see it in her daughter’s mind.
“There is so much I’ve been forced to keep from you,” Mother explains. “So much I have wanted to tell you. But I hope you can understand now why it had to be done. And that I only did any of it because I love you. You are my daughter, Lyria. No matter your blood.”
“No,” I say, as something fundamental within me fissures. “Stop. Don’t.”
“Lyria,” she says with a foreign softness. Everything about her is foreign now.
“No.”
I know what comes next. But it shatters me anyway.
“The child was you. You’re the Heir of Evermore.”