Page 16 of Nyanine’s Divide (Among the Cosmos #5)
Tavionna
Ayira’s hand is soft in mine, her smile sweet and unsure, and then it’s all gone. All sensation. I’m sucked into a tunnel, and I know I’ve sunk into a vision. There’s no sound, no feeling, no thoughts for a moment, it’s just dark, and then, it hits.
Light penetrates my lids, cold hits my body, and I cry. A baby’s first cry. I’m lifted into someone’s arms when I hear my mother’s voice. “Hi, Ayira, hi, baby. Welcome to the world. Oh, you’re so beautiful. You’re going to be a great priestess one day, pretty girl.” My eyes are blurry, but it’s my mother’s face, her voice. She’s happy, so happy, as tears track down her cheeks.
“She’s so beautiful, just like you.” A man kisses Mother’s cheek, but I don’t recognize him.
The darkness returns, and I fall as one word clicks into place. “Sister.”
Mother feeds Ayira, cooing at her, loving her, whispering sweet words as they cuddle close. Her mate is there, staring at them both, and there’s love in the air. They’re happy and excited for their future. Mother kisses him deeply, tears dripping down her cheeks, and he gently wipes them away.
I watch from outside their bubble, as if I’m a star above, as she shares this beautiful life with her Ngozii mate. I’m confused and lost, but I can’t leave.
Time skips forward, Ayira begins to crawl, to walk, to talk. When she reaches about three years of age and is old enough to understand, Mother begins to teach her spells, takes her to her sanctuary, explains the power the crystals have, the water, meditation. Ayira is eager to learn the abilities that Mother displays, but her mate grows worried.
Mother’s power and reach are greater with the help of Ayira’s magic, and that’s what she wants. Her prayers when alone are not for a daughter to follow in her footsteps but for the power they have to work together, to recreate the power of the ancient priestesses before her. Mother seeks to rule more than just this world with the magic she weaves, but she can’t achieve it without more power.
Distance begins to build between the couple as Mother spends more and more time with Ayira, teaching her more and more, growing excited and cheering when Ayira manages to achieve her goals. She pushes for more all the time, keeping Ayira from school with the others in the colony. Ayira is isolated but happy with her mother. Her father is upset, he argues for her to go to school with the others, to be a child. Mother argues that she’s special, meant to be a powerful priestess, meant to change the world. Her powers must be nurtured, must grow, and they won’t do that if she’s not taught properly.
He sees through her lies, knowing that keeping her away from others keeps them from teaching her new things. Mother intends to indoctrinate her with her own desires. She can’t be thwarted if Ayira isn’t shown other ways of doing things. Her arguments for Ayira’s future as priestess sound genuine, but he sees the truth deep in her eyes.
That’s when he makes his decision. Grabbing Ayira in the night, he rushes onto a ship and runs for his life. He aims to protect his daughter, to give her a life as a normal child, where she can learn and grow and become her own person, without her mother’s agenda over her head. He’s saving her from a form of abuse in his eyes.
Mother wakes the next morning, frantic, as she searches for her mate, her daughter. When she can’t find them, she screams and panics, rushing to her sanctuary to search for them. She doesn’t eat or drink for days, sitting in meditation as she struggles. Until one day.
He walks along a dark street, heading home to his daughter, on some dirty planet. He’s not happy to be there, but it’s temporary, they’ll move again soon, he just needs to get a little more money for tickets. He’s nearly home when a cloaked woman steps in front of him, blocking his path.
Mother reveals herself by pulling back her hood, and he panics. He begs her to understand, he’s protecting their daughter, she deserves a childhood. She refuses, she never had one, this is her destiny, her legacy, and the sooner she starts, the better prepared she’ll be. She demands her daughter, and he refuses. She threatens, producing a knife she’d taken from a warrior. He still refuses, accusing her of using their daughter for her own gain, and he won’t stand for it.
A curtain in an above window shifts, Ayira’s tiny pink face appearing, grinning when she sees her dad, but it quickly drops as she sees the knife in the hands of the woman. Ayira’s lips move, her brows dropping, and I hear her whispered word from afar. “Mother?”
Mother asks one more time, screaming at him, and he says she’ll never find her, not if he can help it. For all she knows, her daughter is already in the far reaches of space on a ship, heading for a better life. Mother screams in rage and rushes forward, plunging the knife into his chest. I gasp, Ayira covers her mouth, and we watch on together as his life drains, his body dropping to the ground at her feet.
Mother spins, pressing her bloody fingers to her temples as she attempts to search out Ayira, but she scuttles away from the window, into the building, no doubt, hiding away.
Mother returns home, using her crystals and powers to search for Ayira, her efforts frantic, but she can’t seem to find her, not even through blood. After two years, she gives up and searches for an easy man to target. She toys with a warrior, convincing him they’re lovers and she wants his child, and he’s able to send her body into heat, forcing her to ovulate. She drugs him with a sleeping potion before he can impregnate her, and she leaves to seduce Criido. Finding a man offworld means he won’t know of her child to take it away again. She has what she needs to continue her search for the ultimate power.
The rest of my childhood and life flashes before my eyes, right up until I meet Ayira, and it jolts me awake, causing me to sit up in a panic. Seuke is there in an instant, his arms around me. “It’s all right, my love, breathe, I’m here. You’re safe.”
I collapse into sobs, clinging to him for comfort. This is incredibly messed up, absolutely fucked up on every level. I learned mere weeks ago that my mother used another man to conceive me so I could follow her legacy, that much was clear. Despite knowing that I was but a means to an end for her, I still thought that on some deep level, one she hid away, that she loved me. The one moment I saw hope in her eyes, she must have seen Ayira in me for a brief moment, remembered her happiness, but then she remembered me. I was nothing more than her puppet. No love, no kindness, no connection. Just a puppet for her to use her magic through.
And what about Ayira? What happened to her after that night? She witnessed her father’s murder at the hands of her mother, was left alone on some dirty planet in the middle of nowhere, with no one to care for her? How the hell did she survive that? Who helped her? Who raised her? I have so many questions, but at the same time, I can’t stomach it.
Jumping up, I spot a bathing room and rush inside, the contents of my stomach purging themselves from my body. I can’t breathe. My throat burns. I collapse against the wall and sob some more.
My emotions swirl from being purely and righteously pissed off to being sympathetic, to being disgusted, to being absolutely saddened and heartbroken. I can’t tell which emotions are mine, what are right to feel.
I’m beyond pissed at my mother. She used me for her own benefit. She merely wanted me to follow in her footsteps, to somehow provide her with the magical boost she searched for until her death, and when I failed to be her conduit of sorts, she brought her rage down upon me. I was just a tool and nothing more.
I’m disgusted by her actions, disgusted at the sight and thought of her murdering her lover, and disgusted that she could hurt her first child so. Disgusted that she could use people, her own children, in such a callous manner. She cared for no one, not even her mate, her first child, me. She only cared about power. The goddess was right, the priestesses in our past had become greedy, lazy, and power-hungry.
But more than all that, I’m sympathetic, saddened, and heartbroken for my sister. What she endured, what she went through, she was too young to understand it. She may not even remember it now, but I have no way of knowing until I speak with her. But how can I speak to her about this, the most traumatic night of her life, the night that everything was taken from her. Her father murdered, her mother lost in a rage, and she was left alone on a planet that looked about dead.
I wish I could go back, save her, make it all better. I wish that I could change how things went down. Perhaps Mother was sick, ill with some sort of mental disease that made her crazy and power-hungry. If she was, I wish I could have cured her for Ayira’s sake. Now we’re both broken and abandoned children searching for a home in a universe that was out to torment us.
She seems to have found her place, and I suppose I’ve found mine. There’s some joy that’s come of all this heartache. We’ve found our true mates, made good lives for ourselves, and are making new friends and connections. We’ve found each other. Perhaps we can build a relationship and bring her back into the fold of our world, show her what she’s missed by growing up away.
But is she meant to take my place if she returns? Am I not the rightful priestess if she’s on the planet? Will her powers return? Does she even have any left? What the hell am I going to do? What is the right move here?
Seuke hands me a cup of water, and I drink it greedily, needing to rinse the vomit from my mouth. It soothes my throat, and I breathe deeply, hoping to control myself and talk to him.
“You don’t need to tell me now, my love. Whatever you’ve been through has clearly been difficult. Take the night to process, sleep, and we’ll have breakfast with Kari in the morning. We can discuss it then. Perhaps your family will have words of wisdom for you.” He brushes my hair back, soothing me as I cling to the little cup in my hands.
My eyes lift to his, the silver soft and radiating his love to me through the bond. He’s right, I need to soak this in and see what my options are. I don’t have to do anything right this moment. I open my arms, and he gingerly lifts me, carrying me to bed. He removes my cup, placing it on the side table, before crawling into bed with me and wrapping me protectively in his arms.
“All will be okay, my love. You aren’t alone, and we have more family now to help us through these things. Whatever you go through, we’re all here for you. Rest now.”
Tears drip from my eyes to the pillows below, the bed one of the softest I’ve ever slept on, and I scoot back into my warrior and lover, needing more of his comfort, wishing my mate was here to warm my front and squeeze us together. I silently cry until my body gives up, and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep until morning.