Page 17 of Shadows and Flames
But Nogón still ground his jaw. He released a flame between his fingers and watched it flicker. “It only takes one bad seed to spoil the lot.”
“Well, I take offense to that,” Noruh huffed. “Besides, one cantankerous Shadow doesn’t upend a millennia of tradition. You two go get used to the beauty of parenthood while I write a few letters.”
We both grumbled, but there was no use in going back and forth with her. Sure, I’d fallen into the role of a mentor of sorts, but that could easily fit into my lifetime plans, too.
Part Two
Life
Chapter Eight
MELINE
The water before me roared. Glowed.
The sand beneath me and between my toes was warm, so very warm, and the stars overhead were dazzling. Far brighter than I remembered.
Maman once told me a story, of the Mother and how She was woven into all life of our realm. It was a silly tale in a book for children. One with other stories of tree tricksters who wanted to steal your name and animals who could talk and help you find your way in the forest.
“The night, as black as the skin of The Mother, is when she sees us the most. When she can hear your wishes. And the stars in the sky are the freckles on her face.”
I’d sat, engrossed and enamored with the musical cadence of my mother’s voice. The one she would use to pray and teach. The gentle sound was often the first and last someone heard, and she carried that honor with a grace I had been in awe of as early as I could remember.
Now, as I gazed at the luminescent water, I wanted… I wanted to be there. With her and all those I’d lost. The weight of being here was too much. Too heavy. But how did I take that step? Could I, truly?
Tana would blame herself.
I used the back of my wrist to swat my tears away. The warm breeze tangled in my hair, shuffling it against my naked spine. Maybe I could just stand. Advance a few steps, and then a few more until the choice was taken from me. Where the waves and the Mother could decide my fate. She and Her daughter were heroes, the beings we thanked for giving us life.
But, as I reflected on those nursery books, on the bedtime tales, the innocence of my childhood belief was soured by howcruelI now knew them to be.
Sand fell off of me as I stood. It trailed off the backs of my thighs while a silent sob crashed in my chest, and my shoulders relaxed. It could be over. I could be with him. The mere thought elicited the first real smile I’d worn in years, wobbly with tears and so amazing that I took another step. And another.
I was just on the edge, about to meet toe to wave, when something swept across the backs of my ankles. It was enough to startle me, and I jerked to the side, sending up water and thick, wet sand. The darkness was full, stretching as far as I could see in all directions, but with the scattering of bright, white stars, I quickly identified what scared me.
“Fuck!” I backed away from the water as the snakecharged.
I’d not been bitten by a snake of that size, nor was I certain what effect—if any—its venom would have on me. It was long, far taller than I even with its body wound and slithering toward me.
I retreated a few more steps, trying to weave left or right to get out of its line of vision, but the snake moved with me. Its underside was striped in alternating colors—perhaps black and yellow? Brown and white?
The Rhaestran sea continued to pulse before me, but underneath the peaceful sound of waves crashing, I heard the growl of the serpent.
They were symbols of Rhaea. Of birth, rebirth, healing, transformation, all those things the Rhaean priestesses lusted after as they kneeled and prayed to their precious fucking goddess, but this serpent held no virtue whatsoever.
I had come in contact with snakes of this size throughout my life, but I’d found, or at least had been told, that most were not aggressive, only striking when provoked.
This fucker nipped the skin of my ankle with its fang, sending me falling to the ground in surprise more than anything. I scrambled backward, heart pounding and bearing my own fangs at it. My fingers and toes gripped at sand, gaining little ground as the snake continued to stalk me, and backing me toward the looming rainforest. Away from the peacefulness of the sea. Of oblivion.
My fingers met something hard, something that did not slip through my grasp, and I closed my fist around it.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I yelled at the animal, for some reason unable to pick myself up and run. I lurched backward in a poor imitation of a crab, naked and pathetic under the eyes of the Mother.
The jagged stick I wielded jabbed the serpent in its side, connecting and even piercing its scaly hide. But it kept coming, sending up a roar far louder than it should have been, feigning left then right as I kicked my legs and tried to stab it again. Why couldn’t I kill it? Frustrated and terrified tears flowed down my cheeks, and as the serpent wrapped itself around my middle, bringing its beady eyes close to my face, I didn’t long for some absent deity in the sky. My lip trembled, and I wantedmymother.
Or course, no such luxury was available to me. I was not given that. My stick was forgotten and useless, the serpent tightened its hold around me, and before it could truly strike, fangs sinking into my heart?—
I woke up.
