Page 29 of A Siren of Beasts

I tried not to shudder at that thought, knowing with his skill he could shred what was left of my mind worse than the madness ever could. When he was done with me I would be a drooling husk of bark. I wasn’t even sure if Moreth would survive his culling.

“What do I need to do?” she asked, trusting her guardian implicitly.

“I am not nearly as proficient as Hisceas so I will need to have physical contact, such as allowing me to wrap a branch around your wrist,” I answered.

Holding out a hand to me without a second thought caused me to be the one to hesitate. I sent out a few twining offshoots from my hand that curled around her wrist in an intricate pattern that would cast the spell that allowed for the connection.

“Now take a deep breath and close your eyes. Envision a door and I’m knocking on the other side. I just need you to open that door and allow me to share my thoughts with you,” I instructed as I closed my eyes, traveling down the connection I made to see if she’d let me in.

Not only did she let me in, she all but threw open the door, reached for me, and dragged me into her mind. All I needed was to have that door open for this to work but now that I was surrounded by her essence and magic, I gasped. The sheer power that resonated in her was astounding. I’d thought what I could sense from her normally was mind blowing, but this made me wonder how she’d managed to survive amongst humans.

A shimmering version of her stood before me but she wasn’t dressed like she was currently. Instead, I had the urge to cover my eyes with how much of her was revealed. The shimmering black fabric was so thin it was like she wasn’t really wearing anything at all. Peeking through my fingers, checking to see if it was still the same, I noticed that her poise was that of a queen even dressed as a whore. What amazed me still, was this apparition of Kezia was reaching out to me.

“Take my hand,” she instructed, with no room for refusal.

Some instinct told me that none of this was supposed to be happening and it was her magic that was talking to me, not Kezia herself.

“Milin, take my hand.” This time she gave me a sad understanding smile.

I lifted my gnarled wooden hand that was much too rough to hold something so precious, but I did as she ordered. Images flew through my mind in such rapid succession that it took me a few minutes to figure out what the hell was happening. This was her life before coming here to us, before she understood she didn’t belong among the humans. Tears welled in my eyes as I saw the way they treated her, the disregard for her thoughts, feelings, and wellbeing other than to ensure she was healthy. The emptiness I felt in her had my rage flaring and a growl sounded beside me.

Glancing to my left, I found Moreth standing there, a completely separate being. It was the first time I saw what that version of myself looked like. Now I understand why people called that side of me the twisted version. Everything about him was the total opposite of who I was.

“How could she let those filly human skin sacks treat her like that?” Moreth snarled. “She held back when she could have fought. How could she accept that for herself?”

Turning back to the images I realized we were watching things in reverse. She was getting younger and younger as the memories flew by, showing us both the answer to his question.

“If you don’t know any different, how do you know there’s something better out there?” I countered. “From the moment she was old enough to understand they told her what her fate would be, she never had a chance.”

The memories started to slow and focused on her life as a baby, wrapped in white silk, cradled in the arms of a woman wearing a black cloak. The moment I heard the woman’s voice I knew who it was—Queen Lixera.

“For the fate of our people I altered yours,” she murmured, stroking her daughter’s face. “This spell will cost me my life, but you will have yours to live. I pray to the gods that they don’t make you suffer for my selfish choice, my sweet child. Know that I love you with all of my being and that you will be the savior to our kind. Dream big, my little flower, never feel settled until your feet are back on those of our land where you belong. Although I will never get to know you while I’m still alive, Kezia, I will visit you in your dreams, reminding you to come home.”

The sob that broke from our queen had me reaching for her but I stopped knowing this was a memory. Queen Lixera walked up to the whore house, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and placed her daughter on the stoop before turning away. She paused, then looked right at Moreth and myself, as if she knew we were there.

“I saved you all those centuries ago for a purpose, but I couldn’t tell you all of it back then. Milin, you are not cursed, far from it. Moreth has always been inside you, but you needed to be ready for him and the power he brought with him. Mother Tree and I both knew how special you were so we decided to nurture you, knowing that you would be exactly what the madness could never rule over again. The perfect balance of good and evil just as the order of magic dictates. Don’t fear yourself or Moreth. Instead of warring against each other, find a way to bridge the gap and become a balanced mind.”

Her gaze shifted to Moreth who tensed under the weight of it. “You must learn that Milin is not the enemy, he doesn’t hold you back from the power you so crave and can’t obtain. What you can’t see is you already have it, but without both halves, there will be no whole. You both were tied to the land, grounding you as protection until you arrived, Moreth. Now, it’s time for that anchor point to shift to where it’s always meant to be, but it will take both of you working together to make that happen.”

My mind was reeling, I didn’t even know how to process the shock of what our queen was telling us. Moreth seemed to recover faster and managed to ask the one question I needed the answer to.

“Where is that? If we were always meant to be anchored to this specific place, where is it?” Moreth taunted, crossing his arms waiting for his answer.

Queen Lixera shifted and pointed behind her. “With my daughter.”

With that earth shattering proclamation I was ripped out of the memory and tossed out of Kezia’s mind, both literally and metaphysically. The impact of hitting the stone wall of the castle had me groaning as I slid down to become a heap on the floor. As my eyes started to refocus, I found the death raven perched on my chest with a wicked blade in his hand.

“What did you do to Shiny!” he roared, his red eyes wild with rage as death magic crackled around me.

Looked like I might not live long enough to find out what happened while I was trapped in the memory. Just when I thought I was going to find myself back in the arms of Mother Tree, Moreth surged forward to deal with things. Thank the gods, I was terrible at fighting. I was a healer, not a killer but Moreth had no qualms on that issue. I felt a ripple of his dark magic blast out of us as I gave over control to him completely.

fourteen

It was the strangest thing to sit there and watch a memory in your own mind that you’d never known was there. Queen Lixera was, in fact, my mother, she’d dropped me off at the whore house and walked away. Only, she’d stopped and looked at me as if she knew I was standing here all these years later watching this moment.

“My child, I know this will be hard for you to watch and harder still for you to understand. No answer I give you will be enough to justify why I chose to give you up, but I’d like to try.” Her face looked so sad and her silver eyes, that I’d seen so many times in the mirror, showed me how painful this was for her. “The strongest power I have is to see into the future so that I might be able to help my people with the dangers that were to come. Something hid the humans from my sight and I foolishly welcomed them to our land, believing this was the will of the gods. How wrong I was. Hisceas should have torn apart all their ships like he begged me to do, yet I held him back.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it away and squared her shoulders. “As a ruler I took ownership of the fact that I made a mistake and knew I needed to fix this. The only way I could was to do the one thing I promised myself I would never do, change the future I saw. The spell I cast to cut through the timeline, to place you here where you would be safe, cost me everything, but doing that would right all the wrongs I’d done. It’s the fate of my child to fix the mistakes of her mother.”