Love eternal,
Mother x
For the first time in days, the horrible numbness that had gripped my mind abated. What secrets was she talking about? I shoved the letter into my gown pocket and headed up the narrow steps to Mother’s bedchamber.
Someone had made up the bed with fresh sheets patterned with sunflowers that stood out starkly against the black-painted finish of the bed frame, as if making a statement. Probably Darla from down the road. She’d stayed the last few nights, refusing to leave me to cope alone. Then she’d asked me if I’d like her to go through Mother’s things to donate them to charity, and I’d told her to go fuck herself.
Probably not my finest hour.
I grabbed the bed frame and shoved with all my might, revealing the dusty wooden floor beneath, along with a small, relatively dust-free box.
No lock.
Nothing to keep me out.
I tipped the contents onto the bed. A leather-bound book, a letter, a necklace with an oval red stone hanging off it, a silver locket, a brooch in the shape of a crescent moon, and a hairpin in the shape of a shell. I turned over the brooch to find an inscription—Bharti Onyx. The hairpin was also inscribed—Melody Onyx. The locket carried the name Irenia Onyx, but the inscription on the ruby amulet was the one that made my blood run cold—Dharma Onyx. The woman responsible for the shitstorm that had stained the Onyx bloodline.
We were sorcerers, at least we had been until Dharma committed an act so foul it forced the Arcanum Imperium to bind not just her power, but the power of our bloodline. She was responsible for the extinction of a whole incantor bloodline, and the reason why my sorcerer bloodline had been treated like pariahs for the last century.
These items were focuses belonging to the Onyx women who’d wielded our power before it had been stripped. While incantors used spells, potions, and rituals to manipulate and channel the Weave, as sorcerers, the Weave flowed directly through us. At least it had at one time, before we’d been cut off from it. Back then, these focuses had acted like conduits, a central focus for power, and a way to direct that raw magic without burning out.
We were a matriarchal family, our connection to the Weave passing from mother to daughter, regardless of whether the male sire was a sorcerer or not. But there had been no power since Dharma.
Onyx had become an Arcanus bloodline without access to the Weave, each generation of women plagued with a different curse. For my mother, it had been the curse of loss. The death of her firstborn followed by my father, then the loss of her second love, followed by the loss of quality of life, and finally, her death. Mother was right—access to our magic would not have prevented her death. But the stain on our name had kept her from getting the medical care she needed. The care she deserved. The taint on our bloodline forced her to suffer for months, because to ask for help would mean revealing her true nature, and thus, our true name. Our fake identities wouldn’t have survived the scrutiny.
She’d suffered to protect what we’d built here. To protect me. I was glad I was able to ease her pain, but mine would fester until the governing body that left us to rot paid the price for their cruelty. But that would never happen. They were powerful. Untouchable. Arrogantly justified in the sentence they’d passed on my bloodline. My mother’s pain was nothing to them, and I had no grounds to demand retribution, leaving me with a crushing weight of impotent rage.
I was the last Onyx. Cursed to feel neither physical pain nor pleasure. My bloodline would likely die with me, and maybe that was for the best.
I moved the focuses aside and picked up the letter. The paper was worn as if it had been opened and read many times.
My Love,
It has come to pass. The thing that we feared. They know about us, and because of that, I cannot return.
I want you to know that not a day will go by when I won’t think of you. Of the way you feel in my arms, or the scent of your perfume. Not a day will pass when I won’t wish to feel your soft lips against mine. I did not know it was possible to love until I met you, and the years that we shared have been the happiest of my life.
My heart breaks as I write this. I will never forget you, sweet Ariana, or my beloved stepdaughter, Anamaya. Please tell her that I will love her, always.
Goodbye, my love,
Daniel x
It took every ounce of will not to tear up the note. The bastard. The fucking gall of him. He could have stayed. But he’d chosen society over us, his secret family.
At least my real father had stuck around, leaving only because he had no choice. Death doesn’t take no for an answer.
Finally, I picked up the journal. It was battered, partially burned, its pages either torn out or crumbling. I flipped through it carefully, eyes crossing at the neat, tiny script. This wasn’t a job for drunk Ana.
I was about to close it when four words written in capital letters caught my eye.
IT’S ALL A LIE.
I forced my eyes to focus and read on.
I’m innocent, but they did something. They changed the truth. I know it. No one believes me, but I feel it in my bones. I’m not crazy. I’m not. I can prove it if only?—
Dammit, the rest was burned away. I flipped to the front cover, searching for a clue as to who this belonged to. And there, in neat script, was her name. Dharma Onyx.
