Page 46 of A Winter Courtship
“Sometimes I wonder if you felt about Father exactly the same way I do about Ulrich. And maybe you couldn’t resist the temptation of the wind anymore.” Lutoth stared at the fragments of rocks by his feet.
“And that thought destroys me,” Lutoth said. “It destroys me to think I’ll do the same. Because that means I’m not capable of the life I want to have. It means I’ll just be flowing with the wind. Alone and without a home, without love for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, Lutoth.” She walked towards him. Reaching out, she touched his shoulder, just barely, as if uncertain if he would welcome her touch. But when he didn’t pull away, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into an embrace. “I’m so sorry.”
He let out a breath and relaxed into his mother’s arms, allowing himself to be comforted.
ChapterThirty
“Iforget sometimes,” his mother whispered.
“Forget what?”
“That you aren’t only a sylph. I forget that you are an oread too.” She pulled back, brushing locks of white hair from his face. “But my love, you do not need to worry. You are not me.”
“How do you know?” Lutoth asked.
“Because the words you speak, they sound nothing like how I have ever felt.” She smiled sadly at him. “You say you worry about flowing with the wind and being alone for the rest of your life. But darling, that is all I’ve ever wanted. To flow and fly with the wind. Because I belong to it and it belongs to me. I am never alone when I am with the wind.”
Lutoth frowned. “But you loved father. You said you did.” It was almost an accusation.
“I did,” she said carefully. “But we wanted such different things. You talk of a home. Of a place to belong. Of rocks and mountains.” Her nose wrinkled. “Your father did the same, even though I’d told him I never wanted those things.”
She stepped away, looking out at the white mountain tops in the distance. “Everyone warned him. I warned him. I told him I belonged to the wind and nothing could hold me back. I told him I could never live in a cave surrounded and crushed down by walls of rock.”
She tilted her head back, and the wind caressed her cheeks like a lover’s touch. “I need to move. Some sylphs can stay still for long periods of time. A few only leave their homefrom time to time. But not me. My home is the wind. And I was honest with your father. At first, anyway. And I thought he understood that one day I would leave.”
Lutoth couldn’t speak.
She turned towards him, reached out, and touched his face. “But then I got pregnant. You were not planned. I’d taken herbal precautions. But…” She laughed and smiled. “Here you are, my beautiful son.
“We both got so caught up in the idea of a youngling. Of you.” She dropped her hand. “And perhaps he thought my mind had changed. I should have confronted him and told him the truth. I should have told him how different it can be for us sylphs when we have younglings.” She sighed.
“Sylphs don’t raise our younglings contained in tiny, cramped caves. We move, carrying our little ones on our bodies until they can flow with the wind themselves. But your father kept talking about our home in the valley. In that cave.” She said the last bit like it was a bad taste in her mouth. “And he had so many dreams of raising you there. But they were never my dreams.”
Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I tried. I tried to stay. But every day, I felt trapped. Like I was suffocating. I started painting the wind and sky in that cave as if trying to make living there more bearable.” She licked her lips.
“And I was young and scared. The idea of forever being in one place terrified me. Never moving. Never running. Never flying. Never being at one with the wind. Staying still for so long. I got claustrophobic. I felt stagnant. Like I was being buried alive by those mountains and rocks. I panicked.” Her hands trembled as if even the thought was too much to bear.
“I should have told him. I did try. But every time, he just didn’t understand. He loved me so much. And in the end, it seemed easier to just leave. I was a coward. And I hurt him. And you. I’m so sorry.” She grasped a strand of her hair and twisted it around and around her finger. “And after that, it just hurt too much to see him. That’s why we didn’t go back to the valley for years. And even when we did, it was so rare. He looked at me with so much pain and hope. I couldn’t bear it.”
“He wanted you to leave me with him.” Lutoth remembered overhearing the conversation.
“I know, but…I thought he wouldn’t understand you. I thought he would deny your sylph nature like he did with me and keep you confined in that cave.” She smiled at him. Tears slid down her cheeks. “But I did the same to you. I denied your oread nature.”
Lutoth sank down onto the cliff’s edge, unable to stay on his feet. His mind reeled with all this new information. He’d never known. All he’d been told growing up was his mother had heard the wind call and she had to fly with it.
“But you are not me, Lutoth. That is clear to me now. You sounded so much like your father just then. I’m sorry for never recognising it in you.” She sat beside him, pressing a hand to his back.
He stared into her eyes, and for the first time, he saw his mother not as some infallible parent but as someone who years ago had been young, scared, and unsure what to do. Someone who made mistakes.
“I am sorry, my love,” she said.
He placed his hand over hers. “I understand.” And Lutoth did. All the pain and anger inside him, which he’d held on to for so long, drifted away. He let out a breath. “And I forgive you.” And he realised he did. Or maybe he just didn’t have any energy left to stay angry.
“Thank you.” She leaned against him, and for a moment, they just stared out over the mountains, mother and son together. “But who is this Ulrich you speak of? You love him?”
If she had asked a day ago, he’d have said yes. But now… “I’m not sure. I met his father.” His hands tightened against the ledge he sat on. Jagged rocks dug into his palms. “Ulrich pulled away from me so his father wouldn’t see us together.” He let out a breath, trying to control the pain that rose sharply in his chest. “Then he told his father that I was just a friend.” The words sliced his throat. “Like he was ashamed of me.”