Her eyes shimmered, ocean light blurring as she crossed back to me, the book abandoned and lowered herself to the cushion at my side. “Yes.”
My own tome closed with a thud, falling heavy against the table as I turned fully toward her. “What are they like?”
Elva and Inessa angled away, but their ears tilted toward us.
“Her name is Audra,” she began. “And she is…stillness in the eye of a tempest. Everything I was, I wanted to be better for her. She made me want to be better. She is kind and understanding and she always sees the best in everyone she meets.”
Audra sounded like Elva.
Nezra drew a shaky breath. “I was reckless. It’s how I got caught in that fisherman’s net, trapped on Luamis. But when she found me, when she rescued me, she saved me in so many more ways.”
Her eyes stirred, restless. I wondered if the storm Audra rescued her from was from herself.
“That feeling has never left me; it woke me up. I made her a promise to save her from her mother, and nothing will change that. One day, I will give us a new life far, far from here.”
“That’s honestly really beautiful.” My voice caught on the weight of it, and I caught Elva swiping at tears, still pretending not to watch us. “And kind of heartbreaking. Is Audra from Tempest Tide like you?”
Nezra shook her head, the smallest glimmer breaking through her sorrow. “No.”
“Who is her mother?” I asked. I was terribly curious who would need saving from their own blood like that.
“The witch queen, Isolde.” The name stripped Nezra’s voice of its easy humor.
A chill threaded down my spine. I had never had the pleasure of meeting the infamous witch, but the stories were enough. After their magic was ripped from them, they vanished, resurfacing forged new from Hel’s core, rumor said.
And Nezra was in love with the spawn of that?
“Aren’t you, I don’t know, worried Audra will turn out exactly like Isolde?”
“Darkness is rooted in all of us; it’s programmed into our nature,” she said, as though it were law. “But that black well always has a balance. And what we choose to act on? That’s what makes the difference.”
My darkness wasn’t programmed. It wasn’t natural. It was forced, spun around me without reason, without balance.
I shook my head, as if not understanding.
“No one is born evil, Verena. Sometimes the darkness chooses us and sometimes it forces our hand. But it’s not a birthright, it’s a stain. One that can be washed away or covered by something stronger.” Her tone was maddeningly convincing. “There’s always a part of us that remembers the light, the heart that knew kindness first.”
Like it was so simple. Like I hadn’t been fighting the Viper’s hunger every breath for the last eight years.
I exhaled. “So, what happened between you two then? Isolde found out, forbade you from ever going near Audra again?”
Nezra’s laugh came bitter. “Isolde didn’t care, not at first. She was too obsessed with reaching for power to be bothered with her daughter.” Her raven shifted as her smile thinned. “It was Jadis, Isolde’s mother, who warned us it wouldn’t last.”
“She was against it?” I asked.
Hair brushed across her jaw as she shook her head. “No, but she knew her daughter. I was a Liraern, born of salt and storm, not court and titles. Isolde had plans, and they all included Audra. Plans with alliances and power and a proper match. Love wasn’t part of that design, neither was happiness. Isolde never had it herself, so she would make damn sure her daughter didn’t either.”
“Why was she so miserable?”
“According to Jadis, Isolde wasn’t always like this,” Nezra stated. “If anything, she was like Audra when she was young. Curious. Radiant. And so loved.” She paused. “But the world twists things. Corrupts them. And still, somehow, she found love despite it. Audra’s father was devoted to Isolde, loved her fiercely through all of it. But once Audra was born, Isolde handed her straight to Jadis and barely touched her after.”
Elva shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Nezra looked at her for a moment before she continued.
“Jadis told me she sometimes caught Isolde looking at Audra, and for a moment she’d see her face soften. Like she was trying to remember how to love. Audra’s father thought Isolde could be reminded, could escape the darkness that festered. But in the end Isolde burned his blood and killed him. No one stood against her, not even Jadis. Not without their magic, at least.”
“Gods.” My breath snagged, my own position suddenly way too compressed. “Did Audra know any of this?”
“Not then.” Nezra stood, pacing back and forth before stopping in front of the window. “But time peels deception away. Jadis couldn’t shield her forever. She told her before Audra guessed it on her own.”
