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Going to break the news to my maman felt as if I were watching myself climb the stairs from above.

With new eyes, I took in my surroundings that I’d been accustomed to seeing every day.

I went past the many photographs of our family that lined the damask wallpaper, a mosaic of our happiest moments.

How blissful we used to be before my maman’s illnesses.

My fingers lingered on the wall, feeling the aged paper beneath my skin.

This house was where I grew up. Where I ran to when I had a good or bad day.

I knew it would always welcome me. But now?

It felt like this house was my past. A memory that was slipping through the cracks of time.

My parent’s room was down the hall on the second floor, the furthest door on the right, tucked away from where my brother’s and my sister’s rooms were located.

My room was on the third floor with a slanted ceiling and small balcony that afforded me a view of the city.

If you strained your neck, you could just make out the top of the Eiffel Tower.

And while our home was not large by any means, the walk to deliver the news to my mother seemed to take ages.

My feet feeling full of lead with every step.

“Pigeon is that you?” Maman’s frail voice called out from behind her door.

My stomach twisted into knots knowing that I was about to break her fragile heart. And after all the illnesses she’d fought off, I worried that the news would kill her.

I peeked my head into the door and found her laying on her side, wearing day old pajamas while tucked into her bed.

Her brown hair tangled in a messy braid, tucked to the side of her head.

There were several gray hairs that framed her oval-shaped face, accentuating the dull, sallow tone her skin had taken on.

I remembered a time when she wasn’t this way.

When she was full of life and her smiles came easy.

Her body was strong once, and her presence one of vivacity. Now a smile seemed to make her weary.

“My darling. Who was at the door?”

I winced. She sounded tired today. More tired than usual.

Cautiously, I ambled over to her and sat at the edge of the bed. Though it was clear she hadn’t showered, she still managed to smell of lavender. A comforting scent that always made me think of her.

“I have some news, Maman,” I said, taking her thin hand in mine.

A dark shadow was permanently etched under her eyes.

In this lighting, her skin had a translucent sheen to it, and her once bright green eyes now looked partially sunken in as if someone had pressed their thumbs to her eye sockets.

Her illnesses had wrecked her body and there was nothing conventional medicine could do.

The doctors said only a magical cure would be able to make a difference in her condition, giving her only six more months to live, if that.

While my father made decent money, we couldn’t afford the cost of a healer from the 1 st arrondissement where those who were lucky enough to possess magick resided.

Plus, many who acquired that power were forced to the battlefields to use their magick to heal what they could of the soldiers who fought to protect our city from being invaded.

While the gods were powerful, they spent a lot of their time squabbling amongst each other, resulting in nothing getting done, and our people suffering because of it.

My mother’s brittle bones squeezed around my hand and their gaunt like feel jarred me back to the present.

Gods, when did she become so thin? Was she like this yesterday and I just was too busy to notice?

By chance if I were to somehow make it through the games with my life, would it even be in time?

Perhaps winning the game was our only chance at saving her.

My tongue felt thick in my mouth as I attempted to form the words. “I was summoned today.”

Her face contorted into one of heartbreak like I knew it would.

Those green eyes of hers shimmered with tears dripping fat, wet splotches onto the cream-colored pillowcase below.

While my sister Marley was constantly annoyed at our Mama’s emotions being so close to the surface, I found it endearing.

Maman was the kind to feel things deeply and was never afraid to express exactly how she felt.

My thumb ran along her paper-thin cheek, chasing away the tears that have gathered there. “It’s okay. I’m— I’m going to be fine.”

“Odessa, I need you to hear me. I know that you like to keep to yourself. You tend to try and keep the peace, always doing what’s asked of you. You’re a sweet, kindhearted girl. And I love you. But I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to be ruthless, my darling girl. Be ruthless and unapologetic in how you need to survive. Come back to us, no matter what it takes. You have a strength inside that I don’t think you’re aware of, but it’s there, waiting for you to grab hold of it,” she began to cough fitfully, a slight rattle banging about in her lungs as she did.

Was this going to be the last time I ever saw my mother? I couldn’t accept that.

“Promise me that you’ll fight.”

How could I refuse her? “I promise, Mama.”

“Good. Come here and let me hold you.” And I let her.

I curled up against her small body as if I were a child once more.

To be honest, in that moment I needed her comfort.

Maybe that was selfish of me, but I don’t think you ever truly grow out of needing your mother.

I might have been all of two and twenty years, but the fear of what’s to come had me feeling vulnerable and small.

She fell asleep quickly, but I stayed listening to her shallow breaths, bargaining with the gods to give me more time with her. To walk out of Nocturne as a champion. I had to. I had to return, or my family would be losing us both soon, and I don’t think they’d be able to survive that.