The Her is his Mother
When Slade and I reach the Grotto, I come to a grinding halt. Because I’m
not doing this. I’m not going inside and stewing in questions. The old
Auren would’ve done that, would’ve been too nervous to bring the subject
up. But that’s not me anymore, and Slade isn’t Midas.
He stalls next to me. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not going inside,” I tell him, chin tilted up, steel in my chest.
“We’re not?”
“No. Turn around and lead the way,” I say, hand gesturing toward the
outside.
“Lead the way...to where?”
“To her.”
“Auren, what you heard...” His words shred into frustrated scraps.
“I know what I heard. And you and I...there are still a lot of secrets.
So many things we don’t know. But I’m not going to just go inside and
fester, waiting around until you think I’m ready to hear what you have to
say. So take me to her. You said past, present, and future, right?”
He sucks in a breath, but I look him in the eye without faltering.
Because the only way to walk a new path is to stop yourself from using the
same stumbling stride.
Even if his present is as shocking as a living corpse.
Even if his past might break my heart.
Even if his future isn’t guaranteed.
Emotion drips thickly down my throat, clinging to the back of my
tongue. “I won’t ever again give myself to someone who doesn’t give
himself back to me. So if there’s someone else here…I need to know about
it.”
I see his throat bob, his eyes flicker. This is a split in the path. He
knows it, I know it. If this were Midas, he’d pick one way.
But Slade...
Slade picks another.
The ruling Guelfs split into the Black party and the White party. The Blacks favoured a closer alliance with the papacy, while the Whites were opposed to papal interference in Florentine politics. Dante supported the Whites, who prevailed, expelling the Blacks from the city. When Florence learned that Pope Boniface VIII was backing a Black invasion of the city, Dante was sent as the head of a diplomatic mission to Rome to intercede with the pope. When the delegation met the pope he dismissed them, sending them back to Florence. However, Dante was ordered to remain in Rome. In a concerted move, the Black Guelfs seized power in Florence with the aid of outside militia, and Dante was then tried in his absence. The Black Guelf Florentine authorities condemned Dante to exile for two years, and ordered him to pay an extortionate fine.
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...derinlerde dünyanın bir parçası olduğumu hissettim, geriye dönüp Split'teki o özel cuma gecesini düşündüğümde hala aynı şeyi hissederim. Hayatın hedefi ve anlamı acıları dengeleyecek bu türden pek çok anı biriktirmek olmalı, zor günlerde kaçabilecek böyle anlardan kurulu bir ev inşa etmeli insan kendine.
She came to her senses
Her chest heaves, and her body is so tense, like she’s a string pulled
too tight. She’s not going to listen to soothing words to get her to come
back to herself. No, what she needs is to snap.
Which is why I lift a hand, gesturing for her to come near. “You want
to fight, so fight me.”
That’s all the invitation she needs.
Auren sweeps her arms out to her sides, and the wave of gold behind
her splits. Then she claps her hands together, the gold moving to mirror her
movements, but I drop to my knees and roll before it can smash into me.
The focus of her fight is good. She’s not depleting herself like she did back
at Ranhold Castle, and her aura is holding steady, although, she’s also not
wholly herself.
But I know a thing or two about dual natures.
“Is that all you got?” I taunt as I leap back up.
She whirls around to face me, eyes blazing. The gold moves with her,
blowing her hair back, tightening in a cocked wave to hold itself in a
predatory stance beside her. With a curl of her fist, she sends it shooting
toward me, trying to squish me to a pulp. I leap away, but not without it
splattering all over me from the force of its crash. I see her eyes glow, her
jaw tighten, and I smirk in return.
She starts sending the waves at me again and again and again. Yet not
only am I fast, but I know her. I can read her every move before she makes
it, giving me time to anticipate exactly what she’s going to do and dodge the
gold before it can slam into me.
Each time she tries to pin me down, I slip away out of her gold’s
grasp, chuckling as I circle her. The gold keeps up with me, sloshing against
the ground, arcing and twisting with my movements. Her irritation is clear
on the pull of her brows, on the way her eyes barely blink. But she is so
attuned, so fucking gorgeous like this,
Go then I am right behind you
“Stay back,” I call over my shoulder.
I lay Auren down on the cloak, the faintest traces of rotten lines
stretching up the veins in her neck. Her hair is spilled in a halo around her,
somehow gleaming even in the darkness. She looks so small with my cloak
tucked around her, so lifeless.
I kneel over her, immediately focusing as I snap my eyes closed. My
magic is there, clinging to her prone form like a poison. Unnatural decay is
slogging through her veins and withering the heart in her chest. It’s slinking
up her deteriorating throat, barred by her unmoving lips.
Tension rolls through me. Instinctually, I want to yank the magic out
of her as quickly as possible, but I’ve found pulling it out too fast is like
ripping a blade from a wound. I don’t want to do any more damage than
I’ve already done.
Carefully, I call the power back inch by inch so as not to shock her
system. Behind me, I can hear the murmured words of the rest of my Wrath,
uncertain footsteps shifting in the snow, timberwings chuffing at one
another, and thunder from the clouds we just departed signaling a cold front
blowing in.
I shove all of that away and keep my awareness on the magic
coursing through her. Like the roots of a weed, I drag it out as gently as I
can manage. Fingers dig through soil, removing the rotten stasis I buried
her in, letting her body reacclimate. I’m meticulous, lifting each bit of
corrupted patches like drying clay, ridding it piece by cracked piece.
Despite the biting air, sweat beads at my temples. My teeth clench as
I pull the power back to me, back to the recesses carved from my veins to
simmer in my own spoils. I get it all out of her, until there’s just one single
fragment left. One seed left buried in the center of her chest.
Yet when I call to it, try to unearth it from
Finally the confession
Slade’s hands hang at his sides, and something ripples
in his eyes. Something I can’t read. “What are you saying,
Auren?”
Everything.
I’m saying everything.
Because there’s no time. Because I’m supposed to
leave. Because he’s leaving too.
I take a deep, shaky breath. “All my life, I have been
coveted or bought or possessed because of the gold that
drips from my fingers and lusters my skin. I have been used
and kept, and I learned to accept that life. I learned to
accept that the best I deserved was Midas and that I
shouldn’t ever hope for more because I knew just how
much worse it could be.”
An angry look slashes across the shadows of Slade’s
face, his mouth pressing together above his stubbled chin.
My wet lashes drag against my cheek with every blink.
“But then you came along. And never, not once, has anyone
looked at me the way you do.”
He goes tense, breath bated to hear what I have to say.
There’s a long pause held between us, like hands cupping
water, desperate not to let a single drop leak out. “And
what way is that?”
“Like I’m a person instead of a trophy. Like you don’t
just look at me and see gold,” I answer honestly. “That’s
never happened before,” I admit with a sad smile. “You
challenged me to be more than what I’ve been made into.
You showed me how to see the world without my
blindfold.”
He shifts on his feet, allowing a slash of light shining
