Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Mother wasn’t dead,” Elowen explained softly. “Father and I were both certain she would awaken. But weeks passed, and she did not.” Pain laced every syllable. Pain that cut through me like a blade.
How gutted they both must have been.
“We remained with her, concealed inside the mountain. But royal soldiers finally found us. They had seen Morris fighting, aiding Mother, and believed he was the one who’d handed them the victory. Called him a hero.” Another smile, this one grave. “He took credit to keep Mother hidden. Then the king arrived with an order to raze the mountain. He also offered the hand of his eldest daughter to Morris.”
I didn’t have to wonder what happened next. “To protect Andrea, Morris agreed.”
Elowen laced her fingers with mine. “He moved into the palace with me and had Mother brought to the catacombs in a coffin.”
So Ian had told the truth about that. I leaned closer to her, desperate to hear more. Everything. “But the catacombs collapsed, too.”
“Not for several years.” She clung to my hand. “I hated life at the palace. I was the world’s second known water maiden. Red while others were…not. Always having visions I didn’t understand. I became a novelty and a freak.”
“I never really felt like I belonged in Kansas either,” I admitted. Or at college. And I’d never known why. Now, the truth couldn’t be denied. I’d not been of that world.
Elowen and I…we may not have grown up together, but we were linked. Shared similar experiences. Loved the same people.
She released my hand to flutter her fingertips over her throat, becoming a picture of guilt, shame, and regret. “Morris seemed to forget me, his life revolving around awakening Andrea. I just…I just wanted him to be my father again.”
“What did you do?” I asked, my throat tightening. Some part of me already knew.
“I yelled at him, begging him to let her go. To love me again. And I…my screaming…”
“What?”
“My screaming brought down the mountain.” The guilt and shame deepened, coating her features.
“You were a child,” I reminded her.
“Perhaps, but a falling rock killed him. He bled all over Mother. That’s when she awoke.”
Poor Elowen. Horror after horror. Saving one parent by killing another.
“We tried…” she swallowed hard. “We tried everything to revive him with the shells, but they don’t have the same effect on humans as water maidens. Flesh can be mended, but not revived. And the rocks kept falling. I knew we would die, too, if we stayed. We barely escaped through the water.”
I dragged in air, processing everything. In order to live, they’d had to abandon husband and father. How they both must have suffered.
“She was…not right after that.” Elowen shuddered as memories overtook her. “We lived deep in the sea for many years, and she was crazed for every one of them. A woman driven mad by visions. All that time she slept in the shells, she dreamed the future on repeat. Watched her husband die again and again. Saw the monstra rise the second time. Saw a daughter she was to have with another man. One who carried the Ember and saved the kingdom. Or destroyed it.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, simply breathing. In. Out. In. Out. As if oxygen alone could keep me from splintering beneath the weight of it all. So many secrets. So many lives braided through mine before I’d drawn my first breath. The question I’d carried like a stone in my pocket. What happened to my mother?
When I opened my eyes again, the world looked subtly altered, as though a veil had been pulled back, and I was seeing the bones beneath the skin of things. The prophecy. The Ember. Andrea. Morris. Elowen. Ian. Sin. Malkom. None of it had begun with me, but all of it had been waiting for me.
“You’ve protected me from others and even myself,” I said slowly, my voice steadier than I felt. “Protected our future.”
Elowen’s lips parted, surprise flickering across her features.
“And you’ve paid for it.” My chest ached, an old, familiar ache, now finally given shape. “With loneliness. With guilt. Watching me stumble through truths you already knew but couldn’t dare share.”
My sister inhaled. “I regret nothing. How can I? One day, Andrea came to me. Told me we could win the war. All we must do?” Bitter irony infused her tone. “Erase her memory, ensure she meets Ahav, and keep you out of Hakeldama for twenty years.”
“Oh, that’s all?” I quipped just as drily, then closed my eyes for a beat. “And the time loop? How did Mom start it?”
Confusion lit Elowen’s scarlet eyes. “She didn’t. You did. Or rather, the Ember in you. Though snuffed out in her, you absorbed it. Whenever you die, it resets time, and our memories, at your conception. Though I’ve noticed it’s dimmer every time we start again.”