Page 120 of My Eternal Light

“No. Not this. Anything but this. Please,” he begged. “Just go get heika.”

She reached into her shirt. “Felix, go get Kendrick. Under no circumstances are you to enter this room. I will need you right here waiting for me, understand.”

Felix pouted. “I protect.”

She kissed the top of his head. “I will need you to protect my heart later. If Ryuu is this upset, it will be bad. You will have to share your light with me, but you won’t be able to if you see the bad thing, understand?”

“Okay.” He flew away.

She stepped forward and again Ryuu stopped her. “I need to see this, Ryuu. I need to understand.”

Ryuu stepped back to stand in front of her, tears in his eyes. “I would keep this from you.”

“I know. This is the rare and stupid occasion I need to be brave.”

Ryuu straightened. “Stay by my side.”

Together they walked into the cold room. Meryn looked around. It was like a mad scientist’s lab down here. So far, she didn’t see anything that would have Ryuu freaking out, until she saw the glass tubes. “Ryuu, what’s in those?”

She could tell they were pieces of the body, but she couldn’t identify what it was.

“I have an idea, but do not know for sure,” Ryuu answered.

“Our wombs,” the woman answered, lifting her baggy, shapeless shirt. She pushed down her skirt waist to reveal a jagged scar.

Meryn felt bile rising. “What?”

The woman walked over and placed a hand on the glass. “This one was mine.”

“Oh god, the kids,” she whispered.

The woman turned, and it was as if she was seeing her for the first time. “You have to leave, if they see you, they will take your baby.” It seemed like the longer she was around Meryn, the more she came back to herself.

“Ryuu won’t let them.”

The woman turned back to the large tube. “It’s empty now.”

“It will be years before we see our babies again,” another woman said, stepping forward out of the shadows.

“They grow, then they have to come out. Then the men put them back in again,” another said.

Meryn fought back waves of nausea. The women thought that the same babies were simply being taken out and put back in. “Your babies are safe now. They are with the queen,” she said.

All of the women smiled at the same time. “Then, is it over?” the first woman asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Can you set us free?”

Meryn nodded. “The front door is just this way,” she took the woman’s hand and went to pull her forward, but couldn’t budge her.

The woman’s eyes focused for just a second. “Free us, Meryn.”

“Please, no,” she pleased. “Please, let me take you back to Éire Danu.”

“Set us free,” she whispered again, laying her cheek against the glass.

“Meryn, are you okay?” Kendrick asked, coming up behind them.

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