Marina swallowed her breath, attempting to dry up her sobs as she held the jar up to Mother. “Please. Tell me what to do.”
Mother stared at her for a long moment before crouching eye-level with her. “My darling,” she said tenderly, with overwhelming pity.
Marina cried harder. Tears gushed down the crevices of her lips, infusing her mouth with salt.
Mother took the jar without looking at the deceased dragonfly inside of it. “Do not cry, not here.”
Marina wiped the heels of her hands over her wet cheeks, snot seeping from her nose.
Mother will fix it.
She handed the jar to the servant at her side and then cupped Marina’s cheek. “Look at me, Daughter.”
Marina forced her eyes open, despite the stinging in the back of her nose. “It was not afraid of my darkness, Mother,” she sniveled.
“Such sensitivity comes from your father. It has no place at my side.” The disdain clotting Mother’s tone jarred Marina.
Her hand fell to her side as she gaped at Mother.
The High Goddess’s lip curled, and the hard line across her brow framed a look of disgust in her gaze. “Do you understand me, Marina?”
To stand by her was to smother her softness.
And Marina did not wish to walk life alone, unloved.
“I understand, Mother.”
The memory withered and faded into the abyssal corridor leading to Mother’s cell.
Folding up any visible traces of frailty, she straightened her shoulders and slipped into the mask of her blank disposition.
She inhaled a deep breath and proceeded into the chilled, underground prison. The clink of her heels against the stone was loud, reverberating down the path to the end of the hall.
Sconces fluttered as she passed by, drawing her shadow along the amethyst walls.
At the end of the room was an enclosure. Golden rods jutted up from the ground and out of the ceiling like monstrous teeth to contain its prisoner.
Inside, her mother crawled up from the floor. Her small frame shivered under a burlap gown. Dirt was smudged on her kneecaps and the palms of her hands. Her silver strands lay frizzy and matted at her shoulders, as if it had been weeks since she’d run a brush through them. The Chains of Confinement bound each of her wrists.
As she moved closer to the gilded bars, the glow of the firelight illuminated her face, streaked in grime, dried spit, and blood.
Marina stood with a vacant expression, her hands joined in front of her. “Hello, Mother.”
“That is all you have to say?” Mother’s shock transfigured to ugly rage as she sprang forward and snatched a hold on the bars, her knuckles turning white. “When it’s been months!”
Mother’s scorn was like a toothed blade lancing straight through her chest. To think there could have been even a morsel of hope that her mother would behappyto see her after their time apart.
How long had it been since Mother expressed such sentiment to her? Before Naia’s departure from Kaimana?
No.
Longer.
The day Marina returned to Kaimana after obtaining the title of High Goddess. Mother smiled and hugged her then, boasting and singing her praises.
Since, though, Marina could not remember the last time Mother treated her like a daughter.
Their last true conversation had been moments prior to Freya and the Council appearing in her great hall. Erratic andtrembling with rage, Mother demanded Marina set out and drag Naia back to Kaimana for what had felt like the hundredth time.
