Page 31 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

A blessing and a curse.

“Who are you?” she asks.

I blink and realize that my tears have caught her attention. Her features are tight as if she’s trying to be intentionally impassive. Reclining against the wall at my back, I ignore the aches and pains of the future my body will endure as I take her in.

“You know who I am.”

Her brow furrows.

I have so many questions. So many wonders. I part my lips to ask them, but the room disappears once more into mist.

I’d curse Caedmon if I knew it would do any good, but it won’t. There’s only so much he can share even with this connection of his.

A race of images pass through my mind. An older Kiera than the one outside my prison, laughing with her head thrown back, her arms around a man with white-blond hair. A younger Kiera, dirty and grimy, tied to a chair with blood running down her arms and legs. Tear tracks through the dust coating her cheeks. Kiera opening her eyes as sunlight spills into a lavish room, her face soft with rest.

More tears flood me. I once thought that there were only so many a person can produce, but it appears not. They never cease. They come and they come as I watch a whole lifetime for my daughter, one that does not include me.

She will live, Caedmon finally says.

She will suffer, I reply.

He is silent for a moment, but then,yes, she will suffer in both lifetimes, but at least in this one… she will live and she will eventually find happiness.

I close my eyes and find reality once more. My hand releases his and I open my eyes to see his face pinched tight. The pain of sharing his gift has already begun.

“I can’t forgive you.”

“You wouldn’t have listened had I tried to tell you then,” he says.

“I know.”

Silence stretches between us and I offer nothing more. He’s right. I wouldn’t have listened, and yet … I still cannot forgive the choice he took from me.

Wind howls into the night and my spiders mentally reach out, their emotions full of confusion, of comfort.

“We must go soon,” Makeda says, breaking the silence.

Frowning, I turn to her. “What about you?” I ask. “Henric…” Even if I cannot see my child, there’s no reason she can’t go to hers.

There’s no outward betrayal of Makeda’s emotion, but a single golden tendril appears from beneath her cloak and wraps around her neck, lying against her shoulder like a beloved pet.

“It’s too late,” she murmurs. “If…” She pauses, glancing at Caedmon as if she needs his words rather than her own.

Caedmon understands in an instant. “She cannot interfere with Henric’s fate if the child is to live.”

Chilly numbness flows into my limbs. Caedmon’s knowing rests in the back of my mind.

If I go now to Henric’s side—our daughter will die. If Makeda goes, the same will happen.

So, here we are—two mothers losing their children both in death and in life.

My head dips. “I’m sorry.” That's all I can say. A thank you that I cannot truly express.

When Makeda speaks, her tempo is even, but her voice is full of biting woe. “I have watched him with her these last ten years,” she admits. “She is his joy and his strength as he is mine. My soul aches this night and it will never again be whole. Still, I cannot take from my child the heart through which he lives on. Hewould make the same choice as you, Ariadne. He would choose her.”

I look up and meet her gaze of liquid-gold touched soil. “I do,” I whisper harshly. “I choose her.”

Even if it means I cannot ever know her.

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