This is about my family.
My mother had taught me about love.
A love so ferocious it could tear the clouds from the sky and split the earth in two floods through me. The stone in my chest flares to life with the power of the gods.
I think of the cards, of the visions, the meeting with Endu.
My future has been set for a long time, and it does not involve dying.
“In the name of Endu, Grutabela,” I rasp through clenched teeth, feeling the cold metal of the spear pressing into my flesh, “and Ashra,” a searing pain pierces my chest as the spear makes contact, “I command you to stop.”
The spear drives deeper into me, and suddenly, a radiant light bursts forth from within my being. At the same time, terror courses through me like a raging river. My precious child flashes before my eyes.
I gaze down in horror as I see the weapon drive through my chest, shattering bones and rattling Mikals’s chains as it impales him, too. Blood burbles in my throat as I struggle to breathe. Rholker staggers away from me, his form wavering in my failing vision.
Before I can crumble to my knees, Mikal’s hanging body stops my path. I tug against his chains.
My sight blurs as an explosion of blinding light emanates from me. I feel and hear its sheer power causing sections of the manor to tremble and fall apart.
An overhead beam splits with a deafening crack.
“Fuck you, Rholker,” I spit.
The beam falls and impales Rholker mercilessly through thechest. His rib cage cracks and folds under the impact, and he instantly collapses with a muffled thud.
“Estela…” he chokes.
His red eyes widen in shock, staring at me as his life force fades away.
As I release a trembling breath, I fixate on the lifeless giant form before me, pain now starting to be replaced with numbness. In that moment of devastation, I can only think about how Teo should have been by my side. We were meant to face this together.
Grief consumes me like a relentless storm raging within my very being. Each tear that falls carries the weight of my shattered dreams, each sob echoing the crack of my bones. The oblivion that envelops me is suffocating.
The baby within me…
I can’t feel it.
Oh gods.
I strain to sense any flicker of Mikal's heartbeat behind me. Silence.
My mouth opens as another sob tears apart my chest.
“Teo,” I whimper.
Death. Death. More death.
But I’m not fucking dead.
Yet.
The blood is leaking out around the spear and sliding down to my stomach. The heart in my rib cage struggles to beat, its squeezing lopsided and unsettlingly wet.
For a second, I swear, I can hear my mother’s dying screams the night Mikal was born. The stuttering breath and the panting words still ring in my ears.
This is for you. Take care of him.
But she came back to stay the king’s hand when he wantedto execute my brother and me. She appeared in a vision to give me a lepidolite stone and escape Rholker.
