Chapter 9 The Monster I Made
THE MONSTER I MADE
Marina
She asks for you all the time, you know.
Malik’s words echoed in the back of Marina’s mind. It’d been a week since his visit. A week of answering the prayers of her followers to rebuild Tenebris, heal the wounded, and protect their village from future Chaos.
While she couldn’t mend their mortal bones, she could at least clean up the debris and help ease their anxieties.
During the mortals’ hours of sleep, with the help of Mansi and Viviana, they cleared the charred mess.
The next day, the villagers praised Marina with newfound hope and dived straight into repairing the broken structures.
The image of Mother, weak and suffering in her cell, tormented her through it all. Malik’s guilt trip had succeeded. It was all Marina could think about—how to save her from a situation that she created all on her own.
“You need to go see her,” Viviana told her one night, after calling attention to Marina spacing out during their conversation yet again.
Mansi tossed her cards down on Marina’s kitchen table and sat up in her chair to top off their glasses of wine. “It’s going to eat at you until you do.”
Marina said nothing, reaching over to grab Viviana’s cigar. They were right, and she loathed that.
It’d been nearly five months since she’d seen her matriarch.
The longest that she’d gone in her whole life without Mother.
Throughout the centuries, it grew habitual for Mira to summon Marina back to Kaimana for a task.
The silence and space from such things were refreshing, which only stacked another brick of guilt onto her.
But it was time. She couldn’t prolong the confrontation any longer.
Her stomach knotted with dread as she stepped out of onyx smoke, the fresh smell of the sea greeting her. The Kaimana air hung heavy with moisture against her skin, curling the ends of her hair.
Under an umbrella of palm trees was the entrance to the underground prison, a hand-crafted set of doors framed by sandstone. Hibiscus flourished off to the side.
The stationed guards swung the doors open and stepped aside for Marina to enter.
No acknowledgement, no respectful bow. It was the first time in her life they did not treat her like royalty.
Though, she counted herself lucky that they allowed her inside.
Freya, the new High Goddess of the Sea, was gracious enough to let Mira’s children visit, at the very least.
Marina huffed under her breath, slightly amused at the thought of the guards regarding the triplets in the same manner. Malik probably attempted to butcher them with one of his serrated knives while Astrid and Vex threw an overdramatic tantrum off to the side.
Marina carried herself to the threshold and paused, hesitating.
She flicked her fingernails in a repetitive rhythm, staring into the dark corridor.
Mother awaited her with expectations and a haughty reaction.
Marina’s feet refused to move.
For some reason, she recalled herself, five years old, balancing a dragonfly in her palm and staring in fascination at the insect. One of its glass-like wings was bent at the end, unable to fly away, but it did not attempt to flee her the way most did.
“You are the first thing that is not afraid of me,” she whispered to it. “I will save you.”
Marina observed the fear in her servants’ eyes, that twinge of doubt when they reached for her hand to lead her to the great hall. During feasts, the other children kept their distance and never invited her to play.
She held the insect in her cupped hands against her stomach as she traveled across the courtyard and into the kitchens. One of the maids gave her a jar, and she stored the dragonfly inside of it. To make it more comfortable, she added curls of grass and water at the bottom.
She left it safely on her bedside table to attend her training.
When she returned, it lay on its back, shriveled, unmoving.
Tears spilling down her face, she embraced the jar, frantically searching for one of her parents.
“Mother! Please help me!” Marina skidded across the moonstone floor of the corridor, catching the High Goddess as she traveled in the direction of her throne room.
Mother’s pale eyes flitted down to the jar in Marina’s grasp.
The servants at her side exchanged uncomfortable glances with one another.
Marina swallowed her breath, attempting to dry up her sobs as she held the jar up to Mother. “Please. Tell me what to do.”
Mother stared at her for a long moment before crouching eye-level with her. “My darling,” she said tenderly, with overwhelming pity.
Marina cried harder. Tears gushed down the crevices of her lips, infusing her mouth with salt.
Mother took the jar without looking at the deceased dragonfly inside of it. “Do not cry, not here.”
Marina wiped the heels of her hands over her wet cheeks, snot seeping from her nose.
Mother will fix it.
She handed the jar to the servant at her side and then cupped Marina’s cheek. “Look at me, Daughter.”
Marina forced her eyes open, despite the stinging in the back of her nose. “It was not afraid of my darkness, Mother,” she sniveled.
“Such sensitivity comes from your father. It has no place at my side.” The disdain clotting Mother’s tone jarred Marina.
Her hand fell to her side as she gaped at Mother.
The High Goddess’s lip curled, and the hard line across her brow framed a look of disgust in her gaze. “Do you understand me, Marina?”
To stand by her was to smother her softness.
And Marina did not wish to walk life alone, unloved.
“I understand, Mother.”
The memory withered and faded into the abyssal corridor leading to Mother’s cell.
Folding up any visible traces of frailty, she straightened her shoulders and slipped into the mask of her blank disposition.
She inhaled a deep breath and proceeded into the chilled, underground prison. The clink of her heels against the stone was loud, reverberating down the path to the end of the hall.
Sconces fluttered as she passed by, drawing her shadow along the amethyst walls.
At the end of the room was an enclosure. Golden rods jutted up from the ground and out of the ceiling like monstrous teeth to contain its prisoner.
Inside, her mother crawled up from the floor.
Her small frame shivered under a burlap gown.
Dirt was smudged on her kneecaps and the palms of her hands.
Her silver strands lay frizzy and matted at her shoulders, as if it had been weeks since she’d run a brush through them.
The Chains of Confinement bound each of her wrists.
As she moved closer to the gilded bars, the glow of the firelight illuminated her face, streaked in grime, dried spit, and blood.
Marina stood with a vacant expression, her hands joined in front of her. “Hello, Mother.”
“That is all you have to say?” Mother’s shock transfigured to ugly rage as she sprang forward and snatched a hold on the bars, her knuckles turning white. “When it’s been months!”
Mother’s scorn was like a toothed blade lancing straight through her chest. To think there could have been even a morsel of hope that her mother would be happy to see her after their time apart.
How long had it been since Mother expressed such sentiment to her? Before Naia’s departure from Kaimana?
No.
Longer.
The day Marina returned to Kaimana after obtaining the title of High Goddess. Mother smiled and hugged her then, boasting and singing her praises.
Since, though, Marina could not remember the last time Mother treated her like a daughter.
Their last true conversation had been moments prior to Freya and the Council appearing in her great hall. Erratic and trembling with rage, Mother demanded Marina set out and drag Naia back to Kaimana for what had felt like the hundredth time.
Marina had listened to her grand plan, exasperated by the repetition. It was over. Naia and Solaris had already dissolved their potential marriage, and Naia had a child with another. The curse could not be broken.
Mira was too far gone to listen to reason back then, and her desperation only grew.
Marina withheld her disappointment, and said, “I apologize for my delay, Mother, but I have been busy.”
“In figuring out how to free me!” Mother seethed. “Tell me, Marina, what have you come up with?”
Marina observed this foreign version of her mother, overtly emotional and trembling. “How long until Finnian’s hex activates?”
“The episodes repeat every thirty minutes. You have five.”
Marina lifted her chin, the sides of her throat squeezing with the words: “Father is dead.”
Mother lightly gasped.
A brief sighting of pain flitted over her face in the subtle draw of her brow, the melting of her icy soul.
As quickly as it came, it vanished.
Marina assumed that the triplets would've already relayed the information. Apparently, that was not the case.
Spineless imbeciles.
“How?” Mother asked, voice plucked of emotion. So perfectly practiced. Marina saw right through it. There was love, albeit buried below her mausoleum of bitterness, but it existed, in some shape.
“I killed him.” The confession was ripped from Marina like a barb from her throat. She held her indifferent demeanor well, though, sickened by the reflection of her mother as she realized where she’d learned the talent.
Mother’s expression perked, hopeful. “Did you use all the blood on him?”
Marina did well not to think too vividly, avoiding the crisp, horrifying details of the memory.
“No, but I do not have it.” Her lips felt heavy, like they were cast with lead. “I believe Cassian and Finnian are in possession of what remains.”
“You must get it!” Her voice raised in a hopeful pitch. “Do what you can at all costs!” She brought her face closer to the space between the bars, her pale gaze widening. “Do you hear me, Marina? Kill them all.”
I am nothing more to her than a means to an end.