Page 91 of The Rat King
Two thuds sounded which I suspected were the guard’s bodies dropping to the floor, before footsteps clicked across the stone. Fabric rustled as the intruder swished toward me.
“Hello, son,” Samara said, stepping into view. Her rich chestnut hair was piled atop her head and her big blue eyes softened as she stepped over me. While one could tell she was older by the way she carried herself and the definition of her features, hardly a line etched her smooth creamy skin, the only trait I seemed to get from her.
That and we shared the same defined jaw and pointed chin. I knew it made me look severe, but on her it gave her a delicate edge.
Otherwise, I had my father’s hair and eye coloring, and Xavier had gotten hers. A slim hand brushed from my temple down to my cheek, where her thumb gently caressed.
What do you want?I thought, hoping somehow, she could hear me.How could you dothis? I screamed internally.I won. I beat you and you still couldn’t let it be.
I wanted to rail and rage and cast her down. As soon as the curse had been broken, I should have rallied the warlocks and gone after her. That was a mistake I wouldn’t make again. If I ever get out of this.
“You should be dead,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. I watched her as she petted my hair and traced every scar with the pads of her fingertips. “You’ve become quite the man despite everything I’ve thrown at you. Maybe you are just more deserving than me.” She gave a dramatic sigh as a single tear threatened to tip over the edge of her eyelid.
Why are you here?I asked again, though I knew she couldn’t hear me.
She leaned against the bed, over my body, resting her hand on the other side of my chest and brought her face down enough so we were eye to eye. “I’m here to say goodbye,” she said.
So, she could hear me.But, why? I don’t understand.
“All I ever wanted was to be a mother—”
You could have stayed in your plane and done that, I thought, interrupting her.
She huffed and gave me a knowing smile. “I wanted sons. I wanted powerful, beautiful sons. Have you ever wondered why the witch and the warlock planes are separated? Why we don’t breed?”
I had wondered this, but I cleared my thoughts to allow her to continue.
“All you have to do is consider the power you hold, son. You are my legacy. You are everything that I was trying to create. You allow yourself to be held back by what is known about the warlock’s power, but you also carry the power from my blood. If you wanted, you could move between planes and even take your new wife.”
That is why you didn’t let me die? You could have let me die and had another son.
Sadness eclipsed the vision of the future in her eyes. And I felt perhaps I understood where it was coming from. And then I knew. I knew what she was planning. “No, Nighval. You were the goal. You were the child I wanted to have. You may not have known it, but I’ve spent years watching you and no other son could replace what you are.”
Her words twisted the long forgotten knife lodged in my chest. In that moment, it seemed we shared a lifetime of regret, caused by the prejudice of my well-meaning father, and my vicious, vindictive mother.
“I spared you, you know.”
From what?I mentally hissed.
“Heartbreak. I believe your wife sees every part of you, the goodness, and the flaws. Everything that you are, and she loves you for it. I’ve seen it these last two months as her heart has broken for you. I loved your father. I know he painted me to be a monster, and maybe I am, but you’ll never experience the loss that I did. That is what I spared you from.”
In a strange way, I understood what she meant. She honestly believed that her curse which turned me and the rest of my people into monsters had somehow protected me and my heart. The woman was mad. Cursing an entire people to protect her child was an insane thing to do, not to mention she’d apparently found a way to spy on us all this time. And she was lying to herself if she denied the role vengeance played in her actions. Still, her words gave me a brief insight into what it would have been like to be raised by a loving mother. The type of mother Avery would be to our children.
I had been meeting with Samara. Eventually, if she would have behaved appropriately, I might have even brought Avery to meet her. This was her fault. She was the one who couldn’t control her temper. My anger boiled to the surface.
None of this would have happened if you hadn’t stolen my wife away and turned her into a rat.
Her sadness transformed to fury in a blink, and she grabbed my cheeks, pinching them between her fingertips. “None of this would have happened if you invited me to your reception.”
Power corrupts, I thought before I could think better of it.
“What?” she asked, knitting her eyebrows.
You asked me if I knew why the planes were kept separated, so, I answered you. Power corrupts. And somehow, you got too much of it.
As I thought the words, her expression seemed to tilt, not just the angle of her head, but like I had shattered something inside her. Or set a truth free. We stared at each other for long moments before she said, “Yes. Perhaps that is true. I hope you will wield yours better than I have mine.” She stepped away and brushed her hands down the front of her dress, smoothing out the fabric.
“Goodbye, son,” she said, and a crackle bit through the air and she evaporated into a mist.
