Page 51 of Queen Takes Rook
“Can you read it?” Guillaume asked.
I stepped back and scanned the walls quickly, looking for where to start. The shorter wall including the door had a large pyramid with the crescent moon hanging over the top of it, so I started there. “Blood of Isis. Upon this House She builds Her future.”
I moved to the next wall. This one was painted with a large volcano, with streams of lava flowing down its sides. Underneath, a man’s chest and upper body rose up out of what looked like a nest of large serpents, heads flowing out along the ground in place of legs and feet. “Lo, Father of Monsters, look down from Heaven and see what we have wrought.”
The third wall was one long passage. “We loose chaos upon the world. She brings blood. She brings magic. She brings justice. She walks with paws, slithers with scales, and flies on mighty wings. She cries out with flames and the dead rise to do her bidding. The grave is hers to command.”
That sounded too much like my dream of Coatlicue. I swallowed hard, pushing away my fear of which loved one I would lose, and stepped to the next wall.
“What she takes, she loves, and what she loves, she keeps for all time. Blood flows from the Mother through the Great One to our Daughter of Chaos. Burn with fire. Kill with shadow. Bleed to punish those who have turned aside from the Mother. Rise, Daughter, and blot out the cruel Sun. Fly, oh dark wings. Run, oh silent feet. Bite, oh wicked fangs, and mark the souls of your dead. Walk the ways cloaked in Shadow seeing all. Rise.”
Mehen grunted sourly. “Well, that’s as clear as fucking mud.”
This door had been locked at my birth—yet she described me so well it was scary. I did burn with fire. I did only take Blood that I loved, and once they were mine… I wanted to keep them for all time. I certainly flew on dark wings, whether as the wyvern or the winged jaguar I’d gained in Mexico. But marking the souls of my dead… Did she mean like I’d bitten Rik as the cobra queen? Or something else? Did I have to do that to each of my Blood? Kill them… to mark them as mine?
Shaken, I turned around to look at the sunken tub in the floor. It was big enough for several of us to fit in comfortably, like a whirlpool, but I didn’t see any jets. I laid my hand on the low tiled wall and my ears roared. A vision from the past filled my mind.
Two women knelt naked in the water, both dark haired and dark eyed. Mom, the woman who raised me, had her hands on the other woman’s rounded stomach.
My mother. I hadn’t ever seen her face before. It was like looking into a mirror in thirty years, if we were human and aged normally. Gray streaked her hair at the temples. Lines bracketed her mouth and eyes, pain and exhaustion sapping her strength. I didn’t see great power shining in her eyes or written on her face, but I wouldn’t, at this point. She’d already given up her Blood and her power.
To have me.
All I saw on her face was wonder and love, even though I was killing her. She still smiled. “She’s almost here. You must take her far from our world.”
“No. She needs you. She needs her mother.”
Esetta gritted her teeth and leaned forward, straining. Blood swirled in the water. “She needs. Her freedom. Take her. Away. Let her fly.”
She pushed and strained, screaming with effort as I tore my way through her body. Yet she laughed with relief and clutched the squalling newborn to her breast. She held me. She let me nurse. She kissed my fuzzy head and whispered secrets to me.
She looked up and stared into my eyes as if I was there by her side, even though she held me as a baby. “Someday, you’ll come here and see where you were born. You’ll see how much I love you.”
She handed me to her sister. “Go. Take her. Take her now before I change my mind and damn us all to his fiery hell. Go!”
Mom fled with me clutched against her chest and the woman who birthed me sagged in the water, barely able to hold on to the side of the tub as she tried to climb out. Blood dripped down her thighs and pooled on the black tile. She hunched on her knees, her back shaking. I reached out to touch her, but my hand flickered through her image.
“Shara,” she sobbed. “My baby.”
Tears dripped down my face, my throat locked down with grief.
As before, her voice echoed in my head. Achingly familiar, because even though I’d grown up without her in my life, she had always been with me.
“Ra and his minions have distorted our power to the point that all women, whether Aima or human, have lost control of our bodies. Our power, our very lives, are at stake. They judge us amoral, twisted, and deviant, when the very acts of sex and giving birth show our connection to the Mother. She lives on in every woman, whether we choose to have children or not. We create love in the world. What greater magic can there be?
“And so Ra hates us, but he will hate you especially, daughter of mine. You were conceived in darkness and born here, where the Sun never shines. Always work your greatest magic in complete and utter darkness. Embrace that darkness. Embrace your nature. Revel in your hunger. Love your monsters. Because you are the beloved child of a god and a queen of Isis who died to set you free.
“Beware,”her voice thinned as if she whispered from a great distance.“You are not the only child born in darkness and kept in secrecy.”
20
Rik
Icarried her from the black-marbled bathroom and tucked her into bed. She clung to me, crying, but it felt as though the tears cleansed an old, nagging grief.
Daire started to climb onto the bed with us, but she shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. Not this time. I need to speak to Rik alone.”
“Of course, my queen.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead and filed out with the rest of the Blood. Someone had turned down the blinds, and the room was dark and cool.
