Page 69 of Of Songs and Silence

Danica looks inexplicably sad, shaking her head subtly. Then she says something to me that no one ever has before.

“You truly are your mother’s daughter.”

CHAPTERFORTY-TWO

MELODI

Any doubt I have about what happened to my father is gone, evaporated in the wake of my aunt’s proclamation.

She stares at me for so long with so much sorrow that I wonder if she will say anything else at all, or if she too is lost to her memories and whatever fragile sanity my family possesses.

“Father always knew,” she says suddenly. “When the others sealed their bond.”

I get just enough from her to know what that sealing entails, enough to tell me why Ari has been so careful about keeping his distance even when want overtakes us both.

“But Ursula was careful,” my aunt goes on. “And so, so brilliant.”

It’s jarring to hear anyone speak of my mother with genuine affection in their tone.

“Then how did he find out?” I ask gently.

“She trusted the wrong person.” Danica’s face pinches with far more than simple grief.

It’s guilt, thick, and potent, clouding the water around us like the crimson sea of blood from the day the rebels attacked.

She sighs and closes her eyes, then images appear in my mind. Memories.

Cepheus corners her, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Fear that radiates off of her and only fuels him more.

“Tell me the truth, and I will spare her.”

She has watched so many of her other siblings die. She can’t lose Ursula, too.

Finally, a shaky confession. Then Mother’s shattered, ruined expression, like all the joy and hope and happiness has left her. Like she has been engulfed by flames that will never burn out and never have the mercy to end her.

“He tortured her?” I ask.

“He tortured Makani. For weeks. And she refused to shield herself from that pain out of penance. Whatever we shared in the womb, she always seemed to have taken more than her share of our bravery.”

Again, there’s a wistful, fond note to her voice, but it’s gone as quickly as it came.

“Then my father finally killed Makani, and it broke what was left of Ursula. She left the next day. I never understood why she didn’t take her own life as so many in her place did.”

My aunt looks at me.

“And now I know why. She left to protect you.”

The thought rings truer than I expect it to. She is a strange balance of cruel and protective. She always has been. Memories assault me, whipping around my head with the force of hurricane winds.

Mother, her hands on my face, her features almost gentle.

This is for the best, she had said about Damian.

Of course, it would feel that way to her. She must have known I would have a soulmate. She would have seen that as a curse, something to protect me from, especially when her father was still the king.

I think of the moments of pride she had with my sisters, her insistence on being called Mother. Some part of her wanting, needing the family that she never got to have.

Then I remember the other side of her.

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