Page 33 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

I glance at the bars that stab through the ceiling of the cell and then to where they jut upward from below, clamping unevenly and awkwardly in the manner of a sea creature's great gaping mouth with rows upon rows of blackened teeth. Now thatI'm faced with her, with the truth of the fact that my God-parent is alive, all hope of her existence has been extinguished.

It doesn't matter that she's imprisoned. That she's obviously being held here against her will—otherwise she wouldn't be so poorly mistreated, so sunken and decaying in life the way a corpse should be. The fact remains that sheisalive, she has a heartbeat and has for a very long time.

Reacting in a way that makes no sense to even my own mind, I jolt forward and grab ahold of the bars. "If you're really my mother then tell me something," I hiss.

She blinks and turns her head to the side, though she keeps her gaze locked on me. "What is it that you wish to know?"

"Wherethe fuckhave you been?"

Her hands retract from the bars, but I squeeze them tighter. Back and forth, my desires crumble beneath the flame of my anger and then flare to life as embers are embedded into other yearnings I've kept buried for so long.

"Kiera," Ruen's voice is followed by his hand touching my shoulder lightly.

I shake him off, glaring at the woman on the other side. "Answer me."

Caedmon speaks. "Kiera, your mother wanted to find?—"

"Shut up," I snap, cutting him off. "I didn't ask you. I askedher. If she can't answer for her Gods damned self then she has no right to call herself my mother."

"You're angry with me," Ariadne says.

It's a statement that brings a ragged laugh to my throat, one full of vitriol rather than amusement. "Yes." I nod. “Iamangry.”

My spider queen comes to mind and I realize … the spider that came to my room before must have been sent by her. “You’re a spider speaker, aren’t you?”

The look on her face, the furrow of her brow, and the pursing of her lips say it all.

The laugh that bubbles up out of my chest is an ugly sound. “You led me down here, didn’t you? You wanted me to find you? What do you expect me to do now? Free you?”

“No,” Caedmon jumps in. “We cannot be freed, Kiera. Tryphone will know. She simply wanted to meet you and you’ve traveled down the path of this future course too far now to turn back. Her seeing you won’t change anything now.”

I ignore him and focus on her. “What do you want from me?” I demand. “What the fuck have you done for me? Where were you when my father died? Where were you when I was sold to the Underworld? Where were you when I was..."

Breathe.Fuck.I can't fucking breathe.

My head pounds, a loud clamoring inside my skull that reverberates throughout the rest of my bones. I shake where I stand. Even the fingers I have latched on to the bars, gripping so tightly that the jut of my knuckles turns my flesh even whiter than before are trembling with the amount of emotion rising within me.

"I wanted to be there," Ariadne insists.

One of her hands touches mine, her fingers sliding lightly over my digits. I rip them away and stumble back, nearly tripping over my own two feet. I would have were it not for Ruen who catches me and keeps me upright.

"No, don't fucking touch me," I spit at her.

Ruen grips my shoulders and leans down. "Look at her, Kiera," he murmurs. "It's obvious she doesn't want to be here. Don't you think she would have come for you if she could have?"

I bow away from Ruen's touch. He's right. His words and the pitiful look that Caedmon is sending my way make it clear that this woman, my mother, isn't a villain. Oh, but how I want her to be. If she's evil and wicked then that means all the pain I suffered, the torture and the agony, the loneliness and the loss—they weren't futile. If I'd had a mother—someone to find me aftermy father died, someone to care for me and raise me and love me—then she should have been there.

"I never wanted to be separated from you," Ariadne says, her voice choked with her own rising emotion. "Please know that, daughter-mine."

I heave in great lungfuls of air, but nothing changes. My chest constricts painfully tight. "She came to find you the night your father died," Caedmon says, his voice rising above the throbbing in my head and chest. "I stopped her."

My head pivots as if it's been pulled from my body and placed on a spike. "You ...stoppedher."

He nods. "There is a part of my power that allows me to reveal what I see of the future to others. It causes me great pain, but I knew if I didn't show her what I knew would happen were she to remain at your side, she would never give you up."

"I didn't give you up, Kiera," Ariadne says, slapping the bars with the flat of her palm until they vibrate. "You were mine. My daughter. My child. Iwantedyou. Henric..." She chokes out my father's name. "We both wanted you."

"I took you away when you were born," Caedmon continues. "I delivered you to your father and told him to keep you hidden."

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