28. Maren
Maren
Ihardly grasped the word as she spoke it. But a soft light floated from the back of her mouth, a glow no wider than the crystal hanging from my neck, rippling gently into Darkness’s hand. He curled his fingers around it, his body still and restful, the years of her life a balm over an old wound.
“What—what have you done?” My legs hardened to lead, yet they suddenly felt too weak to carry my weight. My breath came too fast, and that raw ache in the back of my throat returned, deep and sharp enough to tear a hole through the base of my neck.
I was five years old, standing in shallow water with an empty net in my hands, confused and shattered as the island women shuffled their children away from me.
I was eight, watching my father leave for the fishing boats through the flap of my door as the morning songs of neighboring mothers coasted from their verandas.
I was eleven, my Nani was dead, my aunt was intolerant—and I was alone.
Now I’ll never have time.
The thought lifted through my consciousness like a cloud of disturbed dust, and my lungs ached as I pulled in a ragged breath, stumbling a step back. I hadn’t even known that thought had burrowed within me. But I covered my mouth with a hand, staring wildly at her now, and it was all I could hear.
I’ll never have time.
Leihani? Kye’s voice came through, muffled and soft, like a knock at the door.
I’ll be up soon, I replied. He didn’t say anything, but I could feel him linger, holding to the edges of my mind in case I needed him.
Cebrinne didn’t speak at first, though the staunch ridge of her shoulders had softened, her brows tightening with sad surprise at my reaction.
She swallowed, blinked. Then closed her eyes and gathered a deep breath into her lungs.
When she opened them, a thick shine had brightened the light behind her teal blue irises.
“I was never the one who would end this war,” she said firmly.
Quietly. “And as much as I want to watch you do the things I never could, I need to make sure you have the chance to do them first. It’s not perfect.
And I’m sorry. I’ve been away all your life when I should have been at your side.
And you deserve the time that I’m taking from you again.
You deserve time to be angry with me, to push me away, to reject me, because that’s what you’ve known.
You deserve time to heal the way your heart wishes to heal, and whether that’s with me or not, you deserve the right to choose. ”
I swallowed. Tried to answer her. But the air in my lungs was thick and sharp, choking me from within. I grasped at my own edges as they threatened to come undone, but they fractured anyway, breaking away and leaving me bare.
“I know you think you were a consolation to a bid for freedom. And maybe, years before I met you, maybe—” Her voice hitched, and she paused to slow her breath.
“Maybe I once thought that, too. But you were never a mistake. You were never a regret. Life has a way of making us question ourselves again and again, but the day I looked into your eyes, I’d never been more certain. ”
I shook my head. I’d been so incensed when she’d landed beside me, riled at the thought of unsolicited help. That had only been minutes ago, but I couldn’t muster that feeling now. I reached for Cebrinne’s hand, and she smoothed her fingers over mine.
“I may never get the chance to be your mother. But you’ll always be…” She glanced down at our hands, as though holding my gaze suddenly burned.
Her words met my ears in fragmented pieces.
Stifled and blurred, like she’d spoken to me while I floated underwater.
My arms refused to move, yet they wouldn’t stop moving, trembling.
The words I’d hurled at the mouth of the cavern echoed through me now.
I do not need to be mothered. I’ve lived my entire life without one.
“Cebrinne,” I said, my throat tight.
“Ah,” Darkness said to himself. “The Triad.”
We both startled, looking at him. I’d forgotten he was there, forgotten we still stood in the house of shadow. He gazed at us, our joined hands, and something sad reflected behind his eyes. “You’ve been apart for some time.”
Cebrinne cleared her throat, stepping gently out of my reach.
“Yes,” she said, the pitch of her voice once again controlled.
As soon as her heel landed, her edges rippled.
Wavered. Like she was made of burning paper, curling and contracting, warping her limbs and shrinking her down.
Flesh darkened, hair fell away, and skin caved in over her eyes and ears and mouth, sealing them closed.
A gasp burned through the expanse, my gasp, and I hit my knees. I hadn’t realized that was it, hadn’t realized my chance to say goodbye had come and gone.
She thrashed under the light of my stone, and I quickly wound my fingers around it.
“Is she in pain?” I demanded, unable to tear my eyes away.
Darkness drifted to me and offered a silent, gentle hand, as though I wouldn’t like the answer.
My light peeled his shadows away like scalded skin, droplets of silver ichor beading under his arcane tattoos.
I grasped his palm, shock still painting the walls of my mind white and numb.
“Hold tight,” he said, gazing at the ceiling-less expanse above.
I hardened at that word. “Wait.”
Darkness glanced sharply at me. Skin flecked gently from his jaw, shriveling as it husked away, floating from him like ash from a fire.
“How will I use them together?” I asked, careful to not look in Cebrinne’s direction. “How will they kill Thaan?”
He watched me, his eyes flickering as they studied the shadows of my face. “Kill him?” The tone of his voice blew through me like an uneasy wind. His forehead creased. “Do you not understand what the stones are? What Thaan traded?”
“He traded his humanity,” I said, remembering my long talk with Sidra, who had spent a thousand years ruminating over what exactly Thaan had bargained. “To break his cordae and gain the power to shapeshift.”
“Oh, lovely pet.” Darkness’s eyes shifted to the Breath of Safiro. “They come for power. They come for revenge. They come to heal a broken heart. But such things cannot be healed without Time and Truth and Love. He stole from all three when he made his pact with me.”
I pulled back just enough to frown into his shadowy eyes. “What are you saying?”
“The thing Thaan traded for his power, the thing you hold half of in your hand,” he said, “is Thaan’s heart.”
My mouth opened. I stared at him, speechless.
Darkness smiled sadly. “Immortality makes us reckless.
I am Darkness, I am forgotten, I am banished, I am alone.
I have only the past, and it plagues me like a ghost. I can remember simple things.
The sound of laughter, the taste of summer berries, the brush of a kiss over my cheek.
But reliving memory is like trying to taste salt by looking at a painting of the sea.
I am old, and mortal pleasures lie beyond my reach.
“A Naiad father dropped into my house, his daughter slain, his cordae cold and distant. Humans had torn his family apart. He’d called to the other colonies, and they had turned their backs on him.
He begged me to take it away, his anguish.
And I realized I hadn’t felt anguish in a long, long time.
So I took his heart, sliced it into two, not caring that he was a Videre, that his cordae would break, that his mate would bury an island in the aftermath—a rare island of humans who favored the moon over the sun.
Theia learned what he’d done, and she cursed his heart into stone.
Half to remain under the sea and half to remain on land, exiling Thaan and Sidra to opposite realms. Then Theia imposed a sacred law: anyone could restore Thaan’s heart, but only a child of her choosing could reach it. ”
I listened quietly, my mind tracing over the memory of Thaan reaching for the Breath of Safiro in Selena’s destroyed office. How he’d recoiled, almost as if… “His own heart burned him.”
Darkness held out his hand for me once again. “Would yours not do the same, had you abandoned it?”
I let his hand hover in space, unwilling to finish our meeting. “Let my mother go.”
He took his time looking at me, gathering the details of my face, his smoky tendrils waving languidly about his skin. “I cannot unbind a bargain such as hers without inciting the ire of Time.”
My blood crashed in my ears, my teeth pressed painfully together.
“But,” he said. And my heart stopped. I clung to that word, hanging on it like the floor had given under my feet. “But I can amend our deal so that she can leave with you now. I’ll give you a year with her, and her fifty may start when it is over.”
I shifted my weight. Darkness had already asked for my afterlife. What else could I offer him?
What can a mortal give to a god?
But I wet my dry lips, quieted the thrash of my heart. “What do you want in return?”
Darkness smiled, holding out his open hand again. This time, I took it.