Page 145 of A Blightress of Wrath
Iwatched in inescapable trepidation as he blinked slowly, his eyes a familiar blue as he gazed into my mother’s with the ghost of a smile.
Hiswords were barely audible, butIcaught them, spoken in a breathless rasp to my mother. “Ican no longer see.ButIheld on to hear your voice one last time, my love, my belovedKarus.”
Sheheld his withered hand to her cheek, whispering somethingIcouldn’t understand.Inthose moments of seeing my father for the first time in my life,Iknew they’d be his last.
“No,”Iwhispered.
Thevinsqueezed my hand, trying to pull me away, to pull me to his chest soIdidn’t have to see my father’s body, already more corpse than life, lying across from the wounded heart of the woman who was responsible for all of this.
Likea sliver, theBlightresshad festered her way into our lives since beforeIwas born and here we were, at the end of the line, the end of the story, no happy returns, no easy whisk back toFelgrenwhere my mother could love my father.WhereIcould love him, too.Hehad waited for us all this time.Andnow, he would die.
Shoutingsounded somewhere behind me, butIdidn’t care to look.Ididn’t care to turn and face whatever tragedy was next for us, only able to stare as my mother sobbed, her words ringing in clarity, her voice hard as she held my father’s face in her hands.
“YOUCANNOTLEAVEME!” she screamed, even as his hand went limp at his side, falling back to the hard stone in a slap.
Drip.
Screams.
Drip.
Boom.
Myname was called somewhere next to me, time moving slowly, asThevinslid behind me, pressing on my back to face whatever terror he’d seen.
Istepped closer, unfolding my hand from his, following my boots across the rocks, only hearing my mother’s pleas.
“Youcannotgo,Revich.Youmust come home.Youmust come back and see your daughter.”Sherubbed his cheek, stained with her stream of tears. “I’vedone what you asked of me, so you must come home now.Youbreathe,Ibreathe.Youlive,Ilive!Thisis our fucking lifeline!Ourlifeline, damn you!”Shepressed her forehead to his and his eyes fluttered closed as she whispered, “Donot go whereIcannot follow.”
Drip.
Flame.
Drip.
Clash.
Shepressed her lips to his, holding his lifeless face in her hands.Inthe softest, broken words, she murmured amidst his last breath, “Ilove you still.”
Thelast words my mother would ever speak to the man she loved settled into my skin like a fatal wound across my heart.
Myfather was dead.
Mymother’s cry was anguish.
Thisbroken woman—my mother, my kind, loving mother who did what she could for me.Mymother, the bearer of the power ofBaron, leading forces, training magic wielders, building an army to withstand the power of theBlightressand keep me safe my seventeen years from all of it.EverymemoryIheld, every joy, and pain, and lonelinessI’dfelt,I’ddone in the safety of her glow—an endless green across the borders of the forest which fueled us.
Hercries did not stop, did not ease, nor did the pain that ripped through my body asIwatched my parents somehow love each other to the point of becoming broken things, forced into this path by the one power in this world who could have stopped it.
TheBlightresscould have ended all of this years ago.Shecould have ended her pursuit of me, of my mother, of whatever fury she’d waged across the isle, forcing her darkness into the earth and across the lives of many, killing, stealing, syphoning more power, more magic as her heart dwindled in this cave, weakened by my father set out to save us from the wrath she wielded.
Drip.
Bellow.
Drip.
Push.
