Page 46 of Steeling Light
But she was also the mother of two very special children who had grown up to become wonderful adults who also fought for what was right in their own way.
On the day that she went to battle a god, Adelynne failed. She let doubt and fear control her. She let the nightmares in—and what mother doesn’t succumb to nightmares about what could happen to her children?
She fell instead of fighting beside her only daughter, and it was only when she felt the rays of moonlight fall upon her that she awoke from the nightmares Morvael had put her under. There, in the center of the Labyrinth, she rose as Lee’s silver light burned the God of Nightmares into nothing.
She watched as Ainslee pressed her lips to Rhion’s. She listened as her only daughter told him she never wanted to leave his side.
Adelynne Emlyn was a mother, first and foremost, and on this day, she understood that while she might have fallen during the battle, her daughter had found a strength she’d never known. She had found love, something that so few people ever find. Her daughter was happy.
And Adelynne’s heart was filled with a love so pure no darkness could penetrate it. Fear couldn’t find its way into her because she’d witnessed one of the few things she’d ever truly wished for.
Even when the darkness rose behind Ainslee, Adelynne didn’t falter. The despair rolled over and through her, but it could find no purchase. It all happened too fast for her to react. She was no warrior, after all, but the despair that had felled her previously could not affect her this time.
Blades made of a darkness so impenetrable there is no name for it formed from Morvael’s arms. Adelynne screamed at her daughter to warn her, but it was too late. She ran, but she was too slow. She exploded with light as she’d been told to, but it was not enough.
It was all too slow, too weak, too late. The black blades slammed down, one into Ainslee’s back and the other into Rhion’s chest. “YOU CANNOT KILL A GOD!” the creatures screamed, not noticing Adelynne at all.
She ran headlong at Morvael even as those black blades twisted in their victims, in her daughter. Fear could not take hold inside her because a mother’s love has many forms, and in this moment, it had become wrath. Wrath does not succumb to fear, nor pain, nor nightmares.
Adelynne carried no blades. She could not Steel her Light as her daughter had. It would not have mattered, though. A god cannot be killed with a blade.
At the exact instant that Morvael withdrew his blades from Ainslee and Rhion, Adelynne did the only thing she could think of. She wrapped her arms around Morvael and shone her light as brightly as she could.
It was an angry light that sought the darkness. Not to kill it. Not to destroy it. No, wrath is not about quick deaths and silent endings. It craves pain and screams and nightmares.
Morvael struck out at her. Streams of darkness exploded from him, becoming blades and hammers and every instrument of torment the God of Nightmares could imagine. They cut and beat the Countess of Light. They drew blood and left broken bones. Still, she clung to the one who had sought to kill her daughter. Still, the Light of her wrath surrounded him, eating at his darkness.
Morvael was right when he told Ainslee she could not kill a god. No amount of steel or Light could burn the last bits of Morvael’s power. No matter how much Adelynne wished to kill her daughter’s killer, she could not do so even as the Countess of Light.
But Adelynne Emlyn was not meant to be the Countess of Light. She was meant to be a mother, and a mother represents so much more than cheer. She is the one you seek when you are afraid of the dark. She is the one who cares for you when you are sick. She is the one who sacrifices herself in a fight with a god for vengeance for her child. She is a beacon of happiness.
And no one had worshipped the God of Nightmares for many, many years.
Everyonein Selithar had been changed by Adelynne Emlyn. She had brought light and hope to more people than Morvael had brought nightmares to in many eons.
Even as she gasped out her last breath, Adelynne whispered to Morvael, “You are nothing. The world has forgotten you, and now, all three of us will be dead. You will be trapped here. Forever. We have burned away all that you have gained. We have pushed your return back by a thousand years. I hope you love your cage because you’re never going to leave.”
For the very first time since he was imprisoned, Morvael felt a tinge of fear. And that was all it took for everything to change. The power of a god is not owned by the one who holds it. Morvael was merely a vessel of that power. In this singular moment, while she was filled with wrath, the power of Dreams found a better host.
Adelynne Emlyn was not bound to this Labyrinth. She had not been caught. She was not afraid. She had followers who would give it more power. She was everything it yearned for.
Faster than the blink of an eye, everything changed. Power rushed into Adelynne like a tidal wave, filling her to bursting. It was too much for her High Fae body, much as the power of the Painted Crown was too much for Maeve’s Wyrdling body.
The fibers of her being were shifted, expanded, and replaced until she could hold the power that filled her. Until she became more than a High Fae. Until she became a goddess.
That half second stretched out for eternity as her mind expanded, as her very soul was forced to stretch to encompass everything. She didn’t know everything and certainly had no true grasp of her powers yet, but she knew the world was far larger than she’d ever believed.
The godhood of Dreams was doing its own exploring at the same time, trying to find how it fit within her. She was not to be the Goddess of Nightmares, but that did not matter to Dreams. No, she did not relish cruelty and torment. She was a mother. She longed for smiles and laughter. Her soul was tied to the House of Light, and cheer and life gave her strength.
No, she could not be like Morvael.
The split-second ended, and she looked at her daughter and Rhion lying on the ground before her. Their chests barely rose and fell at this point. Rhion’s power had been drained completely by Morvael’s touch, and Ainslee did not have the power of her father, the ability to survive a deadly wound such as this.
But Adelynne, who was now a goddess, could help them. The power inside her yearned to see them smile and laugh again. It yearned to see themlive.
She knelt down beside them, her itchy fighting pants soaking up the blood that ran between them, mingling and becoming one. She pressed one hand on each of their chests, and power flowed from her fingertips to their broken bodies. Their flesh knit together as quickly as it had been torn asunder.
The newly made goddess watched as their life returned, as their chests rose and fell in a steady rhythm. She stayed there for a moment, the blood soaking her pants, and she watched them, knowing that it would not be long before they awoke. She could not be here then.
