Page 52 of A Rising Hope (The Freckled Fate #3)

52

FINNLEAH

B lack-and-white shadows shaped around me, and it was as if I moved in time. Stale air filling my nose. Insanaria jerked my head, still holding tight to the dagger wedged in between my shoulder blades.

“Watch!” she hissed into my ear. And I did.

The yellow-tinted fog moved, forming into the familiar streets of the Svitar Slums. We stood as if shadows ourselves, our bodies blending into the dark surroundings of the poorly lit avenues. Rain thundered above us, lightning illuminating the dirty, scuffed buildings. But the raindrops didn’t touch us, falling through us as if we were nothing but ghosts.

I watched a young child, no more than a few years old. A girl, beautiful and so vibrant, smiled at the passing strangers, reaching for them, waving, giggling. Her gorgeous dark eyes peered at every passing soul as if questioning, looking, and guessing. My heart froze as I realized the game she was playing.

One I had played so many times myself.

Are you my mother? Her curious eyes begged to know the answer, giving passing strangers a sheepish smile, harboring a hope that perhaps one of them would return it, recognizing it. But they didn’t.

The older woman that walked alongside her turned, and the streams from the ends of her umbrella ran straight down on the thin cloak that the girl wore. The woman grabbed her by the neck, pinching the back of it as she snarled,

“Stop smiling so much. You are drawing too much attention, or do you want me to sell you to one of them? Because if you won’t stop, I will. I don’t need trouble,” she barked, pointing with her chin to a brothel across the street. The little girl nodded, forcing her face to be more solemn, but she never stopped searching. Surely one of those faces would smile back, giving the girl hope that somewhere out there someone was waiting for her, searching for her too. But they never did.

The shadows shifted, this time the rainy sky turned into bright midday.

The gorgeous girl became a young woman, gifted and talented. She ran around the room in the orphanage, making the children laugh as she watched over them. Her clothes were worn, countless patches covering the flowy skirts she wore as she sang and danced.

“Stop it! You are too loud!” the nurse, or perhaps a caretaker, shouted from down the hall. The girl hushed the little kids putting them back to bed, winking at them as they all eagerly pretended to be asleep for their nap before the teacher made her way to the room.

“You are driving me insane!” The teacher scolded the young girl, dragging her by the ear out of the room. The girl didn’t fight the teacher’s hold, hiding a hushed smile as the kids in the room giggled at her before the heavy door was slammed shut.

The shadows moved again.

The yellow tint was more murky this time, blurring the snippets of the memories. But the girl was older now, perhaps fourteen or so. More beautiful, more gorgeous than ever before. Her face had lost its childishness but held the same eagerness. She sat in her bunk bed, moonlight illuminating her perfect face as she stared out of a round window onto the streets. Only here, while the world was sleeping, she dared to snap her fingers as little petals rained, just a few of them.

The shadows swirled around.

A blink and we stood near the Kinderby River. The young girl was watching an older boy near us throw rocks into the water. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sheepishly darted back and forth as she tried not to stare.

“Want to try it?” The boy smiled, noticing the girl. She nodded.

The shadows moved once more. This time to the familiar orphanage, where the same boy stood hidden by the shadows in the alley, kissing the beautiful girl. Her eyes hued with such a pure feeling.

“You’ll come visit me tomorrow too, right?” she asked, her voice tender and loving.

“Yes, tomorrow and the day after. One day I’ll have enough money and we will run away from this terrible town,” he promised, and she nodded eagerly, believing him.

“Where is that insane girl!?” her caretaker’s voice raged, as the girl winced, already making her way towards the door, but not before landing a small kiss on the boy’s cheek.

The shadows moved again, and the Basalt Glass blade dug deeper into my skin.

We stood in the same familiar alley, though this time there was no loving affection being shared. No caring whisperings or promises of forever.

No, this time we watched the young girl cry, silently swallowing sobs as she manically tried wiping away the blood dripping down her legs. Her neck bruised, red markings on her wrists.

Air wheezed from my lungs, and I jerked to take a step closer to help her. But Insanaria pulled my head back.

“No, watch,” she snapped, and I watched, even as my heart broke for the girl who now stood on the porch of the orphanage getting a beating for ruining her clothes.

“I always said you were trouble. The mother was a whore and so is the daughter now. You keep smiling at those boys, that’s what you get!” The girl nodded, patiently taking the first smack, and then another, silently fighting sobs, hiccups interrupting her attempt at words. “You are insane for thinking I’ll give you any sympathy. So go cry your useless tears to someone who cares.” The girl nodded, scurrying inside the building.

But there was no one in the entire world that cared.

I no longer blinked. My own eyes were stained with tears.

The shadows moved again.

It had only been a few months. The leaves had turned yellow, scattering across the unclean streets. We stood a few steps away, still hidden in the shadows.

A small sack on her shoulders was all she carried. Her hand on her round belly as she walked away from the gods’ forsaken orphanage. Never looking back.

“We’ll find a way,” she whispered to her unborn babe. “Just you and me against the world.” She smiled, though this time her eyes were weary, her light dulled, but an ember of hope fought against it all.

I wanted to call out to her. I wanted to tell her, it’d be okay. But Insanaria held me tighter.

“Watch the truth of the world.”

The shadows swirled. A blink and I watched as she waddled down a cobbled street, belly heavy and large. Her hands were torn and blistered, but she held her chin high.

“No Creator freak will work in my home!” A woman shouted after her. But the young woman didn’t look back.

“Just you and me against the world,” she whispered to the unborn child once more, forcing a smile onto her perfect lips to fight the despair clawing at her soul.

The shadows moved again and again as I watched her struggle and beg to find shelter, to find help, only to be left alone in the streets of Svitar Slums.

Shadows moved once more.

This time, we watched as the young girl labored in a dirty alley amid the whores and the drunks, confining her agony filled cries to lowered jagged breaths, afraid lest the noise attract too much attention. I reached for her, to comfort her, but Insanaria held me back.

“No, see the world for what it truly is.”

A small child was born.

The young mother full of relief as she held the babe closer.

I didn’t hold back the tears now, drowned in my sorrow as I saw the mother realize that her baby didn’t breathe. The lungs stayed still.

My knees buckled, and I cried, helplessly listening as the mother screamed in horror, as she begged those around her for help. But nobody moved. Nobody helped.

No, the strangers passed only occasionally, giving a judging glance towards the destroyed mother as she crawled sobbing, pleading so desperately for help.

And yet no help came.

So we watched her cradle the child as day turned into night and then into day again; she cried each minute and each hour, at first begging the gods and the universe and then simply mourning as her world irrevocably tore to before and after.

We watched as she sang quiet lullabies. Pale and weak, she sang each word, whispering her quiet dreams, sweetly murmuring every might-have-beens, quietly lulling the child to an endless sleep. And as she sang, where flowers once flourished, thorns grew. Each drop of her tears, filled with such heartbroken despair, turned the vines poisonous.

And only the shadows of the alley were there to comfort her.

My body trembled, and I couldn’t stop the tears. I bit my cheek, the taste of iron on my tongue, but that was no help in the face of the all-consuming grief.

The shadows switched again. A new memory played, and I watched.

I didn’t listen to the words that were said. Couldn’t listen, as the echoes of the young mother’s fragmented screams still rang within me.

The shadows switched again.

This time, the young woman was grown up, only a few years older than me. A silver streak in her deep chestnut hair, standing out starkly against her beauty. She stood in front of four women, a council of some sort, begging. Each one of them shaking their heads, denying her plea to bring the child back, to call upon the gods.

But when she had asked for justice, no one answered.

The shadows swirled, the memories rolled one by one as I watched the woman get betrayed again by those she had trusted, by her friends and her followers.

Hated. Misunderstood. Abandoned. Only darkness to comfort her when everyone had turned away.

The shadows moved again.

It was just me and Insanaria now standing in a quiet room—a nursery, I realized, as I saw a small crib covered with overgrown black thorns. Pink wooden walls were painted with beautiful flowers, but the colors were dull and faded, threads on the round rug worn-out. Insanaria stepped outside the shadows towards the glass crib shaped like a casket.

She held her hand up, and the thorns moved, exposing the little body within.

“Everyone is so eager to find and kill the villain that they forget to stop and ask why the villain has become one.” Her hand lingered on the linen covering the mummified body. Her eyes shattered with such sharp hurt that it sucked the air out of the room and my throat tightened. “You think people are worth saving? But where was their goodness when I was broken? Where was their kindness when I begged for their help? Where was their mercy when I cried for redemption? You want to be a hero, but heroes fight for good, and there is none left in this world.” Her eyes returned to me. Unlike mine, there were no tears in them. Only emptiness, only lethal grief that devoured all hope. “My entire life I hoped, and I trusted, and I believed in a greater good. I’ve been wounded and I’ve been hurt, and I forgave, again and again. Call it a flaw of a Creator’s nature, but I believed in beautifying the world, not only in the appearances but by nurture the true kindness within it.” She held her hand to the glass coffin, her eyes lingering on the body within. “Until they took her away from me. You think gods are just. But they are cruel . . . and the world they created is nothing but that.” She motioned with her hand and thorny vines wove around the glass once more, protecting it from the world.

“She never took a single breath. Forever an angel. Even the most powerful of dark mages were incapable of bringing her spirit back, claiming it had never crossed the veil into this world in the first place. Forever held back by the gods. One that has never held mortality is never able to regain it,” Insanaria murmured the last words as quoting them from a book. “Never to be together. Never to be united again. Her soul was carried away by the winds, never to be found.” The Queen paused, and heavy silence filled the room. “Elpis. Her name is Elpis.” Her eyes met mine. “Heroes will come and go, kings and queens shall rise and fall. Stars and moons shall turn to dust, and I will still spend eternity making every single person, every single god pay for what they took from me.”

The shadows shifted once more.

And we were back on the shore near the cliff.

“Do you see them now? The world’s true colors. Do you understand?” The Queen scowled against my ear. I didn’t fight her tight hold. I didn’t fight the blade inching closer to my heart.

The salty wind caressed my reddened cheeks. My previous plans and thoughts all scurried away, leaving me barren. My tears, like clear water, washed away the muddied theories.

The Queen and I had shared more than I had realized.

But where she had stumbled and found cruelness, I had fallen and received compassion.

I hadn’t deserved it any more than she deserved cruelty.

I wasn’t special nor was I more worthy. And yet, when fate or luck or whatever you wanted to call it, rolled its dice, I found kindness.

I thought of Tuluma, of Oli, of Viyak, of Priya, of Florian, of the Ten, of Gideon and of every other kind soul that I discovered when I needed them the most.

A shiver ran down my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

And in that moment, I knew.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

Priya once said that I chose forgiveness over justice.

But justice wasn’t always vengeance.

At times, it was mercy.

“I understand now,” I uttered into the heavy nothingness.

Villains weren’t born, they were made.

And so were gods.

I took a single breath. Moving as fast as lightning, I yanked free the knife hidden at my waist, twisted on my feet and wedged it deep into the Queen’s heart.

She paled in shock. But it was too late.

My knife had found its mark.

Just like Heart Piercer she held found its place, wedged deep inside my heart.

A flash of bright light blinded me, and I shielded my eyes with my arm, giving myself a second to adjust.

There was no familiar nothingness, no onyx waters and the lingering calmness that I had previously felt. No, this time it was vivid, white and striking.

I was in a place with no end and no beginning, a place where eternity and time crossed paths.

I didn’t feel the dagger in my chest or the heaviness of my decision as I glanced around, taking a step into the unknown.

The long light skirts of the simple snowy dress I wore flowed in my wake. Time, like sand, shifted beyond me.

“I’ve come to bargain,” I proclaimed loudly and waited.

She appeared then. Death in all her glory.

But I did not fear.

Dressed in a similar white dress, her black hair fell down in smooth waves, pinned with a simple rose on the side.

“Hello, Finnleah, Daughter of the Dead,” she welcomed me, her melodic voice deep and soothing.

“Hello, Lady Death.” I gave a curt nod.

“I am glad we meet at last.” She gave me a soft smile, as if to an old friend. “You’ve come to bargain with the gods? What for?” Her dark eyes met mine.

“I’ve come to bargain for a lost soul,” I answered.

“And what is it that you are offering?” Death looked at me curiously.

“Myself,” I responded, my voice not wavering, steady and calm, without a single doubt in my heart.

“And ‘yourself’ entails?” Death questioned.

“Everything. My life, my powers, my dreams, the future I could’ve had, the laughs I would’ve laughed, the kisses I would’ve given, the joy I would’ve lived, and peace I would’ve kept. I am bargaining everything,” I answered with absolute surety in my soul, without a flicker of regret.

I had always hoped I’d die for something that truly mattered, and there wouldn’t be a better cause than to bargain my life for those who had nothing more to give.

For those who were hurt and wounded.

For those who fell and stumbled, for those who sought comfort and never found it.

Because, sometimes, to change the world meant to save one troubled soul at a time.

Perhaps I wasn’t a Healer, but I’d give everything for a one soul that needed one the most.

A simple bargain to fix it all.

For justice at times meant mercy, and mercy meant grace.

“I am bargaining everything for one request: to mend the hearts of those that are broken and let hope triumph over despair even in the most lost and wandering souls.”

“Hmmm . . . ” Death paused, pondering. She moved her hand and, to my surprise, beautiful roses of the deepest red blossomed at her fingertips. “You are asking for what has been requested before,” Death softly stated. Her all-knowing gaze returned to me as she shook her head.

“I cannot accept your bargain, Finnleah, Daughter of the Dead.”

“But I have nothing more to give,” I pleaded. “I’ll give you everything I have. Name your price and I shall give it to you.” I took a step forward, my eyes desperate as I silently begged.

“There is nothing more you could pay. But not because it doesn’t have a cost. No, the price for what you ask for has been paid in full by those who came before you.” She paused, giving me an assessing look. “You have already been bargained for.”

“By whom?” I mumbled, brows creased.

Death glanced over her shoulder. She moved her hand, and a shimmering, silver veil appeared.

“The Dead have bargained for their daughter.”