Chapter 30 #2
“And my blood did this?” My brain didn’t cease whirling. “Why does Marsh want her? He said that Ilia was his. Did he wish to control her? To create? But create what, Mom? Thale, Ilia, they were one in the same. She was real. All of them. How?” I took a step back, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Dawn has chosen, sweetheart, and she is yearning to be let out.”
To be let out, let out from where?
We are one. We are the same.
But I am Brida… And you, what are you?
Together, we are one.
“Are you trying to tell me that there is the soul of a god in my body!” I screamed, running a hand through my hair, “That… that can’t be possible. I’m me, just me, a human, look at me!” I gestured towards myself, “This is not the body of a god.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of my mother’s lips. “Brida,” she whispered, “we do not know why the god chooses the vessel they do, but she has chosen you, the same way she chose the rest of us. All save me.”
“What do you mean?” My gaze found hers, her soft brown eyes searching mine.
“I was not chosen to be a vessel for Dawn, but I was for someone else.” She smiled.
I knew the answer in the marrow of my bones, and without needing to ask her, I said, “Joy.”
She nodded.
I stopped my pacing, rubbing a hand over my face, and was shocked at the laugh that escaped me. “I found his journal, you know,” I sighed. I was on the brink of exhaustion. My mother, Dawn. All of it. It was too much.
“Whose journal?”
“Yezed’s.”
My mother’s eyes were heavy with regret, “I’m sorry I never told you of him. I would have, in time. He was a misguided man.”
A voice that wasn’t my own permeated my mind, one that was soft, beautiful, melodic.
“You hear her now,” my mother said, placing her hand on my forearm, squeezing it to remind me of her presence.
What am I supposed to do?
You must will it to be so.
“Earlier, the voices said I would die here.” I looked to my mother, whose eyes were dimmer than when our conversation had begun.
“Yes, but not in the way you think.” She cupped my face. “Brida, as you know her, will no longer exist. A new one will be born and take her place.”
The beating of my heart mirrored a war cry, each beat pushing me further towards the edge. “All the parts of you that are here now, will remain. But,” she said as she pulled me into an embrace, “that little bit extra will be there, too.”
As if on command, something within me transformed. A scream that did not sound like my own bellowed throughout the water, causing ripples in the bubble surrounding us. Where blood had flown through my veins, fire now lived, tearing me apart from the inside out.
“Don’t fight it, Brida.” My mother shouted over my own screams of pain.
Despite wanting to fight it, I knew this was a battle I would not win. I accept it. I thought, please, please, make it stop. With my thoughts, the pain dissipated from my body like fog off of the water in the early morning.
While the pain was no longer there, the changes happening within myself were clear. Where I had become frail, I was now filled out. Where my cheeks had felt gaunt, they were once again full and warm. My fair skin now had a golden sheen to it, as if I had been kissed by the sun itself.
Thank you, the voice whispered, as if fading into the distance.
“Where are you going?” I questioned her. There was so much I had to ask, so much I wanted to know.
“You are one and the same now, my love. She is you.”
I lifted my head from my mother’s shoulder and stared into her eyes. “We don’t have much time left, do we?”
She shook her head.
Nodding, I held onto my mother, telling her of all the things I wished she had seen, the moments she had been there. “You would be so awed by Kadian,” I said to her while holding back laughter. “He has been my champion more times than I can count.”
“Then he has done his job well.”
The bubbles’ swell was decreasing, a warning that our time together was coming to its end.
“I still have so many questions,” I choked out. I didn’t want to leave her here.
“Marius will answer them for you. I know he can be tedious,” she laughed, “but trust me.” She pushed my hair behind my ear once more, “Have I ever led you astray?”
Shaking my head, I tried my best to fight the tears that were clawing for an escape. “I’m so sorry,” I trembled, my hands clenching into fists, trying to funnel my rage and frustration into them. “I should have been there. I should have helped you.”
She wrapped her arms around me tighter. “There is nothing you could have done. Regardless of us approving of the outcome, everything is as it was meant to be. The world requires a Dawn, and a Dawn requires her Dusk. You will be the one to right the wrongs of our world.” A look of pain etched itself across her fair brow, “It is not an enviable task, but one I know you will achieve, my darling girl.”
I did not yet know what awaited me outside here. What battles I would be thrust into. I knew I wasn’t ready, that I couldn’t do this alone. But I knew who I needed, who my soul required.
“Mom,” I turned to face her, knowing this would be the last time I would look upon my mother. My first light. “Do you know what Ilia means? And how it is connected to Thale?”
My mother smiled, “It means light of my world in the original tongue. Ilia was the name of the first Dawn. The essence of who now lives within you.” Taking a step towards me, she placed her hands on my cheeks, “I am so proud of the woman you became. And the woman you are yet to be.” She placed a kiss on my forehead, “Live well, dear Brida. Live well.”
“Please don’t go, there is so much I still wish to tell you.”
Her smile grew fainter over the passing seconds.
“I made friends, Mom, and they introduced me to the most wonderful thing. It’s called wolfberry jam. Have you ever heard of it?”
“It’s my favorite, dear.” Placing my hands atop hers, I closed my eyes.
“Live well, my beautiful girl. But most of all, live.”
I remained still until I felt my mother disappear.
The bubble continued to close, the hands of light and dark found purchase on my waist, and each of the beautiful women that stood before me nodded before they too disappeared.
As quickly as I had been dragged below, I was pulled to the surface, and as I crested the waters, I gazed upward, to a night sky full of stars.
Somehow I knew.
They were waiting for me.