Page 52 of A Light So Blinding
She had no idea what he was doing. Why was he on his knees as though praying to this woman? But then a breeze ruffled the leaves above the woman’s head, and some moonlight cast upon her features.
Pretty, broad features, with a strong nose and a wide mouth. A familiar pair of tusks jutted up from her bottom jaw, and twin horns curled over her head. They weren’t as large as Bjorn’s, and they certainly didn’t appear as though they would aid her much in a fight. But it was hard to deny the resemblance.
This was almost certainly his mother. And he now was prostrating himself before her. As though being on his knees just wasn’t enough. He laid down with his face on the ground, his arms outstretched toward his mother’s feet.
She stood there before him, tall and strong and staring down at her massive son, who was now trying to make himself small before her.
“Mother,” he said. “I have been gone too long.”
“By choice?”
“Never.” The word ripped free from him. “I was taken by Dag the Destroyer, and then...”
Astrid could hear how hard it was for him to even say the words. She almost stepped in to tell his mother that he’d been in the labyrinth, that King James had done horrible things to him foryearsand that his mother should be gentle with him. He was just learning how not to be in that place.
She didn’t need to step in, though. His mother bent down and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know where you have been, my son. And I have seen what you have done. I needed to hear for myself that you were not there by choice. That is all. I never doubted you, even for a second.”
Bjorn got up on all fours, still not looking at the woman who’d birthed him. “I return to you with no decorations, no piercings, no honor. I am not worthy of your love, Mother.”
The sound that came out of her was both a howl of rage and a cry of torment. His mother grabbed both of his shoulders, forcing Bjorn to sit back on his heels and look at her. Then she cupped the back of his head, pressing their foreheads together.“You have always been worthy of love. When you were here, when he took you from me, and even in that dark place. I never stopped loving you. Not for a single second. There is nothing you could do that would make me love you less. Nothing, do you hear me?”
Astrid’s heart shattered. The moonlight turned the tears running down Bjorn’s cheeks into glimmering diamonds, and she wiped her own tears away with the backs of her hands.
What a beautiful moment to witness, and suddenly she felt like she was trespassing. She should fade into the bushes, maybe head back to the stream. Bjorn would know how to find her. He always did. She could give them a few minutes alone and then join them. This wasn’t about her. It was about them.
She was just about to leave when his mother turned to her. “You. You are the priestess who saved him.”
Why did those words feel like an accusation?
Astrid wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to do in this situation. If she had been in court, then she would have curtsied and simpered. She’d met quite a few important mothers in her day, but she wasn’t in court right now. She was in troll lands, surrounded by their culture, and she had no idea what was polite here.
So she nodded. “I am.”
“Why?”
“Because I need his help to get my sister back.”
Bjorn’s mother seemed not to believe her. She reached for the bones at her skirt, tearing off a few and then whispering to them in her hands. Throwing them onto the ground, she tossed them right at Astrid’s feet. “Read them.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Look at them. Read them. Will the words to appear in your mind.”
She did what the woman bid her, but she didn’t have any expectations. She’d seen bones before, and they had never spoken to her before. They still didn’t, but she tried at the very least.
“They say nothing to me,” she finally said.
“And the wind? Does it whisper in your ears?”
“No.”
“Have you seen sights in smoke? Glimmers of a time that has yet to come?”
“No.” What were these questions, anyway? Why was she asking her all this?
Bjorn’s mother tsked. “You brought me a difficult one, my son. There are more tests I must try with her, but these are the ones I can ask for now.”
Her dark green troll shrugged. “I do not know what she is. They call her priestess, Mother.”
