She swatted away my concern. “Oh, he’s around here somewhere, doing our chores. I think he collected firewood today. He won’t let me help, so he has to do double.”
At least that sounded right.
“Did you travel far? Did your friend take you? Did you stay with the Cursed King?”
Her questions straddled the line between standard and unusual. The dreamy quality of her voice was barely present, which I took as a good sign. Alysa had said she regularly received the tonic, and being outside of the impact radius of the king’s magic had to be good for her.
“We went to Linia. I went with Charon and Hart.”
She nodded slowly as if the action held great significance. “It’s a good sign that you still call him Hart.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I let it go. There were more pressing questions. I pulled the folded papers from my bag and offered them to her. “Do you remember these? Did you help Alaric with this plan?”
Mother’s fingers grazed the papers as she took them into her hands. She always seemed so frail to me. I knew it was aside-effect of the Blessed taking too much from her, but I hated it because it stole the image I’d had of my mother from childhood. The loud and boisterous woman who brightened any room. She’d aged so much in those few moments when the Blessed overtook.
There would be no escaping Hart feeling the heat of my anger in this moment. It was never far from my mind when I thought of what happened to Mother.
While she flipped through the pages, I pulled the pendant from beneath my shirt, unwrapping the cloth that dampened the glow.
“You’ve made progress,” Mother said.
It appeared she did remember something about the trials. I waited for more.
She had stopped flipping through the papers and stared at the necklace. “Anger is such an easy emotion to reach for. I’m not surprised it’s your first.”
“I’m not sure it was,” I said, looking down at the adamas gems.
Mother laughed a little at that. “No, your first instinct would have been to shut down, to wield no emotion. We should thank the Cursed King for dragging something from you.”
I sucked in a breath. Her words felt uncanny. They left me wondering whether she made those comments based on an inherent understanding of her daughter, or a possible future she’d seen. I guessed it shouldn’t surprise me that she’d notice things about my behavior. She was my mother, after all, but I let my perception of her be colored by the life that was stolen from her. I spent so much time caring for her that I sometimes forgot she was still very much her own woman.
“I don’t want to feel around him,” I whispered as my fingers toyedwith the adamas.
Mother reached for me. She squeezed my hand tightly, or at least tightly for her. Her strength would never be what it was. “Tell me about it, baby.”
Maybe I spoke because I’d already told Alysa, and every time I broached the subject it got a little easier. Maybe I spoke because I was mad at her actions in this, too. “He lied to me, just like the rest of you.”
“You’re right. We all did.” She squeezed again.
“Why?” I whispered.
She looked thoughtful. “If you’d only ever considered him your opponent, none of this could have been possible.”
Anger, hot and ready, rushed through me. How dare they? She so willingly admitted that they’d withheld information to direct the course of my future. “How can you sit here and say that with a straight face? You manipulated me.”
Mother didn’t flinch from my words. If anything, she swayed with the ebbs and flows of my anger. “We did. Yet here you are, talking to me, telling me you’re mad at me for what I did. Something it seems you struggle to do with him.”
“It’s not the same.”
She smiled sadly. “No, it’s not. And the faster you admit why, the easier the rest of these trials will be.”
I wasn’t ready to engage with that thought. It was another one I tucked away. Maybe that box could no longer contain my anger, but I’d use it for other feelings I’d rather not examine too closely.
Mother’s gaze was alert through my internal struggle. Her frown told me all I needed to know about her opinion on the matter. “You won’t be able to keep doing that. You’re too smart not to realize.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She bit her lip. “Have you considered where you’ll go for each of the remaining emotions?”
