Page 166 of Eldritch
“Hmmm.” She turned away, a sad smile crinkling the corner of her eye. “I’m weary. I’ve roamed for so long, and I yearn for rest. Seeing you will allow me to slumber in peace.”
I gave a tearful nod. “I curse the gods. I curse them for taking you away from me.”
Even in death, her eyes held a warmth when she turned back to me. “Do not fault the gods for the fate they’ve chosen for you. And do not mourn what was never meant to be.”
“But what if it was? What if something, orsomeone,changed it?”
She smiled and shook her head. “If there’s one thing death has shown me, it’s how little we know of life. Fate is not a flitting rope, but a knot that grows tighter with time. Bound by twists and loops not easily unraveled. The change you speak of was fated. The gods diverted your path, yes, but it returned you to the place you were always meant to be. Grieving this spectral image in your mind does nothing. Do not let it steal the beauty of what is and what you’ve become.”
“This? I should’ve known you, Mother. You should’ve been a part of my life.”
“I am a part of your life, child. Your heart is my own, forged by Death’s cold hands and winter’s breath.”
“A heart that grows colder and more hardened as I age.” I turned my fidgeting hands over for the blackened fingertips and that ungodly glove that reminded me of my aberration. I had so easily taken life with these hands that no longer looked like my own. “I am neither good, nor pious, Mother. I long for your soft words to temper me.”
“My precious daughter. You were not meant to become a delicate flower, but the frost that wilts the vine. It is your strength in a world that seeks warmth and frailty in a woman. Steel your bones, and do not bend, or break to their will. Accept what you are and what you will become.”
“What am I to become?”
“Vindicated.”
I reached out to touch her face, and a branching cold crawled up the length of my arms to my chest. My lungs seized, the air in them waning, and I slipped into the blackness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
MAEVYTH
Ahard bang cracked through the void and hurled me awake with a gasp. Darkness surrounded me, and I sat up from the wooden pew, an ache in my jaw from the hard, wooden surface and moisture clinging to my cheek where I’d drooled. I wiped my sleeve across it, recalled dozing off earlier in the evening.
Another heavy thud, that one overhead, sent a startling jolt through my body, and with an upward glance toward the temple’s high, arched ceiling, I darted through the darkness, up the staircase to the corridor, where I slowed my steps on spotting Father and Aleysia outside Zevander’s door.
“Oh, there she is,” Aleysia said, the relief in her voice accompanied by a sharp exhale. “Thank goodness. I thought he’d thrown you across the room in there.”
I shook my head, closing the distance between us. “I’m fine. It’s all right. Go back to sleep.”
“What is he doing in there?” Father whispered.
“He…sometimes has fits in his sleep.”
“A sleepwalker?”
“Yes,” I lied, knowing it was far more complicated than mere sleepwalking.
Father sighed. “I’ve suffered myself a time or two.” He must’ve bathed at some point during the evening, leaving his skin far less grimy than earlier, and he’d found a clean tunic and trousers.
Feigning a smile, I placed my hand on his arm. “I hope we’ll have the opportunity to catch up, Father. But please, both of you, go back to bed. I’ll check on him.”
As they retreated, the tight hold of my worries unraveled.
Zevander’s shouts bled through the door, and with a held breath, I carefully pushed it open.
Furniture lay tipped on its side, and bits of broken glass crunched beneath my boots when I stepped inside the room.
“You will not tell her anything, or by gods, I will rip out your tongue with my bare hands!” Zevander threw open the door of the closet across the room, a dagger clutched in his hand. “Show yourself.”
“Zevander?” I called out softly so as not to startle him, but he didn’t respond. Didn’t turn to acknowledge me, as he tore across the room for the bed.
He raised the thick, wooden furniture as if it were weightless, revealing nothing beneath, and let it fall with a weighty thud that echoed through the room. Outside the window, a massive eye peered in—Raivox watching him. Or stalking him, as it seemed, the way his eye narrowed, following Zevander’s every move.
