Chapter 31 #3
“Hm, well, I suppose we can’t be certain.” She peers at me through short, black lashes. “Shall we try?” The dagger spears down.
As the blade kisses Eurus’ chest, I ram Lady Clarisse with all my strength. We crash onto the ground, through thick muck and trampled grass. The dagger flies from her grip.
I dive for it. My fingers wrap around the hilt, yet she claws at my face, screaming, “No!” Her nails catch the edge of my eye, and I recoil with a yelp, the weapon slipping from my possession as I hurriedly lift my hand to protect my face. Blood douses my vision, the world hazed crimson.
Lady Clarisse climbs to her feet, the dagger fisted in her hand, and I lunge, plowing into her stomach. We tumble backward, nearer to the cliff’s edge.
She kicks out with one heeled boot. A pained oof leaves my body, but I grit my teeth, my sight set on that dagger. Never again will I cower. The realization is fuel, which births fire, and from that fire, the rage of a decade’s worth of abuse.
I scream. It erupts, deafening, choked with emotion. Lady Clarisse’s eyes widen as I yank on her hair, pinning her in place long enough to pry the weapon from her hand.
Pain explodes across my face, my head snapping sideways from the force of Lady Clarisse’s fist. I drop, knees slamming into mud. Rain pelts my body. No, not rain—hail.
Through the blurred roar of the storm, I swear a softly uttered “bird” flits through the din. I blink at the East Wind. The top of his skull and a portion of his face have pulled free of the sucking substance, but he struggles to open his eyes.
Meanwhile, the Anemoi are locked in battle with Prince Balior. Together, they drive him toward the ledge, dodging his power, pressing their advantage as he bleeds out from the wound in his gut.
Something shoves me onto my back, and I blink, dazed, as Lady Clarisse sneers down at me, one hand locked around my neck.
“You are nothing,” she spits at me. “A waste is what you’ll always b—”
My fist snaps out, smashing into her nose. She stumbles backward, but the edge of the cliff is closer than I had realized. And as Lady Clarisse’s foot slips over the drop, she snags my leg, pulling me with her.
I scream, attempting to twist free, but I’m already falling. My fingers catch the ledge, and a burn rips through my shoulder joint as I’m yanked to a halt, her ladyship dangling from my legs with a screech of terror.
Below, the sea churns. I blink back tears, praying to the Mother of Earth for aid, anything that might help me survive this day.
“Bird!”
I gasp. Eurus. “I’m here!” I cry, but the storm strips my voice with little effort.
When I attempt to disentangle my legs from Lady Clarisse’s grip, she shrieks, grasping tighter, her sobs rising through the ping of hail on stone.
“Let me go!” I kick at her stomach.
She moans, her words a distorted mess of Sorry and Please and Don’t let me die and I’ll be better, I swear it. I grimace, trying to focus on maintaining my grip. Water slicks the rock. Its corners catch against my palms as they begin to slide.
Suddenly, two tendrils of air loop tightly around my wrists. My heart somersaults with hope as the wind tugs me upward, but then shadow lashes down, severing the bond.
My weight returns, heavy as stone. With Lady Clarisse hanging from my legs, I haven’t the strength to haul myself to safety. My arms tremble with weakness. I slip lower down the rock.
“Please, Min. Please don’t let me die.” Her pleas reach me in muted waves. “Don’t let your mother die.”
I bite back a yelp of disbelief. “Oh, now you claim to be my mother? Where were you when I was young? When all I wanted was to be close to you? To lo—” I bite the inside of my cheek. I cannot, will not, say it.
“Everything I did was for you, Min, don’t you see? Only through suffering would you become strong.”
“You tried to drown me!” I scream, kicking at her. She breaks into another round of garbled weeping, arms wrapped around my knees as we swing, two leaves in the wind.
“And I was w-w-wrong,” she blubbers. “I see th-that now.”
My lips curl. “Stop stuttering.”
She falls quiet.
I dig my fingers harder into the stone, teeth gritted. The East Wind will come. I just need to hold on a little longer. “You’re not my mother,” I spit. “You never were.”
Only then do I look down at Lady Clarisse, the woman who gave me life but little else. I see nothing of Nan in her countenance, nothing of me. Grief warped her heart, and greed pieced it into something cold and unfeeling.
As her tear-filled eyes meet mine, I understand it is for the last time. “Goodbye, Lady Clarisse.”
With a final kick, her hands fall away. She drops, her body breaking on the rocks.
I tilt back my head, blinking away tears.
Today was not meant for death. Today was meant for life and living.
What hurts is not what was. It is what could have been.
For I have often wondered if there might be a life in which I knew my mother, and was loved by her, and known. And now that will never be.
With her ladyship’s weight gone, I thought I’d have the strength to claw my way up the ledge, but the pain in my shoulders is unbearable. I hang there, a dead weight twisting in the wind. “Eurus!”
The soles of my water-logged loafers skate downward, losing contact with the rock. I dig deep, deep inside myself, dragging up whatever strength remains. But I am tired. My body has reached the threshold of what it can sustain.
I tried, I think. With everything that I am, I tried.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and let go.