Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
-brIDA-
There was no air.
I clawed at my throat, reaching for the surface of the water.
The hands pulled me deeper into the pool. I had been mistaken in thinking it was a few feet deep. It ventured on for eternity. Where normal water would darken the further you made your way into its depths, this remained illuminated by each of the orbs that were beginning to burst.
Each pop sent a jolt through my body, a cascading sensation of fire beating through my veins. I was desperate to breathe, to free myself from the hands’ grasp. They weren’t connected to arms, but rather streaks of light and shadows whose forces radiated heat and ice.
My heart pounded as panic coiled inside me, a pit of ever-growing despair. How had I been so foolish to trust this? After everything. I, Brida, will die here, and no one will know.
“That is true.” I heard thousands of voices at once all say, a variety of tones, inflections, intentions.
I forced my gaze upwards, longing for the surface that now rested hundreds of feet above me.
This is where I die.
The orbs continued to burst, an explosion of sound and color, the oranges fracturing, shattering into every color I’d seen in the clouds above the Court of Whispers.
From each orb, figures emerged, no one I recognized.
Until the remaining orb made its way in front of me, taunting me with images of a woman I knew.
“Mom,” I said before I could think about what inhaling the water would do to me. To my shock, my lungs acclimated, allowing me to take a deep breath.
The orb danced playfully in front of me, remaining just out of reach as I tried to clasp it with my fingers. It wasn’t a picture of Mom I remembered. This memory didn’t belong to me.
Pulsating like a living flame, the orb grew, reaching a capacity I thought impossible until it surrounded me, pulling me into its orbit.
Wisps of light receded from the sides, swimming to the center in front of me. Each forming a piece of the puzzle that took the shape of the woman I knew and loved, the one who had so wrongfully been stolen from me.
“Mom.”
I was no longer floating in water, but air. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes, the ones cascading down my cheeks.
The wave of her fiery red hair that had been kissed by the sun, the freckles that dotted the upper part of her nose after she had been outside in the garden a few minutes longer than she should have been.
It was my mom, but something about her was different—part of her spark, her essence, was missing. It was my mother, almost.
“Brida,” she whispered, holding her arms out to me, inviting me in for an embrace. Whether it was her or not, I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around her, clasping my hands behind her back. She felt like my mother, smelled like her.
Her touch as she ran her fingers through my hair was known to me, so familiar that I couldn’t help but close my eyes and allow myself to just feel. My breathing became labored as I collapsed into her, unable to control myself any longer.
“Shhh,” she whispered, pulling me into her tighter, “it’s okay, my sweet girl.”
I tried to still myself, cease my tears, to look at her, to really look at her. I pulled myself back, bringing my hand to her face. “How are you here, Mom? Have you been here all this time?”
Her smile was faint as she continued to run her fingers through my hair while the other wiped away the tears on my cheeks. “In a way, my love. I’m sure you have plenty of questions, and I will do my best to answer them, but there is only so much I can do.”
I sighed, “Let me guess, you are here but you’re not truly here?”
“An essence of me remained, waiting for you, for this moment, but the rest of me is gone, sweet girl. It has been for some time. What’s left of me resides in here,” she placed the palm of her hand flush with my chest. “The best parts of me have always been here.”
With shaking fingers, I reached for her hand. “We’ve missed you so much. Gods, if Dad could see you, you have no idea how much he misses you.” I whispered.
“We were luckier than most, your father and I. When you find the one you desire, my darling, the one your soul craves, no amount of time will ever be enough.”
My mother pushed my hair behind my ear as she continued, “He was the great love of my life, until you. You brought so much light into this world. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you, what a gift you would be, not only to us, but to everyone you would meet.” She pulled me deeper into her chest, “I’m not sure what either of us ever did in this life, or the past ones, to ever deserve you. ”
My tears flowed freely from my cheeks. As one fell to the bottom of the bubble, a golden orb formed, rising to me, and I could see within it, a memory had now been encapsulated. “Is…is that what just happened?”
She nodded.
“What is this?” I reached out and touched the orb. As I made contact, my cries from moments earlier echoed through the air like ripples in the water.
“A memory bank. Brida, there is much you must know, and little time.”
I forced myself to swallow the lump forming in my throat. I didn’t want to leave this place, to leave her. Even if she was only a fragment of my mother, I would take this moment with her over nothing at all.
“Everything has been so out of control that I haven’t been able to make sense of anything.
” I started to ramble. “I’ve thought I’ve been asleep when I’ve been awake, and the reverse.
I hear songs calling to my soul, my hands now expel light, and they attacked a man.
A monster, mind you, but they harmed someone. ”
Her expression softened, her lips parting softly. “Much has been veiled from you, as it has for us all. Brida, I must know. Have you met Marius? Do you know who he is?”
Does everyone insist on asking me that question?
“He chased me here. He works for Marsh. Mom they… they took Addie. They…” I couldn’t say the words. Not to the only person who loved Addie as much as I had.
“Brida,” my mother said, placing her hands atop each of my shoulders, “I can assure you that Marius had nothing to do with that, and I know that, because he has been here.”
How do I explain this to her? He was part of it. He has a role in this.
“There is nothing to explain, Brida. But you’re right. He does play a role. We all do.”
“Wait, can you hear my thoughts?”
“It’s not just me, Bri, it’s all of us here. We are all a part of you as you are a part of us.”
I needed to move, to run, to flee. “Mom, is there some way we can have this talk maybe out of here?” I gestured my arm around the bubble, “I’d love for us to be outside.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I’m bound here. We all are.”
“Who is we?” I found myself asking before I could think.
“Brida,” my mother said, “Marius informed us that you snuck into Azmeer.” She raised her eyebrow once more, “I did not raise you to be a liar nor a cheat, but what you did for your father… I could not be more proud of you.” She brushed the back of her hand against my cheek, her warmth barely tangible.
“But what you did during the third task, when you made your way to the Pool of Vitality. You unlocked something that has been missing from this world for a long time.”
Those were Marsh’s words. My skin tingled at the thought. Is this a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security? Using the woman I love most to tell me to trust Marius? To trust Marsh?
“No.” Her smile was faint. “This is no ploy, and we do not speak for him. But his words remain true. The pool, the secrets locked in its depths…”
Locked. Trapped. Like I had been. The pool is… a prison?
“Yes. You see, Brida, in the beginning, there were three gods. Chaos, the first god, the void itself. After them came Dawn, the creator.” At the mention of the word, the light surrounding us brightened, pulsing in response to the name. “But there must be balance. And thus came Dusk. The closer.”
Three gods. Dawn, Dusk, Chaos. Three Primals whose names had been lost to time. A Primal of life, a Primal of death, and the oncoming storm.
How do I know that?
Her hands clasped around mine, “The spirits of gods may be eternal, but their physical forms, like that of a human, are mortal. We do not know why the souls choose the vessels they do. But…” she paused, “Dawn has never chosen poorly.”
With her words, the forms of hundreds of women, tall, short, as black as onyx, and as pale as moonlight, all appeared. Each placing their hand over their hearts, their smiles warm, their glows evident.
I pulled back from my mother, turning on my heels, trying to meet the gazes of each of them. They varied in age, some no older than six years old, while others looked like Tura, beautiful but weathered by time. Placing my hand over my heart, I felt the first tear escape.
I knew them. Their stories, their desires. The loves, the children, the games they’d played, the battles they’d won. And in the distance, one glowed brighter than all the rest.
“Thale,” I whispered as she smiled and nodded in response. Her fiery red hair, so akin to my mother’s, glistened with the fury of the strongest flames. She was everything I had envisioned. Everything I wanted to be.
“You, too, are worthy, Brida.” Placing her hand over her heart and to her lips, she faded into the distance.
“No!” The words fled my lips. I yearned to call her back. To ask her about her story. The pages of which I had leafed through more times than I could count. Thale is real. They…They…
“I know this is a lot to process, my love. It would be a lot to ask of anyone,” my mother turned me to face her, clasping my hands once more. “But in the last war, Dawn was captured, her physical form killed, and her soul imprisoned.”
Thale.
My mother nodded.
“And you’re saying that somehow, I let her out?”
Something has been long lost to this world. And we need it back, Brida.