Chapter Sixteen #6
Eyes rounding, Kirwan reacted on instinct. Hand flying off Meli’s throat, he threw out the crystal and shouted a runic word.
The dagger collided with an invisible barrier, bouncing off and skittering across the floor.
“Meli, run!”
Throwing her head back, she smashed her skull in his face. Blood spurted from his ruined nose, freeing her from his grip as his hands flew up.
“Monster,” she shrieked, stomping his foot.
Bones crunched in my ear.
“Go,” I cried, grabbing and pulling her away. “Take the children and get out of—”
“Argh!” Pure, magical force slammed into us, blasting us into the hallway.
We dented the wood crashing into the wall. Pain surged through every limb and screamed out every pore. We crumpled on the floor—my head ringing.
“You just never... learn, girl.”
Through the haze, Kirwan limped over—waving his hand. Before my eyes, he healed his foot and nose with the crystal.
He towered over us whole... and angry.
“I said I’d kill the girl if you disobeyed.” A sword appeared in his hand, its hair-thin edge dancing the light off its tip. “I’m a man of my word.”
“Wait!”
“Stop!”
The blade sliced the air, falling on Meli’s neck.
Kirwan blasted off his feet.
Spinning through the air, the faeman never reached the ground. He propelled up and slammed against the ceiling.
How? I shoved up and crawled to Meliora. Holding her close, I whipped around—searching for whoever was doing this. Was it the twins? The only two of three people in this home who still had magic?
“Gisela? Jaclan?” I called. “It’s okay, faywens, you don’t have to do this! Haeowen will take care of him, I’ll—”
A figure stepped into the hall, shadows cloaking all but her legs and bare feet, but that was all I needed to see to stop my heart.
“Mama?” I rasped. “You’re— You’re—” alive? stuck in my throat.
Unseen hands seized me and Meli, and lifted us into the air. I swallowed a shriek of surprise as we flew over her head, and wound up behind her—protected by her.
“Mama, how are you doing this!” Meli cried.
Our mother didn’t answer. She had one focus and one focus only. Dropping her fist, Kirwan slammed to the floor, his head bouncing off the wood.
“O... lene, wait—”
“Agh!” She twisted and he moved with her, flying into the opposite wall.
“Olene!” Blood wept from a dozen cuts and wounds on his horrible, hideous face. “Wait, stop, please! I didn’t want it to come to this!”
Mama picked up his sword.
“None of this was my fault!”
One of the crystals on his lapel glowed. Mama snapped her fist back and they tore out of his many hiding places, bouncing across the floor—one of them hitting my slackened jaw.
“It wasn’t me,” he bellowed. “It was her! That demon child!”
I didn’t have to ask to know he was speaking about me.
“She’s the reason we could never be happy. I love you! I’ve always loved you, but she destroyed everything!” Kirwan strained and thrashed, his limbs pinned to the wall.
Mama halted before him, her back facing us.
“I can promise you two things here today, Kirwan. I never loved you. You are the most despicable of men. Lower than a worm. Filthier than the scum-sucking bottom feeders found crawling through shit. I’ve hated you from the moment we met, and every day I prayed to Meya for your death.
How could any woman love you?” she hissed.
“You don’t even love yourself. The only thing you’ve ever done right in your life is Meliora. ”
The delusional fool had the audacity to gape at her in slack-jawed surprise. “Olene, what are you saying? This isn’t you. This is her! Ruining everything. Coming between us!”
“And my second promise,” Mama continued on, raising her sword. “You will never hurt my children again.”
I grabbed Meliora, covering her face with my body.
“Olene, don’t—”
Mama’s sword struck true—severing his head from his shoulders. It thudded on the ground, the bug-eyed look of surprise still on his face.
I held Meliora close, not letting her look. No matter how much she despised the man, she was only sixteen. I wouldn’t have her watch her mother kill her father.
“Mama?” I croaked. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond for throwing out her hands. Snapping them together, Kirwan’s head flew off the ground and pinned back to the wall. “Eldur!”
The body burst into flames, smacking us over the head with heat.
Greedily they consumed him, reducing the great and fearsome Kirwan Dawnbreaker to nothing but ash.
She swept it out the door and slammed it shut with a cold efficiency that reminded me of something I often forgot.
My mother went to war right alongside my father.
She was never a wilting flower... and she never feared a monster.
“Mama?” I said softly. “Are... you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay, faywen, but I need you to check on the children.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Her tone brokered no argument. I loosened my grip on Meli standing up. My sister broke from me and ran to our mother, burying her face in her chest as she sobbed.
I left them be, knowing Meli was with the exact person she needed at that moment.
I continued on through the hall, calling for Jaclan and Gisela, but inside, my head was a wreck. Putting aside that my sister’s father threatened her life, so he could steal our coin and kidnap me and my little sister, the mind-shattering shock was watching my mother perform magic.
How? I thought she was gone, but obviously she just fell into a frighteningly deep sleep. Or did she, somehow, pass away, but then Meya allowed her to return to us—save us—with her true and natural state returned?
“Jaclan—?”
“Yes?” Jaclan poked his head out of his room—whole, healthy, and curious. “Is Mama awake? Can I show her my drawing now?”
Slowly, I stuck my head inside. Gisela and Savia were inside too. Savia napped in her cot while Gisela sat at the small table Jaclan vacated, drawing her own picture for Mama.
“Haeowen?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, pulling out of my thoughts. “Mama’s in the front room. Go and show her your—”
Screams pierced the air, invading through the cracked window. “Faywens, take Savia and go to Mama now!” I ran to the glass and peered into the street.
I choked on a cry. “Alisdair?”
My love wasn’t in the street, but faeriken were. I watched bug-eyed as the source of the scream raced through the alley, shrieking her head off as a pack of rhino faeriken charged her. I wrenched back just as they closed in on their target.
“What the fuck is going on!” The faeriken were invading? Why would Alisdair do this? We had a plan. As far as I knew, no secret female assassins have slaughtered Salman in his bed, so why would he attack now?
“Calli? Calli!” Meliora called. “What do we do?”
I took off, racing out of the room and making for the back entrance. “Stay inside!” I burst outside and shrieked, hugging my arms to my chest.
Cold! Oh fucking Meya, it was cold! A blast of freezing wind struck me, chattering my teeth.
The pack of rhinos had moved on, but they weren’t the only ones. A monkey faeriken scaled the walls of the home across the street and jumped on the roof. He had to. Two leopard faeriken were on his tail—snarling and snapping at their lost prey from below.
Cries and howls drew my attention, making me run around our building to the alley. Three cat faeriken ripped off their clothes and pounced on each other. There was a cock in an ass, and another in a mouth before they hit the cobblestones.
Their noise startled a bird faeriken into taking flight.
I followed their path up, my eyes turning to the skies as the dark, heavy clouds rolled in—blotting out the horizon. The sun. The light. The warmth.
The world.
“Alisdair didn’t launch the invasion,” I whispered, lips numb from more than the cold. “And these—these people—” Slowly, I backed toward my door.
“Argh!” A group of fifteen, maybe twenty women charged down the street with a familiar face leading the pack.
“Mykel Starsinger,” Shadi screeched. Her hawk eyes bulged in sync with her ruffled feathers. “This will teach you that no means no. Eldur!”
The mansion windows three doors down blew out—the very glass fleeing before the flames.
I bolted inside, slamming and locking the door. “They’re not from Lumenfell,” I cried. “The faeriken are Lyricans! They’ve been changed! The curse—”
“We know,” said a calm, clear voice. “You did say that in Lumenfell, their ordeal frees them from the binding...”
Stiffly, achingly, I turned, and met my mother’s now small, beady eyes and thick, furry face.
“I was skeptical,” Mama continued, “but I confess, it feels a fair trade.”
THE THREE OF US SAT at the dining table.
The twins were there too, but Jaclan and Gisela were busy poking Mama’s face and scurrying off giggling. She looked at them fondly, while she devoured an entire chicken.
“At least, they’re not afraid of you,” Meliora remarked in a small voice.
“Mama’s fuzzy,” Gisela shrieked in agreement.
“Are you afraid?” I asked Meliora.
She paused, then shook her head. “I think it would be wrong to be afraid. I mean, the—saved you, didn’t it? It cured you of the wasting sickness.”
“Almost immediately,” Mama said around her gnawed chicken leg. “All I remember is being somewhere dark and warm, and then just like that, I was awake, the nausea was gone, my magic was thrumming under my skin, and I was hungry. Starved. Like I hadn’t eaten in months.”
“But now you’re a...?” Meliora blinked at her. “What are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Me either,” I echoed.
“A koala.” Gisela blew in, poked Mama, and scurried off again.
“How do you know?” I called after her.
“I just do.”
Mama shrugged. “A koala. I’ve heard of those. They can only be found in Rajadom. I never thought my inner animal would be a creature I’ve never seen before.”
“Why are you so calm about this?” Meliora burst out. “You’re— All of Lyrica is—! Fae-beasts are running through the streets! It’s the middle of the day, and it’s pitch black outside! Why aren’t you yelling, screaming, raging, something!”