Page 26 of Secret Origins
16
If there was one thing good about the situation I found myself in, it was the fact that the pain from my broken body was gone. As a matter of a fact, I wasn’t sure I had a body in this place and time, although I still felt the girl holding me by the throat. Weird, and unsettling to be sure.
My attention was pulled to the two large thrones made of dark green stone speckled with black dots and yellow lines twining through it at random places. One was taller than the other, both of them with dark red pillows positioned on the seat. Six large rock stairs led to the raised dais, a runner a shade darker than the blood red floors covering the middle of it and going all the way across the room to intricately-carved double doors. Statues about ten feet tall of a creature covered with a cloak holding a pointed spear stood on either side, the face covered with a wide hood. At least I assumed it was statues, but the slight shifting of the fabric said otherwise.
I chose to ignore that face for the sake of my sanity.
Everything else was just like the previous room, shiny black stone walls rising high enough to prevent anyone from seeing the ceiling, and blood red stone with winking specks covering the floor. The air was different here, tension and expectancy that would’ve made me fidget if I had a body and that body was not broken thanks to the girl. I didn’t have to wait long to understand why the room was charged with so much tension. The double doors crashed open, slamming on the walls an inch from the hooded statues.
A male, tall, regal, and dressed in dark red robes with a golden sash tied around his narrow waist rushed a female and a young girl inside the room. His golden hair with platinum streaks, very similar to mine in color streaming behind him as he darted from side to side before pulling the doors closed and tugging a metal beam across them. The female was dressed similar, but it was more like the other-side-of-a coin fashion. Her robes were gold and the sash dark red, her long hair darker than night falling in waves down to her hips. She clutched the little girl to her chest, bunching up the gold and red dress the young child was wearing as she pressed the small head to her chest like she didn’t want the girl to see what was happening.
I had the strangest urge to scream at them to leave the room.
“Wait and watch,” the creature who dragged me here whispered inside my head like she could read my thoughts, freaking the hell out of me. It was the same voice from my nightmares. “This is what you wanted, is it not?”
Trepidation left me mute, so I didn’t answer.
“This should hold them back for a while.” The deep voice of the male as he waved his hands over the doors to make runes flare over them soothed my heart, but it also broke it into a million pieces at the same time. My entire world stopped when he looked over his shoulder and revealed his face for the first time. “It won’t be enough to stop them,” he told the female.
“I should’ve known it was too good to be true. I should’ve realized Danu wouldn’t keep her word and leave us alone.” The female’s voice tinkled like chimes, surprisingly calm despite the horror tightening her pretty features.
“Mamaidh,” the young girl whimpered, clawing at her mother’s dress. That’s when everything I was trying to deny hit home for me with indisputable clarity.
The little girl was me.
Greedily, I absorbed my parents, trying to etch into my mind every little detail I could see. Until that moment, I never knew how starved I was to at least know how they looked. The body I couldn’t feel was on fire, waves of heat wafting from the spot me and the creature were occupying. My mother’s face snapped in our direction, her eyes so much like mine darting around in search of something. I wanted to call out to tell her I was there, but no sound came out.
A serene smile tilted her red lips at the corners and her tense shoulders relaxed.
“Bi sàmhach leanabh.” Telling me to be quiet, she locked eyes with my father, and he rushed to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Bidh a h-uile càil gu math a dh ‘aithghearr.”
I knew she lied saying all would be well soon or I wouldn’t be here then, so messed up in the head I couldn’t think straight. The double doors rattled, sending a shower of the black rock surrounding them to pepper the blood-red floors. It was like a ram was slamming from the other side and trying to break them open. The young version of me screamed and buried her head in her mother’s stomach.
“I am ready. Show yourself,” my mother said calmly to the empty room.
“Is this wise, mo chridhe?” Hearing him call her his heart shriveled what was left of mine.
“I knew it would come.” She smiled at him with so much love it almost killed me. “I just did not expect it to be so soon.” The doors were blasted again, that time creating cracks like spiderwebs on the walls. “Go. I will join you shortly.”
I watched my father, helpless to stop or help him, as he walked up to one of the hooded statues. Bowing low, his long hair swept the red floors as he murmured something under his breath, then he faced it with his arms spread wide. The hood of the statue shifted, the hand holding the silver spear moving slightly to the side.
“I come freely. A life for a life.” His voice rang out strong and clear.
The spear glinted as it sliced through the air before piercing him through the center of his chest. He didn’t even make a sound, not even a gasp, but I was raging and screaming in my head. The doors bowed inward rattling the room again just as his body was engulfed in flames that reached for the unseen ceiling. At the same time, my mother shoved my younger self away from her, and I burst into an inferno, too. Both fires burned bright and hard for a long moment before blinking out. There was nothing left of my father.
I tried to understand what I was seeing, where my younger self last stood.
Me as an adult—just like I’d known myself to be as far as I could remember—was curled at my mother’s feet. A tear trickled down her face as she looked at me, but she didn’t reach for me. The creature that brought me here popped out of nowhere, creeping closer to my mother in the same gingerly fashion she did when I first met her. Again as a young girl with those freakish eyes.
“You will protect my child,” my mother said without looking at the creature.
‘You know what you have to do,” the creature answered, greed sparkling in her gaze.
“I do.”
“That is not all.” The young girl licked her lips and rubbed her bony hands together. “I will need a stone from your throne as well.”
“Mine and my husband’s lives are not enough?”
