She had torn the first binding off when she was grabbed from behind and pulled away. She rose up quickly and backed away as Astegur moved toward her, cracking the stone under his hooves, his face and eyes red.
She reached back into her dress just as he closed the distance between them again. “Please.”
He grabbed her arms. “Oh no, Calavia.” Astegur glared down at her. “I’m growing immune to your magic, hag.”
“Only because I did not mean for it to last long.” She flinched when he tugged her arms forward.
“What did you think you would do? Blind me and release your mother? Then what? Live here the last of your days waiting for death together?”
“She is my family.”
“She won’t let us cross the barrier! She’s killing us. Let her die and be done with it!” Astegur released her arms and spun around, approaching her howling mother flailing on the floor.
Her heart fell to her stomach as she grasped him. “No.”
He unsheathed his axe and raised it over his head. “She wants to die.”
“Astegur, stop!” More smoke than she had ever seen released from his nostrils, sparking the air. His battleaxe came down, and she dove between her mother and his blade, wrenching her eyes shut.
The strike never hit. She fell upon her mother, who had stopped moving, stopped shrieking, shielding her from him.
“Move,” he ordered.
“If you kill her, I will never forgive you,” she despaired, her voice quivering. “I will never look upon you again without seeing a monster.”
“Move. Now.”
She clutched her mother. “Never.”
She waited for him to yank her away again, to force her hand. She chanted softly under her breath, willing protection and comfort, knowing it would not last long. Her mother settled, stilled, and relaxed under her body as tears slipped down Calavia’s cheeks.
A terrible, thundering, heart-shattering vibration filled the air.
“Calavia…”
She shook.
“Can’t you see she wants to die? You said so yourself, when I came upon you with her the first time, that she was trying to kill herself.”
“Please, don’t do this.”
“Look at her arms!” He swept his hand out beside her, where her mother’s arm hung. “Her wrists, Calavia. The wounds she inflicted on herself look deeper, worse. She hasn’t stopped trying. She does not want to leave this place because some small part of her, some instinct we can’t understand knows that if she does, if we bring her to the mountains, the likelihood of her death happening is low. Here, all she has to do is wait.”
Calavia shook harder, squeezing her eyes tighter, feeling the cold, damp flesh of her mother’s body pressed against her own. “I can’t.”
“She will disperse the barriers around this place eventually. We need to fight our way out of here before she does. We cannot trust them, or her. We must leave without her if you will not kill her.”
“No.”
Astegur growled at her back. “I tried.”
Tears fell in waves down her face and she tightened her arms around her mother even more. How could she leave her when everything she had was because of her? If she had more time, she could find a cure for her mother’s thralldom, could give her mother’s empty humanity a reason to continue. She just needed more time. She needed Prayer.
Astegur placed his hand on the center of her back, heating her skin. More tears fell from her eyes.
“Calavia, look at her.”
She drew back slowly, wiping her face on the sleeve of her dress. When her eyes cleared, she looked at her mother who was looking up past her at Astegur. His hand left her back, and Calavia turned to look at him too.
