Page 113 of Riftborne
I nodded. “I leave for Stormshire in half an hour.”
Another moment of silence passed.What was I doing?These might be my last moments with Ma, and I was wasting them. She needed to know. She needed to be able to prepare herself in case we lost control of the West. In case I died.
I walked towards her, eyes pleading.
“I know you don’t understand this Ma. I know you don’t agree with it. I know you’re terrified about what's next for me. But I’m going to tell you something. Something I hid from you, something that might make you see me differently.” My voice cracked, but there was no time to waste.
“The night of the celebration in the Grove, remember how I told you I channeled?”
Ma nodded slowly.
“I didn’t just channel. I lost control. I nearly killed two girls.” Tears were pooling in the corners of my eyes.
Ma stared at me, her mouth quivering. She began shaking her head, “No… Fia, you couldn’t have… I mean…” She looked down.
“General Ashford was able to get healers to them in time, but they were on the brink of death. If it weren’t for him, I would have their blood on my hands.” I steadied my voice.
“That’s why I joined the Guard. I couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to you. Or Osta. My control had become so weak. I was losing my temper over simple things. It was only a matter of time before I…”
Ma continued to look down. “I could never understand why you did it… It never made sense…” she said quietly.
Her eyes shot to me. “You should have told me, Fia. Maybe then I would have understood. Maybe then, we wouldn’t have spent the last few months…” she trailed off, losing her voice as a tear ran down her cheek. “We would have had more time,” she whispered.
“I was scared you would see me differently. I would rather you disapprove of my decision to join the Guard than see you look at me with horror in your eyes.” Tears fell down my cheeks.
“Nothing you could do would ever change how I feel about you, Fia. You’re... Well, you always have been… my kid. Ever since you walked in here with that unruly hair. That first day six years ago. I saw the sadness and emptiness in your eyes, and I knew. We were the same. Two lost people looking for our place in the world. And we became each other’s place. Each other’s home.” She reached out and took my hands in hers. They were more calloused than I remembered.
My chest heaved from the relief of her words, and guilt formed a lump in my throat.
“I’m so sorry, Ma. I’m so sorry I left you all alone here.” I could feel the sobs building in my gut.
Ma pulled me in and hugged me, wrapping her arms around me tightly as I sobbed into her shoulder. We stayed like that until my body calmed.
“What is happening in Stormshire?” she asked cautiously.
“There is a threat… a sort of enemy. We don’t understand everything about them. But they’re from another world. And they’re lethal.” I took a deep breath.“I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this, but I can’t leave you unprepared. If we fail to hold them back… they will come for Luminaria,” I said.
“We believe they can kill in many ways, but they’re preferred method is suffocation. They literally rip the air from your lungs.” I winced, remembering the night before.
Ma was still staring at the ground, her eyes wide.
“Is there any way to destroy them?”
“We don’t know. But our best bet would be to survive long enough to find out. Without suffocating.”
Ma glanced toward the back of the room and scrunched her eyebrows. “I wonder…” she said, standing up and walking over to the back shelves. She paused in front of a set of vials with red contents. She grabbed them quickly and rushed them to her workstation.
“Fia, quickly. Grab the crushed whale bone,” she commanded.
Confusion washed over me, but I obeyed, grabbing the small, glass jar from the middle shelf. I walked over and laid it next to the vials she was now emptying into her cauldron. She reached for the powder, pouring it in as well, before leaning down to light the coals beneath.
“Ma, what are you doing?”
“I have an idea,” she said, stirring the cauldron.
“Ma, we really don’t have much time…” I trailed off as red smoke and the stench of seawater permeated the space around us.
“Ah, see? That didn’t take long,” she said as she used a ladle to scoop out the new concoction, pouring it into a small dish.
