Page 59 of Bound and Tide

He shook his head, gripping onto the earthen edge of the basin. “Is there someone else’s lifetime I should—”

“She’s long dead,” Birzuma said with absolutely no grief, and Xander knew there would be no more asking after the sister that apparently existed before him. “When I am here in the infernal plane, I can contact my spawn, among other things, not that you’ve listened to a damn thing I’ve said. At least you finally made it to a proper rift.”

Xander looked about, feeling the pressure of the cramped space. “You expected me to come here?”

“Well, I expected you to work on a summons, but the necessary astrological anomaly is still moons away, so I understand you seeking out a faster way to bring me back. I didn’t expect you to find a rift, though, as they’re exceedingly rare. I should say,”—she snorted—“I am impressed.”

As if she’d reached through the pool of noxscura and pat him on the head, Xander’s whole chest swelled. Impressed—she was bloody impressed. “I did travel three days by griffin, traverse a town of undead, and slay half a dozen Holy Knights to get here.”

“Just six knights and you look like that?” She scoffed. “You’re weaker now than when I had to rescue you from that crusade.”

He shrank in on himself and almost quipped that he wouldn’t have been in the middle of any crusade if she hadn’t translocated him to that Salwel Temple supposedly as a fifteenth birthday present and told him to do his worst, but kept quiet. She would only deny that was what happened, and if it did happen, it wasn’t that bad, and even if it was that bad, it wasn’t her fault because she simply didn’t mean for it to go so wrong, and really the only reason it went so wrong was because he’d been so terribly weak, and frankly he got exactly what he deserved, in the end.

Xander swallowed, focusing back on the importance of the rift. “Do you mean that you can cross over here? That you can be summoned through this pool?” He had not counted on that.

“Yes, obviously. That is why you’ve sought it out, is it not?”

Xander remained quiet a second longer than he should have, but a lie didn’t come to his lips quickly enough.

“You ungrateful little shit.”

Though her words stung, he couldn’t be entirely upset because in her admittance that she thought he was there to free her, she revealed that she hadn’t been privy to his conversation with Father Theodore. Gods bless you and that temple, holy man.

“Out with it!” she spat, a clawed hand flying through the air, and even though she could not touch him, he flinched.

His shoulders rose much in the way he imagined Costa’s might, heart racing. “I just wanted to talk!” That lie came much quicker because, gods, he could not tell her he was trying to sever their tie, could he? When she said nothing, he fidgeted because that wasn’t all, and they both knew it. “My hold of the noxscura,” he groaned, “it’s not…right. Even with you so far away, shouldn’t I be able to…”

“What?” She snapped her fingers, and the sound was like being struck.

The phantom pain forced out the truth whether either were prepared for it or not. “I just need to know if you’re keeping something from me,” he blurted. “It feels like…like you can give me the ability to do more. I mean, shouldn’t I be able to control my powers on my own, whether you’re in a crystal or you’re here or…or there?”

Birzuma’s head cocked, black brows rising. Dark eyes appraised him, and he hated it, not needing to hear the things she was thinking to know none of them were good. “The reason you exist, Xander Sephiran Shadowhart, is to serve me.” But of course she was going to tell him anyway.

“I know, Mother, but—”

Her voice had gone low and cold, and the pit in his stomach bottomed out. “If you are not using the gifts I’ve bestowed upon you to bring about my will, then you don’t deserve them. In fact, you don’t deserve life if you’re not living in service to me,” she went on as if it were so simple. “I sought out a human powerful enough to make you into what you are. I debased myself to lay with him so that your wretched human half would be minutely less pathetic than it was bound to be. I carried you, birthed you, cared for you, which was not easy, not with that disgusting humanity running through your veins. You required so much attention, constantly screaming, crying, demanding food and clothes, but I did it! I did it all, and I sacrificed everything for you!”

He’d heard those words before—each time he had ever dared question or defy her as a child flashing through his mind—but the truth made him want to curl up and die nonetheless. “I’m sorry.”

“And this is how you repay me?” she snapped, the lines of her face darkening. “Telling me that you believe you deserve unconstrained power over the noxscura with absolutely zero concern for the source of those powers? You would selfishly hoard the arcana I’ve given you and leave me here to rot? Have you no shame, Xander, for your total lack of loyalty to your own mother?”

Xander’s heart felt as though it were being squeezed in a griffin’s talon. He was miserable and horrible and all of those things she’d always said because it was true—she had given him everything, time and time again, fed him, clothed him, rescued him, and what did he want now? To be free of her? “No, that’s not—” Xander choked on the sob that threatened to spill out, but a tear came anyway.

“Darkness, and now you dare to cry?” The disgust was thick in her voice. “Can you not spare me this? You cannot guilt a demon, Xander, but you can enrage one. Contain yourself and those useless emotions or I will beat them out of you.”

He wiped quickly at his face and nodded, the fact that she shouldn’t be able to touch him totally lost. Willing away the tears and the shaking breath he wanted to take, he stared hard at the ground. The chamber felt so incredibly small then, pressure on his back and his chest as the noxscura buffeted the basin’s edges. He had to get a hold of himself—he just had to—or she would leave him down here, locked away in the darkness forever, alone.

“This is because of that halfbreed, isn’t it?” Her voice had lost its irate vigor but was even more frigid.

Xander couldn’t yet form words without his voice cracking, but he did hum out a questioning sound.

“The mongrel you’ve been sticking your cock in,” she spat.

Though his breath felt as though it had been stolen, Xander lifted his head and managed to whisper, “Red isn’t a mongrel.”

“She isn’t a purebred elf, not that that’s much better, but her blood is clearly tainted with human. What else is she but a worthless halfbreed?”

The weakness in his throat wavered. “Her name’s Evangeline.” And he was not alone, not really, not when she was in the world too.

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