Page 2 of Ruling in Flames (Reborn 5)
I hadn’t seen many photos of my mother. In fact, I had only seen one singular picture from a trip she and my father had taken to the Earth realm. The rest of the photographs and paintings had been destroyed following her death…and I was starting to understand why. The photo I’d found had featured thisexactwoman—what it hadn’t featured was just how fucking similar we looked in person, so much so that I kind of understood why my father hated looking at us, especially me.Kind of.
A pair of icy blue eyes exactly like mine held my gaze as the breeze ruffled her dark curly hair that was pulled back away from her face, bringing to my attention how young she looked. Far too young to be our mother.
Because she was dead.
“I’m dead,” she confirmed softly, making my fists clench. “But you’re not, and I was sent here to tell you to not be afraid. I promise this will be over soon. Your mate and you share a bond that has intertwined her magic with yours—you will live, Anani.”
My mate. Maya.Where the fuck was Maya?
I immediately looked around, fear instantaneously permeating every part of my being at her possible loss. It was easier to focus on solving the problem of closing the distance between Maya and me than to deal with this—meeting the woman that our father had punished us for losing, time and time again.
“Close but unreachable,” my mom said quietly. “The fire she was hit with would’ve killed any other phoenix—Ry’s fire not only burns, but drains—but because of who your mate is, she will live. She has to be the one to figure out how to pull on that strength of hers though.”
“I need to see her,” I insisted, standing up as she did the same, watching me with interest and concern. I could barely meet her gaze, feeling a sudden misplaced wave of hurt—she had left us.Obviously she hadn’t meant to die, but she’d left us.
It was irrational to think that way, and even more so to put that on her, which was why my brain was still searching for anything to focus on other than how much I wished things could have been different. That the woman in front of me wasn’t a stranger but someone who had been with me my entire life—a parent who’d loved me and showed me that every day. Someone who would have protected us from our father.
Yeah, I wasn’t doing a good job at distracting myself.
“You will soon,” she promised and offered a watery smile. “You and your brother found your mate.” She said it as a statement, but her eyes were filled with soft curiosity.
I considered not answering, running a hand through my hair and looking around in frustration, hoping to somehow spot Maya. But when I once again found nothing but rolling hills in the distance, I exhaled, closing my eyes.
“Yeah. Yeah we have,” I whispered.
“I’ve tried to watch you when I could.” Her voice was filled with a note of sadness, and when I opened my eyes, there were tears welling against her lashes. “I even tried to reach out to your father, to tell him to stop—”
Her voice was choked on the end, and she crossed her arms over her small frame as if trying to hug herself. “But he was so clouded by grief and hatred, so much anger, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t reach him.”
“You shouldn’t have had to,” I said, feeling angry that she was blaming herself for this. But more than anything, I was furious at my father.
“I should’ve been there to protect you two. I should’ve found a way to come back—”
“From the dead?”
Her chin tilted up as tears trekked down her face. “We have a phoenix in our line, a few generations back…I should’ve found a way. I should’ve tried to tap into that before—”
In a second flat, I was across the space and pulling my mom into a hug. Emotion clogged my throat as she hugged me back, making me realize how far I’d come since meeting Maya. I wasn’t positive how I would’ve handled it before, but I knew it wouldn’t have been like this. For sure not like this.
While it was hard to see her, to imagine the mother she could’ve been, the relief that this was giving me—the closure—was something I would’ve never expected. It was so damn clear that she had never wanted to leave us, and while I had never assumed that had been her intention, there had always been a part of me that had felt abandoned.
“This is not your fault. He’s fucking crazy,” I said as I finally pulled back.
She looked up at me with so much warmth it hurt. “I love you, Anani. I loved you and your brother so much, from the time I found out I was carrying you to when I looked down at both of you, holding you in my arms before I…” Her voice teetered off, and she inhaled sharply. “I have always loved you, and I’ll continue to do my best to watch out for both of you from here.”
“I love you too,” I whispered, wishing that Ledger and Maya could’ve been here. There was no damn way to adequately describe this experience.
“Your mate.” My mom stepped back and reached for the ring on her finger, pulling it off and placing it in my hand. I immediately recognized the piece of jewelry because my father had a matching pin with the family sigil on it—one that he’d always worn proudly but never allowed us to. “Give this to her. I want your brother and you to have a part of me to pass on…if you’re okay with that.”
“I’ll give it to her,” I promised, not bothering to bring up how much it was going to piss off my father if I could bring this into the real world—or maybe it would fucking scare him. I think I would take either one, and it sure as hell would prove to Ledger that I’d spoken to her. Not that he wouldn’t believe me, but shit—this was insane.
“She’s good to both of you?” she asked, her eyes shading with concern.
“Maya?”
My mom nodded, and I smiled authentically for the first time. “Maya is amazing, and I wish you could meet her.”
“I do too.” Her eyes watered again before she seemed to shake herself and took a step back. “I can already feel the magic of these planes shifting. Your mate won’t stay caged for long.”
