“Insolent daughter!” Mother shouted, teeth bared. She ripped her hands back from the bars, the chain of her manacles clinking together.
Marina flinched.
Devastation, outrage, disapproval—all of it flashed across Mother’s face. A sinking reality that she could not escape. “After everything I have done for you,thisis how you repay me? Abandoning me?”
Bile slithered up Marina’s throat. “I made a promise to Father that I must uphold.” She pressed her tongue against the backs of her teeth to restrain her emotions.
A long, uncomfortable silence fell between them.
Mother searched her face, dumbfoundedly glaring. Behind it, a look of recognition rearranged her expression, and a dry laugh scuffed out of her. “Oh, Marina…”
Marina’s pulse sprinted in the base of her throat, her insides coiling. “I will see it through. It’s the least I can do to atone for what I’ve done.” She curled her fingers into fists at her sides and constricted her eyes on Mother, bracing herself.
“I thought I smothered that softness in you long ago.” Mother wore a sickening smile, slowly shaking her head.
Fury pricked at Marina’s skin. She inclined her head, constricting her gaze around Mother. “Because it weakened me, or because it reminded you of him?”
Mother grabbed the bars again, snapping forward. “You are choosing to honor a father who never loved you over a mother who gave you everything. He sired you, nothing more.”
Marina took a fearless step closer, holding Mother’s deathful stare through the bars. “Ironic, considering I felt nothing but love in his final moments. Tell me, Mother, why did he keep his distance from me all my life? Was it because he did not care for me, or did you demand that of him?”
“You are just as weak-hearted as he was! If I would have allowed him to nurture you as he did with Naia and Finnian, you would’ve turned out just as defective!”
“I am strong!” Marina shouted over her, venom burning her tongue. “Just as they are,withFather’s love!”
“Youare more powerful than them because ofme.” Mother slapped her hands over her chest, fuming. The loud clinking of her chains punctuated her movement. “Had I not sent those gods to take you, night after night, your nightrazers would’ve never been born!Youare the monsterImade. The goddess that all fear! You aremylegacy, Marina.”
Marina’s face fell with horror.
Not once have I ever asked you to be like me or your mother.
Nausea burned in her stomach, the sickness hot in her blood.
She lifted a trembling hand to cover her parted lips, unable to feel her own touch on them.
For years after Evander’s assault, other gods followed with the same motive: to invade her body in the late, sunless hours of the palace. In the seclusion of her bedchamber, Marina was never safe from their hungry pull. And each one who tried was cut down by the beasts of her shadow. Her protectors were born from fear and rage and from the wisdom of Acacius’s words.
Create a monster who can.
Time and time again, Mother held to her words and did not punish another god for their attempt to take from Marina. Nor did she offer comfort, for it was just the way of their world.
And then one day, years later, the assaults stopped.
Marina assumed it was from her growing reputation for beheading the gods, but…
“Do not look at me like that,” Mother sneered, pointing her long finger in Marina’s face. “Youwould not be the goddess you are today without me. You are powerful because ofme, Marina. The least you can do is free me from my dreadful curse, so I can take back what is rightfully mine!”
Marina staggered back on her heels, her skin cold.
The synapses rushed from her brain in an attempt to cut off all connection before the anguish reached her heart. In its place, her chest went numb, just as it did during the days that followed Evander. No sadness, no anger. Only the stripping of what once was. A loss of safety she could never get back.
Marina recalled this: Three years old, running in a fit of screams and sobs from a sea snake slithering across the riverbank for her ankles until Mother appeared and plucked her up. A thick crescent of her divine power shot from her palm, and a cut ran down the middle of the snake’s slender body, like a knife carving it from its head to its tail.
Marina’s heart had beaten wildly in her chest, her tear-sodden face pressed against the gleaming chrysocolla pendant on Mother’s sternum. Her honey-lavender perfume and the weight of her hand on the back of Marina’s head was all the comfort she needed.
“It is okay.” Mother gently rocked back and forth in small lapses, her cheek resting on the side of Marina’s hair. “I have you.Always.”
Tears burned Marina’s eyes as she gaped at the mother before her now. “You only saw Naia as a way to end your curse. Never as a daughter. Was I the same? Just another pawn in your bidding?” All the heinous deeds Marina had committed over the years. The rules placed on her by Mother:never speak to Naia, stay away from Father. They envy strong goddesses. Power is pride, softness is weakness.
