“Just the same as I remembered yesterday. Why would you ask me that again?”
My heart feels as if it falls even deeper into a dark hole inside my chest. It didn’t work. “I ... I thought this would work, it was my only choice. I had to perform theneni.”
Horns blare throughout the camp. Ereon turns and looks over his shoulder. “Fuck, we have visitors,” he says, before turning back to face us. “We are having a conversation — soon — about all of this. For now, keep Anara somewhere she can’t be seen. It’ll be interesting as I find a way to explain why she doesn’t have her shackles anymore. But for now, we have to greet whoever is arriving.”
He leans down, kissing Carnaxa on the cheek. “Go do whatever you need to do to get ready. I don’t know who the scouts have seen, so it would be best not to be in your fighting leathers. I’ll come get you soon, if I can’t — I’ll send Ryul.”
“Okay. Be careful, please,” she says without argument.
Ereon walks toward where the other soldiers are gathering to greet the incoming guest. I look at Carnaxa, hoping something will change — anything — and yet she just turns on her heels and retreats to her tent.
Anara reaches up her hand, resting it softly on my shoulder. “Come … let’s get you settled.”
thirty-nine
Carnaxa
The pain that woke me was theneni. I should have known, I’ve heard the rumors but I didn’t realize … I didn't believe that he was my twin drop …
I run my hand across my chest, and the shell there. He was telling the truth. They all were.
You should have listened, you stupid girl.
Thylas was a twin drop of mine, but why? Why would the Goddess bless me with two and why would he take that away? I shake my head, walking around the foot of thebed. I know why he would take it away, because of how cold I’ve been towards him. I won’t apologize for it. I could have been nicer, sure, but there are things and feelings that I can’t place anymore.
My fingers run across the leather pants that I adorn and I sigh, knowing I’ll have to put on one of the heavy dresses. As I walk to the trunks next to my bed, I notice the book that was given to me in Midaeliea. The dagger still atop it.
I pick up the dagger, watching the blade glimmer in the light of the candles burning around the tent. My fingers tingle at the contact. At the top of the dagger, the blue stone is held secure by a thin casing of silver, but it looks like a latch. I twist the tip of the handle and the silver releases, the stone falling into my palm.
“Combine the mountain and the valley.”
Before the pain, I remembered thinking how it looked as though the stone balanced against the leather of the book. I pick up my mother’s journal and thumb the divot in the center. Two gifts given at different times by different people and yet … I roll the stone through my fingers before placing it in the depression. The sensation I only felt in my fingers erupts across every inch of my skin.
Pain and pressure take over my head and I grasp my hair, letting the strands of blue cascade down between my fingers. Not again. I can’t do this again. I feel tears slip from my face as darkness meets me once more.
In this endless sea of black and nothingness, I’m falling. I can’t perceive my body but I know somehow I am still here, in this place, whereveritis. No matter how hard I flex my hands, they nevermanage to grasp onto anything. I don’t want this to be the end, not now.
“It’s time, Daughter.” The voice comes booming through the darkness. I swivel — or assume I do — towards the direction of the voice. A body appearing from the darkness as a flash of white breaches my field of vision.
The woman once again appears from nothing. Her dark blue hair tipped with silver comes into view. Draping gold fabric wraps around her body, but it’s the crown atop her head that catches my attention. It’s a replica of the one I wear — my mother’s. The silver seems to glint, as do the inlaid sapphires. Her face is still as unfamiliar as the first time I saw her.
“I’m really sick of hearing that. It plagued me for days and now it still haunts me in my dreams, even when I’m awake. Please, if you will not tell me what is going on, let me go back. I don’t want to stay here.”
She smiles as if I’m telling her something she wants to hear before she reaches out and grazes her fingertips across my check. “I always knew my spirit was in there somewhere. I’m sorry Carnaxa ... for everything. I tried to tell you before, but there are things that are beyond my control. Bargains have come to fruition, and endings are here.”
I flinch as her fingers touch me, unsure of who the woman is. I look at her pale skin and the single freckle on the side of her neck. “Why am I here? Who are you? Why do you wear my mother’s crown?”
She looks down at her appearance before looking back at me. “I forgot that you would have never known this form, my original form.” She rolls her fingers as water and snowflakes whirl around her gold dress and across her skin. As the waves and ice consume her, I watch as she changes. Her silver tips change to blue, first so pale her tresses look like ice and then more the same shade as mine. Her eyes change to mimic those of my mother’s hue and as the power she wields between her fingers dissipates, my mother stands before me. “You know me like this though, my girl.”
I stumble back, falling to the floor and yet it’s still just black — I don’t fall through. “Mother? But how … you can’t be. ”
She bends down. “I’ve been called many names across time, but my favorite was alwaysAta. You gave me that name, the only one I’ve ever birthed, and I assure you, my sweet girl, I am your mother.” She hums a song, a song that my mother sang to me over and over when I was a young child. The one I know more than any other.
My mother stands before me in this starless darkness, a light of beauty before me. I don’t want to believe, and maybe I shouldn’t ... but something inside of me knows it’s the truth. “How? How is any of this possible?”
She reaches out to touch my hand and pulls me up from where I’m still crouched. “We don’t have enough time, but once my namewas Drahenå, but ...” She bites her lip and squeezes my hand. “That doesn’t matter.”
Her voice picks up in pace, as if she’s trying to say so much at once. “What matters right now is that you have to get back to your father. He needs you. They all need you. I am sorry for what has happened, but I couldn’t speak when magic first found itself awake. I knew when I banished the traitor — he was in league with Khaysus — but even I misunderstood their full hatred of me. Khaysus slithered his way into the place I tried to keep safe, and he stole the memories there to try to pull you away from me and your path.”
