Page 169 of Curse of Darkness
The heat drains from my face as I turn around and confront her. A cutthroat smile etches her lips, knowing she finally has my attention.
“I will kill her,” my mother whispers, pushing to her feet and raising herself to her full height, “as I should have done when I took her from your arms.”
“Stop,” I tell her, breathing power into my words.
Mother almost falls as her feet ground themselves and won’t move. Her horrified expression is easy to read: She didn’t think I had the strength.
“No more.” My fury vibrates in my voice as I stalk toward her and clasp her face between my hands. “You will hurt me no more. You willneverhurt my daughter again. I reject you. Asturia rejects you.”
The lands sing as I open myself up to them.
It’s easier this time.
I already bound my blood to the lands—all I have to do is accept their claim over me, accept the power offered.
My mother tries to wrestle for that control, but her link to the lands is gone. “What are you doing?Iskvien!”
“Stop.”
Her skirts flow smoothly into the ground, sinking deep to establish roots. Her hands grip my forearms, but her fingers are longer now. Stiffer.
Becoming branches.
“No more.” I shake my head, flooding her with my power. “No more suffering.”
“Iskvien!”
“I forgive you,” I gasp as power floods through me.
“You little fool!” She clutches at my arms, her branches raking down my skin. “I do not ask for your forgiveness!”
“I forgive you,” I whisper, holding on to that beacon of light. “Not for yourself. But for me. So I can finally lay you to rest.”
“You don’t have the heart,” she screams as her face elongates. “You won’t kill me. You won’t—”
“No. Iwon’t. I will forget you instead.”
“Iskvien!” Her mouth opens wide in a silent scream, becoming a whorl in the wood of her expression. Her eyes become knots and as her hair elongates—transforming into leafy branches—I can still see the horror in them.
I hold on, forcing her through her transmogrification. Shutting my ears to the sound of her screams, until it’s no longer screaming—merely the wind whipping through her branches.
The enormous oak stretches into the sky, growing several feet with every breath I take.
And it’s only once I’m done, gasping with breath, trying to recover, that I realize the truth.
She was right.
I don’t have what it takes to kill her.
Maybe I don’t have the heart, but maybe that’s not a weakness.
I slowly push away from the tree, all my energy momentarily gone. “Find peace, Mother. No one can hurt you anymore. Not even you.”
But there is no answer.
There is nothing but the rustle of wind through her leaves as she stretches her branches to the sky.
And the sudden jangle of metal as half the Asturian army goes to its knees before me in shock and awe.
