Page 65 of Shadows Ascend (Remnant Archives #2)

I watched as a second shadow exhaled from my soulmate's lips and morphed with Talgira's who had been playfully occupying Riella while I held Remnant's still form—waiting, waiting for her to come back to me alive.

It was nothing short of fucked up. While my soulmate experienced death over and over again, I was cursed to watch it—all my nightmares coming to life on repeat.

And this time fate thought it would be fucking funny for me to watch the reflection of my mother’s death, to witness the tears and to hear the echoes of her painful screams when she was burned alive.

My wraith form trembled, not from sorrow but from rage, and I could feel the insatiable hunger start to rise again. The whisperings of Eve's worries scratched at the back of my mind. "I feel that I must speak plainly about what it is you will be giving up, what you might become—"

Remnant's eyes fluttered open and pulled me back from the dark thoughts. Tears quickly filled her emerald depths and I felt her body begin to shake. Panic spread through our bond like the fire that consumed my mother in the death she had just experienced.

Short breaths, a thin veil of sweat, her heart thundering so loudly it reverberated in my head, the flush to her pale skin absent and replaced with a sickened pallor that I understood too well.

I had hoped our bond and our truths would have set her free of her paralyzing panic attacks, but hope…

goddess hope was a fucking bitch that never did a single damn thing for me or any of us.

And because of that…the past still stalked us, a cruel haunting that would never go away.

Wrapping my arms around her, my hands swirled circles down her spine, catching through the salted tangles of her hair. "Breathe, little umbra, breathe."

"Emon," she sobbed, gripping onto me while I could hear her heart race uncontrollably, she was doing the opposite of breathing. "I can't…oh goddess I can't."

"Shhh." I rocked her, the bond twisting and tightening in my chest, making every inhale difficult to draw while I fully comprehended the source of her panic—the knowledge that our grim future could one day leave our daughter parentless.

Waiting to see us walk on a horizon that would never come, abandoned and alone in this cruel fucked up world. "I know, little umbra. I know…"

I couldn't tell her it wouldn't happen. Fae could not lie and I fucking hated that about us. There were no words I could say to soothe the future’s grip on what was to come.

I stroked her hair and purred. This time letting her fall apart so that I could piece her back together, then put her back up on another fucking step only to watch her fall apart all over again.

Fix and break, fix and break…it seemed that this would forever be our life's story but we would do it together and somewhere in those moments—love, joy, and laughter would be found.

No matter how fleeting.

Then on the whispering winds and the softly tossing seas, our daughter’s voice rang, in the most beautiful singsong sound I had ever heard. Crouching low, she touched her mother’s tear stained face.

"What do you do when the darkness comes?

Do you hide or do you run ?

Nay neither!

What you need is the rising sun

Bringing forth the Shadow ones

Until the darkness comes undone.

Bearing a soul that has been won."

Remnant's heart slowed and her breathing eased while our daughter sang with her beautiful voice.

If I had tears then, they would have fallen with pride.

In this moment, I could easily see how she could be a queen.

Beloved and cherished by all, with her cherub face and starlit crown, a deadly spear that eliminates souls clutched in her tiny hand, a pookah spirit guide resting on her shoulder, a powerful dragon scale swinging on her delicate neck, and somewhere on her person a conch shell whistle to summon an ancient sea king.

"Where did you learn that song?" I whispered, knowing it was one my mother sang to me many nights when she tucked me into bed as a boy.

She bit her lip. "The shadows told me to sing it to you." Looking at both of us, her tiny shoulders tensed with unease. Her bastard of a pookah hissed at us for causing her distress. "Did you not like it? Did I sing it wrong?"

Remnant shifted, sitting up, stretching her arms outwards for our daughter to climb into her lap. "No, my little chickadee. You sang it perfectly. You have a beautiful singing voice."

Dropping her spear on the step she lunged into Remnant’s arms, forcing the spirit guide to flash from existence from her shoulder before it reappeared again on the stone step, sleeping in a curled ball. I glared at the snoring nuisance—I could easily toss it in the sea.

As if hearing my thoughts a single red eye opened, his ear lowering and twitching in my direction.

I bared my fangs silently and watched as the damn thing smiled before closing its eyes again.

Fucking asshole.

Remnant exhaled shakily, tucking Riella in closer, and watching as the shadows nestled in our daughter’s lap like a slumbering kitten just like the umbras of old used to do with me.

Thunder rolled across the sky and Remnant watched it lost in thought, "Emon…there is something I need to tell you…about your mother’s death."

I knew what she was about to say. "You need not relive this, little umbra.

Riley has told me his version and while it had been difficult to hear and I wanted to rage at him for not saving her, his life would have been forfeit too.

He gave her kindness and mercy and for that I will forever be in his debt. "

My soulmate shook her head, resistance to my acceptance easy to see. "I knew Deirdre was unhinged…I knew she sent me away for a reason. I just wanted to believe…" Remnant scowled and shook her head, "no that’s all an excuse. I knew Emon. Part of me knew that she was evil and I allowed it."

I tilted her chin up to me, our daughter’s big eyes watching our exchange with quiet astuteness.

"I have had much time to come to terms with my mother's death, little umbra. And there was a time where I wanted to blame you for it, using it as a reason to go to war against Faerie, especially when you rallied armies against us. I thought surely, the daughter of the shadow fae leader would follow in her mother’s footsteps and honor the old alliance between our families once again.

But you did not," I admitted softly, watching the winds pick up and the watery seas rise—Wrath's reprieve waning.

Remnant flinched, her eyes defeated.

"Maedere, is brave and good. You should have never been angry at her, faedere." Riella glared up at me.

I smiled down at my fierce daughter and tapped her nose. "You are so right, my cub. There is no fae more brave and good than she." I winked, "besides you that is."

Riella gave me one last narrowed look before nodding in a satisfied manner, turning back to the shadows to pet them.

I chuckled and then glanced back at the worried expression on my soulmate’s face. Smoothing out the wrinkles between her brows, I planted a kiss between them. "Worry not, little umbra. My anger and resentment was short-lived."

"What changed your mind?"

" Natrix Drakaina… " I purred watching her expression, she gave nothing away.

"A silly title given by the dragons. You know this story already."

Gazing deep into her emerald green eyes, I whispered, "Now who is keeping secrets, little umbra."

She scowled and I laughed softly.

"I told you, that I knew you…all of you," I sighed, explaining, "Late one evening, just days before my departure, I received word from a fae I had thought had been slain in battle.

He wrote to me saying that he could no longer live with the guilt anymore and that I had to know that he was alive…

that so many of my people were living in Faerie's soil under your protection. "

She inhaled, "He shouldn't have been able to. It was part of the vows they had to take."

"It was in an ancient language…one I had not recognized before and took me more than a day to decipher. It was in dragon tongue."

Remnant frowned, “Still impossible. He would have died from breaking that vow before it even got to you."

I grinned at her, "Not if it was written by a dragon."

Her eyes widened and then she cursed looking away. "Damned fae and their word games."

"I thought it was a trap at first honestly. Then Bane came to me. Asking me to investigate the rumors of you being a traitor to the throne and that you had disappeared. Then I told him about the strange note I received."

The rising wind blew her hair across her face. "Bane vouched for me."

I arched a brow at her, "Of course he did. He loves you. It's why I haven't killed him yet. After that I was captured and we both know how the story goes from there."

She shivered at the growing cold. "I stayed away after Morta, I feared what I would do, but I often wondered…"

"They are well and to this day, vow they owe you a life debt.

" Watching her eyes widen at my admission, I arched a brow at her and smirked, "I searched for you for almost one hundred years…

you didn't honestly think I left a single blade of grass or grain of sand unsearched in Faerie during that time did you?

Of course I checked on the shifter fae of the Southern Mountains. "

She shook her head, "The dragons would have killed you on sight."

"My love…there is but one thing that holds more value to a dragon than even their treasure."

Riella held her hand up and exclaimed, "Their mates! Shen Shen told me that the mating bond is the most valuable of all treasures and should be protected at all costs."

I grinned proudly down at my daughter. "Yes. My cub. Their mates."

Riella turned her wide swirling emerald and gold eyes up at me. "Do you think I'll have a soulmate one day faedere? One like you and mother?"

The pookah's red eyes popped open again and glared at me, its ears twitching stiffly.

"There is no fae in this universe that deserves you…

no beast either." I glared over at the damned rabbit and noted my daughter’s lip forming into a tiny pout.

"But I have no doubt you will be loved by many and perhaps one of them will be your soulmate," I choked out, the words distasteful on my tongue.

Remnant's eyes sparkled at me knowingly and I scowled.

Riella beamed. Her eyes already falling into a daydreaming space, and I prayed vehemently to the goddess that it would be a fucking millennia before such a truth became a reality.