Chapter 17 The Girl Who Opened the Skies #4
Elloven looked down at the bed. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Did he do something to you?”
“Mama.”
“Did he... confess something to you?”
“Why would you say that?” Elloven saw the answer in her mother’s eyes, but she would say no more until Esme did.
“Oh, I already know, love. I’ve known from the start.” Esme eased onto her back and gazed at the ceiling. “I never held it over him.”
“Never held what over who?” They had to be speaking of two different matters. Esme would never have forgiven Jesstin for murdering her son.
“Jesstin believed he was righting a wrong... a wrong that has shaped him, defined him, and tortured him. He’s a willful boy.
Impulsive. A gift from his Edevane blood, I reckon, though the Skylarks aren’t much better.
He has to live with what he’s done, and what greater penance is there for a decent man than that? ”
“Mother, speak plainly.” Elloven swallowed hard. “Please.”
“I don’t need to. You’re a smart girl. Gennady was a good boy, but fate had other plans for him. Who am I to question what was decided before he was born?”
Elloven was absolutely stunned. “How can you say that? Didn’t you love Gen?”
“More than anything, Ellie, and sometimes more than I loved you, because he wasn’t ‘special’ like you were.
Our people would have disposed of him without a second thought, and I nearly did the same, so I could save you.
There was a plan, and I’d sworn to follow it.
” Esme’s eyes closed. “I think about it often, how close he came to death. Many others did die, because I only had time to take a few of you, and I chose the ones who called to my heart most. I have to live with that. Who was I to arbitrate who lived and who died? I prayed on it for years, and when Gennady was killed, I had my answer. It was not my place, Elloven. He was not meant to live beyond childhood. That we enjoyed him as long as we did was a gift, nothing more. If Jesstin had not taken him from us, it would have been someone or something else.”
Elloven left the bed and went to the window to be alone with her thoughts.
It was snowing again. Wintertide Jubilee was just around the corner.
It was a time for mirth and kin and festivity.
The last one she could remember, when she’d had all three, was the Jubilee the year she’d turned eight.
For all since, she’d been the girl and then the woman, looking out the window as the rest of the world celebrated.
But as she watched the flakes dust the trees and the earth, it finally dawned on her that though fate had sent her pain, it had always been her choice, and hers alone, what to do with it.
“We all have our scars, love. Jesstin is not the same man he was when he took his best friend’s life.
He never will be. But it’s a privilege to look upon the past with judgment.
Would anyone blame you for how you dealt with Fabrien?
You did what you had to do, what you believed in your marrow was the right thing to do. ”
“He was slowly killing me,” Elloven answered.
Through the snow, she relived Jesstin throwing his bloody dagger and marching past her without a single word.
The flames and smoke licking the night sky.
His emergence from the ruins with the children and young woman he’d risked his life to save.
She’d left a piece of herself behind that night, and it was the absence of this piece that left her so terribly tangled.
And what was she to do with Esme’s flippant forgiveness?
“What I did wasn’t impulsive. It took years of abuse and conviction to work my way up to it. ”
“The righteous side of vengeance offers false clarity. Belief is a powerful persuader, the one that drives everything we do. Years, seconds... Is there a difference when belief drives action? Everything Jesstin has done since that night was born of the beliefs he’d held in that moment.
Of the connection he’d made with his own kin and the devastation they caused.
He will spend whatever remains of his life paying this debt. ”
Elloven turned halfway. “Oh, I see. He saved me to pay against this debt.”
“Even with all the pain you hold so close, you don’t believe that.”
Elloven laughed. “What do I believe then?”
“He saved you because he loves you, Elloven.”
The sting from those words on her mother’s lips was unexpectedly painful. “He’s no better than the others. And you know this, because it was you who warned me about him before we left. I’ll learn something about him that will make me forsake him? Some great treachery that will send me to my knees?”
“The way you pick and choose which of my words to follow and which to discard would be almost impressive, if it were not so destructive. Taven, Fabrien... Would either have ever let you walk away? Did they ever step aside for you to choose your own path? Jesstin honored your desire to be free of him. Possession is not love and is certainly not the affection I want for my own daughter. Look at me, Elloven. Please. I’m very tired, and I need to say these things to you, for no one else can or will. ”
Elloven didn’t want to hear any of it. She only wanted to spend her last moments with Esme in peace, but she folded her arms and turned away from the window.
“I told you that you would learn something about him that would bid you forsake him, a great treachery, yes. But what else did I say?”
“That he had his reasons,” Elloven spat. “That I must trust in him even when my heart cries out for vengeance.”
“What else?”
“Why does it matter? I know what I feel!”
“What else, Elloven?”
She threw up her hands. “That if I don’t learn to trust him, all will be lost—or something equally exaggerated.”
“I’m curious, what made you change your mind about listening to my wisdom?”
“What?”
“When you left Nightwood, you thought my words were the musings of a doddering drunk, so why heed them now?” Esme was taken by a coughing fit. Elloven quickly fed her more water, but she spat some of it back up, along with foamy blood.
“Is there something I can give you for this?” Elloven whispered in horror.
“Never mind that, and never mind answering my question.” Esme wiped away the blood with a shaking hand. “By now you know I took you to my people of solace when you were young?”
Elloven nodded absently. She was numbed by the crimson smears Esme had missed. She should have come sooner, no matter what reassurances her mother had given.
“Solace magic is oft misunderstood as only healing and wards. But spirit reading is what sets us apart, and why some travel across worlds to see us. Only some can draw upon that magic. My mother was one. Just by holding your hand, she could read the entire journey your spirit would take, past and future.”
“What did she read in yours?” Elloven asked, wary.
“Nothing she would tell me,” Esme said. “It’s considered a bad omen to read your close kin.
I was careful to take you to a reader whose bloodline does not cross with yours.
But I needed to know, love, whether I was truly damning you in my protection or if there was hope.
The spirit reader showed me there was. It had nothing to do with magic or prophecies, Elloven.
It was all down to you. You could break these cycles of pain and suffering by choosing joy instead. ”
Elloven couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Choose joy with the man who murdered my brother?”
“Joy,” Esme said, “with a man who killed his closest friend because he believed he’d hurt a woman in the worst possible way.
A man who spent the years since saving as many more as he could.
Who committed fratricide so you wouldn’t have the stain of it on your soul.
Oh, you think I don’t know what happened at the Edevane manor the other night?
Word travels, Elloven. My nurses couldn’t stop talking about the rumors of the girl who had opened the skies to save her love. ”
“Sesto said the same thing,” Elloven said quietly.
“Maybe he does believe he saved me that night, but I can’t help feeling like instead he’s stolen from me—again.
Do you know he didn’t even defend himself about Gen?
Sesto offered some additional perspective that—” She stopped herself from finishing the thought.
“Jesstin made himself sound proud of what he’d done. ”
“Jesstin understands that to soften his crime is to soften your pain, and he won’t take that from you. If he believed he could, he would have already.”
“You are his most ardent defender,” Elloven remarked bitterly.
“No, love,” Esme said with a slow, sad smile.
“I am yours. And now I need to rest. Now I can rest. I love you, Elloven. I never said it enough, and not because I didn’t mean it.
But tonight, as I prepare to journey from this world to the next, I choose peace, and my heart is full.
Don’t wait as long as I did, my love. Decide how you want to live and then do it.
Without apology. And without ever, ever looking back. ”