Page 72

Chapter 72

Saelyn

Her grip was painful. I flinched at the sharp point of her nails digging into my skin—the grasp of a woman determined to have the life she felt she deserved.

Felgren was in the midst of fall.

I recognized the orange and yellow hues from the trees. Leaves scattered around a very young girl’s bare feet. She giggled, chasing them across the steps that led to the Fortress .

My mother leaned against the newel of the stairs, her cheek resting on her hands placed over the stone. A tear fell to her chin and she smiled, the faintest flicker of green lighting her eyes as she watched little Saelyn playing in carefree laugher.

“ What is this? ” the Blightress snarled. “ You said we were done. ”

I stepped toward my mother, reaching out to touch the sorrow-filled face I had seen many times before. My fingers slipped through her, and she shivered, straightening her back and turning away from her child no older than three years of age. “ I don’t know, ” I answered. “ I don’t remember this. ”

My mother made the movements I had mimicked before. A glowing portal opened and in the flash of light, my younger self pointed, shouting, “ Mama ! Green !”

My little legs ran, my black hair flying behind me, but she pulled me up into her arms, holding onto me as I reached for the portal.

“ It’s not for you, Little Love .” She kissed my chubby fingers as I reached harder, repeating softly, “ It’s not for you.”

I heard Pah - Pah’s voice before I noticed him coming down the stairs. “ You cannot go,” he murmured.

My mother turned with me in her arms, and my little face lit in joy. “ Pah - Pah !” I screeched, reaching for him.

He took me, bouncing me up on his hip and continuing his warning. “ You leave and this leaves with you.” He pointed to the dome of green that had shielded Felgren since the day I was born.

“ I just thought you could?—”

“ No . No , I cannot, Karus . I cannot protect her as you can.” He set me down on the stairs, pulling my wooden lumen from his pocket. I squeaked in joy, taking my favorite toy and running off to play.

“ If I’m gone for only a few minutes, the Blightress will not know.”

“ She may, she may not. You cannot risk the former.”

“ It’s been three years ,” my mother’s voice cracked. “ We have more forces. The armies are growing quickly.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “ He deserves to come home.”

Pah - Pah shook his head. “ They all deserve to come home.”

The words visibly stung my mother. She shuddered, her face breaking as a sob left her lips. She turned again to the portal. “ I’ll only be a minute,” she bargained. She pushed her hand through and stopped. “ No ,” she whimpered. She tried again, this time pounding hard through the green surface, only to be met with a wall of blue light. “ No !” she screamed and little Saelyn came running, crying and tugging on her mother’s black skirts.

My mother fell to her knees in a puff of leaves, weeping into her hands. “ He won’t let me in,” she cried.

Pah - Pah reached down to pick me up, and I fought him, kicking and screaming for my mother.

Her portal flickered out and she roared into the earth, her fingers scraping across the soil of Felgren .

In the midst of my mother’s anguish, the Blightress yanked me to her side and called my name.

A flash of white and we appeared in my mother’s rooms.

She was propped up against the headboard of her bed, staring at the empty fireplace. She stroked the messy black curls of a baby, no older than a year, sleeping against her chest.

The same tears I’d seen many times rolled down her face, pooling at her chin as she gazed off into nothing, softly singing the same song she’d sung to me for as long as I could remember.

“ Softly does hum,

The bee to the sun,

Flying into the summer breeze.

Shyly does bloom,

The babe in the womb,

Arriving into the summer breeze.”

Her voice broke on the last line and she bit her lips inward, her body shaking, holding in the cries of pain, doing her best to not wake her daughter.

The Blightress stared, her face a mask of eerie calm. I could only watch in silence, my heart in pieces as I looked upon moments in my mother’s life she’d never meant me to remember.

“ Saelyn , ” the Blightress whispered and we were gone.

The cropping of black rock under a charred maple tree appeared, and we watched as I toddled through the small stream, babbling unknown words in my own language, picking up rocks and splashing my chubby fingers in the clear water.

My mother sat on the stream’s edge, her face broken in despair, her eyes red as she quickly tried to rid them of her tears. She struggled to laugh and smile as her small daughter picked up a rock and let it plop from her fingers back into the water.

The Blightress shuddered, this time speaking in rising anger, “ Saelyn ! ”

A forest path appeared, my mother cradling the wailing babe in her arms. Boros followed, sniffing into the air.

“ Shh ,” my mother cooed. “ Please , Saelyn .” She lifted my forehead to her lips, kissing my head and pressing me to her chest, bouncing me softly, mumbling under her breath, “ How ?” Her voice broke as she spoke into the forest air. “ How do I do this without you?” She knelt to the ground, her own sobs matching her child’s as Boros lay down with her, resting his head on her knee.

“ Saelyn ! ” the Blightress roared, and we left again, only to find ourselves back in my mother’s rooms.

There I lay, a sleeping babe in her crib, bundled in a yellow swaddle, and there my mother lay, staring at the cold fireplace curled up into a ball, wrapping her arms around herself and crying her silent tears into the thick wool rug.

“ SAELYN ! ”

I flinched, unable to do anything but gasp at the scenes that flashed before us over and over. My days as a baby had been spent with my mother in the depths of mourning, and we were witness to them all.

Again , Saelyn .

Saelyn .

Saelyn .

Saelyn .

The Blightress did not stop, soon shouting my name a dozen times, and then a dozen times more, each one leading to the next scene of my mother’s torment, each one delivering my mother’s tears, her desperate cries, her rage, all while I was so small, a babe born into this world of loss and lost love.

“ SAELYN ! ” the Blightress gasped and fell to her knees across from my mother in the same position on the floor of her rooms. My mother’s tears splashed onto the floor while her daughter kicked her feet in the air, gnawing on the wooden lumen.

“ You have his eyes, Little Love ,” my mother whimpered, wiping her fallen tear from her baby’s arm. “ He loves you just as much as Mama loves you.” She wiped a hand across her face and under her nose, taking in a shuddering breath. “ You do not know just how much you are loved,” she whispered, bending down to kiss my full red cheek. I cooed at her, kicking again.

“ Your parents loved you. ” The Blightress didn’t stop the tear that slipped down her skin in a single stream of reflective light.

I sat on my own knees next to her, watching my mother brush at her baby’s hair, holding her sobs at bay. “ Yes . ”

“ Your mother suffered every day away from him, ” she continued.

“ Yes . ” I placed my hand over hers. She looked away from my mother, instead meeting my eyes—my dark blue eyes that told a story of where I had come from and who had loved me enough to leave me.

“ I love her, ” she choked, inhaling in a shuddering gasp.

“ Yes , ” I repeated in a truth I understood looking at her face, recognizing the same sorrowful expressions I’d seen on my mother time and time again.

“ I don’t want her to suffer like this, ” she managed, reaching out a hand to wipe the tears from my mother’s cheek, unable to do so.

“ Then let’s go back, ” I started, squeezing her hand again. “ You can help me fix—all of this—so that we can move on with our lives in the happiness we are ready for. My mother will always mourn my father, but without the threat of you taking me away, she can find some joy in her daughter’s life. Please , ” I begged, “ let’s go back and bury him. Give her peace and rid the isle of your Blight . Let our people be happy and prosper under the sun. Let them rebuild what has been lost and let my mother live out her days as Baron of Felgren . ” I inched closer, desperation in my voice, “ Let her no longer fear what can be taken from her. ” I paused, wiping the next iridescent tear that fell down her cheek. “ I know your fear. It is my own.”

Her mouth pursed and her lips trembled. I saw the weight of what she’d carried for centuries reflect through her eyes. I knew her pain. I knew the sharp bite of loneliness like my mother. Like the powerful women before me, I too understood that empty chasm within and the fear of never filling it. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, remembering the words my father had started long ago. Words I knew he believed in.

Hold onto hope.

Defy the dark.

The dark was here, right before us. The truth of what my parents had been through to keep me safe. To keep me loved by them, growing up in Felgren where I belonged. “ We can do this together,” I continued. “ We can let go of the fear of being alone. ”

She met my eyes then with hers and nodded softly. “ I can do more than what you ask.” A genuine smile lifted her lips, the first I’d ever seen on her face.

She was beautiful.

“ One more time,” she whispered. “ Release your spell one more time, and I will give you the life you’ve always deserved to live. ”

I took in a final breath and took her open hand. Glancing once at my young mother lost in her grief, I did what was asked of me. “ Revertayden en tepiore.”

The dark flooded through me in a torrent of endless black. I gasped, afraid of what would be next, what the Blightress had meant in her words. I felt the grip of her fingers holding mine as we tore through time, and her power flowed through me, enhancing the spell tenfold.

I screamed as we landed, shielding my eyes from the golden glow of the setting sun.

“ Stay behind me,” she urged and drew a finger across my cheek. “ Have a good life, Saelyn . Know that you are never alone. Know that you are loved.”

I remained hidden, kneeling in the obsidian shadows that surrounded us like a cave. Glints of orange light shone off great puddles in the clearing. Marvelous tree creatures I’d never seen before halted their music and revelry, gaping at the Blightress . She rose straight, elegant, and tall in all her dark robes and dark power, dripping in shadows and calm as if she knew exactly where we’d gone to.

A figure stood with umber, bark-like skin and vines wrapped through her braided hair. “ You are not welcome here, Visalia , Endless One ,” she called.

“ I have come to offer you peace, Nova ,” the Blightress began. I could not see her face, but I noticed the swivel of her head toward the right. I followed her stare, recognizing the shape of my mother in a dress of gold through her thin green shield.

“ What peace do you offer?” Nova asked, stepping to the side as if to shield my mother.

“ A peace from fear.” The Blightress slowly lifted her hand behind her, a last offering for me to take.

I placed my hand in hers.

It faded.

My skin, my hand, my arm— I began to depart, pieces of me lifting into the black swirls of her power as she continued. “ From this day forward, I will no longer Blight this land. I will no longer seek any child to take as my own.” I heard her shuttering breath before she called, “ I will no longer seek to hold the life of Karus , Baron of Felgren .”

My thoughts drifted.

I blinked, but my eyes did not close.

My mother rose, heavy with me in her belly. I saw my father then. He emerged from the gathering of fae near my mother, stepping in front of her.

If I had lungs to take a breath, I would have gasped.

He looked so much like his portrait come to life—so much like me. He was nothing like the withered man I’d seen in the cavern.

“ Then leave now,” he called. “ Never return. Never seek out our child. Return those you siphon for power. Return Mychael and Rell to us unharmed. That is the peace we seek from you.”

The Blightress nodded once and what was left of my hand fell through hers.

She turned her head back to me, and I faded, leaving this life behind for a new one.

One where I was no longer haunted.

One where my parents could thrive, raising and loving me together.

One where Thevin and I would fall in love again, this time with a brighter hope for our future together.

I did not fear it.

This was what I’d been born to do.

This was why I had been given such power.

I smiled as the part of me that was left lifted into the wind and the Blightress stepped back into her portal, smiling at me with tears in her glinting, colorful eyes. “ You are never alone, Saelyn of Felgren . Remember that for me.”

I left, drifting away in a summer breeze as her portal closed, and the world changed forever.