Page 66 of From the Myths of Kings

With all the Order’s crimes coming to light recently, it made sense. If anyone questioned their authority or came to know the truth of their servitude to the Titans, they’d need to be eliminated. Her mother must’ve learned something truly significant if the Elders felt threatened enough to arrange an assassination plot. What knowledge had Eleyera unearthed?

Rook pieced together the same question, asking, “What did you find out? What were you trying to share with my parents?”

“I learned the truth. About everything. I learned that our kingdoms had been lied to.”

“You learned about how the Order of Elders has been trying to resurrect the Titans for centuries, didn’t you?” Saoirse asked, her mind racing.

Her mother leveled a grave nod, eyes flickering with surprise. “How do you know about that?”

“It’s a long story,” Saoirse replied wearily. It would take hours to describe how she’d made a foolhardy bargain with Selussa for the chance to compete in the Tournament. “I’ll tell you everything after we free you from this cell, but the crux of the story is that Selussa was set free and now she’s collecting all the Relics. We came to Terradrin to find the third Relic before she did.”

Her mother’s eyes momentarily widened with shock, but then they gleamed with pride as she surveyed Saoirse through the bars.

“Yes, we certainly have much to catch up on, don’t we? To answer your question, yes, I uncovered the truth about how the Elders summoned Selussa from Hel a hundred years ago and how her impersonation of Princess Yrsa spiraled into a war that nearly destroyed Revelore. But that isn’t all I discovered. I learned that the Myths of Old are not only real but that they are very flawed. Have you ever wondered why we stopped believing in the myths, wondered why we have temples scattered across the continent, and yet we see the old stories as archaic, irrelevant folklore? I discovered why the myths faded from memory and why Revelore forgot about the Relics over time. Think about it: if the Relics could be used to bring back the Titans, why weren’t they carefully guarded and kept in the vaults of kings over the centuries?”

Her mother paused, letting her questions hang in the air like the stalactites dripping down from the ceiling, threatening to pierce through elusive truths Saoirse couldn’t quite understand. Her mouth tasted of ash, her mind feeling sluggish as she tried to comprehend what her mother was saying. “I?” she started. “I don’t understand.”

Eleyera began cryptically, “We’ve been taught that the mythical sirens were deceptive and crafty creatures, willing to betray their allies in exchange for gold and treasure. This belief persisted so ardently over the years that the word ‘siren’ became synonymous with trickery. Many debate if sirens were even real in the first place, as though their existence was a mere trick of the Titans. They became as fantastical as the constellations in the night sky, half-myth and half-nightmare. The only stories we have of sirens have been tarnished beyond recognition, leaving only pieces of what they might have been like. But they play a part in this story, just like any of us.”

Saoirse’s mind was reeling, her mother’s words evoking shards of glass-like memories that didn’t make sense. What was her mother implying? Had she simply gone mad down here, her mind collapsing into unfathomable delusion? With isolation as her only companion, it would be easy to succumb to madness.

“But if you possessed such dangerous knowledge, why did the Elders keep you alive?” Saoirse asked, puzzled. “Why didn’t they finish the job when they’d discovered you survived? Why would they keep you imprisoned here all these years?”

Her mother pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Because I know more than the Order does. I discovered a truth that not even their ancient texts speak of. The truth was secretly recorded by Cira, the Mer warrior who took Basilia’s place as queen after the war. I found a series of secret writings between her and the Auran Oracles, who knew the whole truth about what the Four Kinsmen had done. And when I uncovered the real story, I destroyed her letters before the Elders could find them.”

Saoirse inhaled sharply as understanding dawned. “They spared your life because you’re the only one who knows what was contained in those letters. They’ve kept you here because Cira’s records would be lost with your death.”

Her mother gave a slow, unblinking nod of confirmation. “They’ve tried to torture it out of me, but I never gave up. After eight long years, they stopped the physical torture and mind games, instead trying to break me through isolation. I haven’t spoken to anyone in years. They thought that my solitary confinement would break me, but it hasn’t. I’ve been chased to the edge of insanity, but memories of you and your father kept me tethered to reality. The hope of seeing you again and protecting you from the Order of Elders has been the guiding light that I’ve clung to.”

Saoirse felt a burst of pride in her chest, punctuated by deep sorrow. Her beautiful mother, with her lullabies and her bold dreams of a unified Revelore, was the strongest person she knew. It broke her heart to imagine Eleyera’s unending suffering. The entire world had moved on from her death, thinking that her ashes had been buried in the earth. But in reality, she’d been tortured to the brink of insanity and endured more horrors than anyone could imagine.

Rook asked, “What truths do the Elders not know? What secrets were hidden in those letters?”

Eleyera looked between both of them, pale blue eyes glinting in the shadows. “We’ve been taught that there have only ever been four kingdoms of Revelore. But at the dawn of time, there were originally five kingdoms. The Four Kinsmen deceived us all. Everything we know about the Myths of Old is a lie. Even the Elders have been deceived?”

A grating sound suddenly reverberated through the chamber and the floor began to quake, interrupting whatever Eleyera was saying. Saoirse steadied herself against Rook as the cave walls rumbled. She looked down the tunnel they’d come from, watching in horror as the passageway writhed and opened new apertures and pathways like the cavities of a honeycomb.

“Larken is rearranging the labyrinth,” Rook shouted over the trembling rocks. “Our time is running out!”

The quaking stone abruptly halted, and the settling dust revealed newly formed passages that snaked out from the main tunnel in every direction. Along with the freshly created doorways, the rushing water had returned, bubbling down the first tunnel as though a cork had been removed. The water poured down the slanted tunnel with a soft shushing sound. Several inches of water lapped up their ankles and slipped in between the iron bars of her mother’s cell.

“Hel’s teeth,” Rook cursed as the water continued filling the small space, rising steadily up their legs like cloying rot. If they didn’t find their way out of the labyrinth soon, he would drown. “We need to get ahead of this water.”

Saoirse turned her gaze back to her mother, heart in her throat. “We can’t leave her.”

Rook cupped her face in his hands, regret and fear burning in his eyes. “The trial is halfway over. If we do not find our way out by the end of the game, Grivur will assume we died. He’ll send the underguards to retrieve our bodies. They’ll find out we discovered your mother and then we’ll all be killed.” He eyed the advancing tide, now gurgling over their knees. “And this chamber will be flooded in a matter of minutes. I cannot stay here. I’m so sorry, Saoirse.”

Eleyera stretched her hand between the bars, wrapping her fingers around Saoirse’s forearm. Fresh tears scorched trails of fire down her cheeks as she looked at her mother. Everything in Saoirse’s soul begged her to stay. There was still so much left unspoken, so many years they needed to make up for. She didn’t think she could bear to be separated from her mother a second time, to have her ripped away again as though the waves had returned her mother only to drag her back to its merciless depths. Saoirse couldn’t stop seeing the empty coffin they’d sent out into the sea, a vacant burial box she had nearly reached for as it sank beyond reach.

“I can’t leave you.” Her voice came out in a rasp.

“You must,” her mother countered, voice warbled as though it echoed from behind a wall of water. “You will survive this. Do not jeopardize your life for mine.”

The rushing tide rose to Saoirse’s waist, tugging insistently on her thin shift. There were so many questions brimming on her tongue, fighting desperately to get out. What truth did her mother learn? Why were sirens so important to the Myths of Old? What was the mysterious prophecy she’d spoken of?

Rook’s voice cleaved through her chaotic mind as he said, “Saoirse, I’m so sorry, but we need to leave.”

A cry lodged in her throat, and she nodded numbly, taking a step back from the iron bars. She felt Rook’s fingers twine around her own, but her eyes never left her mother’s mournful gaze. Saoirse swallowed down the knot of questions on her tongue, forcing herself to continue stepping away from her mother’s cell.

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