Chapter 34 #2
A cold sense of dread washed over Ezer.
‘You …’ she whispered. ‘You chose …’
Styerra nodded. ‘I chose you, Ezer. As I would over and over again in every lifetime, no matter the cost.’
A choice like that …
It was love.
True, selfless love that left Ezer breathless.
‘I didn’t fly away to the Ehver,’ Styerra explained.
She winced again, and spoke faster, like she was racing the wind.
‘I found myself here, in this labyrinth. A place full of my own memories. For a decade, I walked them alone. A purgatory, if you will. But as the years passed, more doors began to appear. They were full of your memories.’ She smiled.
‘This labyrinth … it is your mind, your soul – and mine – tangled into one.’
A breath left Ezer’s lips.
‘I called out to you for years,’ Styerra said. ‘But you didn’t hear me. I thought my job as spirit guide fruitless. Until Stefon gave you the ring.’
Realization dawned on Ezer.
‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘You’re the whisper on the wind.’
‘Not the wind.’ Styerra laughed softly. ‘It doesn’t have a voice, dear girl, but I most certainly do. I protected you. Truly protected you, the way only a mother could.’
And then she flickered again and gasped.
Ezer watched her body begin to fade, like she was truly a ghost.
‘I’ve held on for years. As long as I could.
But I grow weary, and my strength …’ Another flicker.
‘Each day, it wanes. The stronger you become, the less you will have need of me, until eventually … this labyrinth will be gone. There will be no voice on the wind. You will have only the birds. Only the magic that lies dormant within you, waiting to be unleashed.’
‘But what is it?’ Ezer asked. ‘Please. You to have to help me understand. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t …’
‘You have never been alone, my love,’ Styerra said, and a tear ran down her cheek, glistening as if made of starlight. ‘When you are ready … you will step into that power. And you will soar.’
‘And what if I never do?’ Ezer asked. ‘What if, my entire life, I am nothing but a stranger to myself?’
‘You know exactly who you are, Ezer. You need only accept it.’ She flickered again. ‘I must go.’
‘Not yet,’ Ezer begged her. ‘I’ll die tomorrow, without your help.’
‘No,’ Styerra said. ‘For I believe you are fated to go north. To see the Acolyte face to face, the way neither I, nor your father ever could.’ She reached out, with a wavering hand, and tried to touch Ezer’s fingertips.
But they went right through her. Instead, she placed them on the book that still lay between them.
The empty pages. ‘I believe you were always meant to be the one to bring our family to the truth. To see it with your own eyes and decide whether you end him or join him. Whether you side with the Acolyte. Or fight for the Five.’
‘But—’
‘The symbols,’ Styerra said. ‘Keep your mind open to them, and they will show you the way.’ Her body was fading too fast, the cottage walls now visible through her. ‘I never had the chance to say it, not with words. But I will now, as my final parting gift. I love you, Ezer. My daughter. My heart.’
And just like that …
She was gone.
Ezer woke to the sound of rumbling.
It was still the middle of the night, the war raging beyond the wards.
Six was curled up beside her, fast asleep. One of her paws was warm and soft beneath Ezer’s head, a fine pillow she was now certain she couldn’t sleep without. The other was wrapped over Ezer’s stomach …
Like she was one of Six’s beloved treasures, a thing to be held and kept close.
‘It was my mother, all along,’ Ezer whispered. ‘The voice on the wind.’
Ezer had sought answers all her life. And now that she had them … she somehow felt even more lost. Like she’d been floating, and now she was falling.
‘Who am I, Six?’ Ezer whispered into the dark. ‘What am I?’
Because despite what Styerra had said – you know exactly who you are – she didn’t. And she feared she didn’t have time to discover it. Not with the journey tomorrow.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if you chose me because of me. Or if you had to, because of my magic. Perhaps you never even had a choice.’
Six winked open an eye.
And then a vision fluttered into Ezer’s mind.
It was the night Six escaped. She leapt through the Eagle’s Nest, hopping from tree to tree.
Six came across a youngling. A boy who looked up in terror and screamed like he was staring at a monster. Six leapt away, closing in on the barn and the stalls where the war eagles slept.
She found herself on the ground, facing two Sacred Knights.
And when they beheld the raphon – a raphon that was scared and lonely and desperate to be free – their faces shifted.
That was fear in their eyes, too, like they were staring at something that did not deserve to exist. And there were others behind them rushing out of the barn, a flurry of cloaked Sacred with invocations on their lips and hatred on their faces.
Six leapt for the nearest tree, her claws scraping away at the bark as she faded into the canopy.
The vision jumped forward.
She saw herself, standing paces away from Arawn on the path, so small beside him, as he dove and pulled her to safety.
The vision jumped again.
And there she was, standing in front of Six.
Ezer, with blood staining the palm of her hand. It was not terror in her eyes …
It was strength.
It was a bravery that did not falter as she faced the raphon and whispered a challenge.
‘Go ahead. Make it count.’
The vision broke.
‘You chose me,’ Ezer said, sorting through what she’d just seen, why Six had chosen that memory to share with her. ‘Because I saw you for what you are. Not a monster. I saw you … as a bit like me.’
Six’s tail thumped once.
She settled her scarred beak in Ezer’s lap as she cried. As she let out the anger, the fear, the frustration. She purged everything she’d been holding in.
She waited until Six was happily snoring away, her enormous paws twitching in sleep, before she left the catacombs.
There was one thing she still needed to do, a matter she needed to settle, before tomorrow.
But when she came to the black door and reached for the handle … it swung open from the other side.
‘What in the—’ Ezer’s words fell away.
It was Arawn.