Page 49 of A Monarch's Fall

“I’m an old lady now, Percy, wrinkles and grey hair, I understand if you do not trust that we are kin. Would you like proof?” she asked gently and blew on the delicate cup, which was decorated with thin blue and golden branches.

“Yes,” I nodded, trying to straighten my back, sit up properly, and seem more in control and assured than I was.

Truthfully, while I had never given much thought to my extended family before, learning the mystery of the Flores coven’s disappearance and realising that my father never spoke of my mother's family had created much curiosity within me.

Secretly, I wanted to belong. It wasn’t that I didn’t belong before. I had always had my father and our village. I had our small community and small world where everything was safe and peaceful. But that was a lie. The kingdom was much larger than I had ever truly comprehended, and those within the Houses had bonds that spanned many generations, including family ties, ties to the land, and a shared history and heritage. I didn’t have that. And when no one has such things, it doesn’t feel like you’re missing out on anything; you don’t know that you’re missing out on anything.

Being Selene’s soul match had introduced me to everything I never knew I didn’t have. My world had been small, and I was content in my naïvety. But when you could see how small you were compared to the history and systems of the kingdom, it made you feel less secure. There was much more to fear when you didn’t know the name of all your neighbours, and everyone you saw daily, when you couldn’t be sure that those around you wanted the best for you because it was the best for them too, for the community. Since leaving my village, everyone wanted something from me; no one's intentions could be trusted, and everyone could betray me. Even those I called friends.

“Certainly, I was prepared for this,” she told me and turned back to where Jack stood next to the drinks cabinet. “Jack, could you please ask Chloe to give you the photobook from my handbag and bring it to me?”

“Right away, Ma’am,” he agreed and left the room swiftly through the same door that Persephone had entered by.

“I thought it best to bring my memory book with me today, especially for our meeting. I sillily left it in my bag.” She laughed. “I worry old age might be catching up to me.”

“What do you want with me?” I questioned, trying to remain patient, but I wasn’t sure I believed the old lady act. This was an army training ground. She was meant to be the one in charge here; even Arvid seemed to be answering to her. She wasn’t senile.

“So wilful, no patience, just like Dami,” she said fondly. “Isn’t it obvious what I want? You were lost to us, and now you are home.”

“This isn’t home. It’s an army barracks,” I corrected her.

“Yes, well, I, we have been trying to build a home suitable for everyone. Sadly, it has come to this,” she said, pausing to sip her tea.

“Come to what?” I questioned.

“The use of force, dear,” she explained. “This was never what I, or any of us, wanted. We are Flores; we nurture and feed, we do not seek conflict.”

“And yet here you are building an army and kidnapping people,” I stated.

Jack re-entered the room before she could reply, carrying a large photobook under his arm. It was light tan and bound by leather.

Lady Flores took it carefully with two hands when Jack offered it to her.

“Thank you,” she said, but never took her eyes from the photobook. “This is very precious to me,” she stated, placing her hand gently on the cover and looking to meet my eyes. “This is your proof,” she explained, holding the photobook out to me.

I leaned forward and took hold of it, resting it in my lap.

“Family photos?” I asked.

Lady Flores nodded.

I turned open the cover, and the inside page read ‘The Flores Family,' surrounded by three baby footprints, with names written under each: Chloe, Damia, and Ploutos. I hovered over the tiny footprint of Damia, which was my mother’s name. Not particularly popular in terms of names, the namesake of a minor fertility goddess. Also known as the subduer. Father said my mother could subdue both the land and sea, that she suited her name.

My father owned exactly two photographs of my mother. The first was on their wedding day, in springtime on the beach at home, my mother in a deep green dress, my father in brown trousers and a white shirt buttoned only halfway, both barefoot; my father's large hands encompassed my mother’s waist as they gazed into each other's eyes. The second was of my mother surrounded by the other young women at the time from our village, her belly was big with me, and she was facing the camera smiling, one hand on her stomach.

I never met my mother, but I had spent hours, days, weeks of my childhood memorising every detail of those photos.

I turned the first page. Photographs of babies, infants, and small children. All clearly the same people, ageing slightly from page to page, with the same woman holding and caring for them, smiling with them. The photographs labelled as Damia gradually began to resemble the woman I knew was my mother, a slightly younger version than I was familiar with from my father’s photographs, but the same woman undoubtedly. I turned to the last page, which held a whole family photograph, a younger version of my mother; she looked about my age, her blond hair a contrast to her two siblings' dark brown, maybe black, and she had her arm around the back of a younger version of the woman in front of me.

“Remove that one from the frame,” Lady Flores instructed, and I carefully pulled the old photograph from the rough paperframe that held it in place on the page. “Turn it over,” she continued.

On the back, in faded blue ink, it read:Chloe Flores - age 25. Ploutos Flores - age 23. Damia Flores - age 20. Persephone Flores - age 52.

“Damia was my youngest child,” Lady Flores said. “No mother should outlive any of her children,” she continued and cleared her voice. “Anyway, I’ve longed to meet my baby’s baby, the part of her that still lives in this world,” she told me.

Something felt odd, like I was choking, a ball formed so big in my throat I couldn’t speak, and behind my eyes grew hot with unshed tears. I had never met my mother. I hadn’t really known what it meant to have a mother figure. Rosemary joined our family when I was past the age where she could have taken a mother’s place. I loved her as family, but it wasn’t a parental bond. An overwhelming feeling of longing, one which I hadn’t felt since I was a young girl watching other girls run to their mothers at the end of the day, filled me.

It was the suddenness of it that was too much, and I turned to glare accusingly at Jack, who was still in the room.