Sometimes, I wonder what maman must have felt. Poised there in the Night Mother's tomb, with a blade over my neck. Choosing between the spirit she'd given everything to serve, or between the daughter she'd taken lives to protect.
I heard it, first, slow and silent as though we were moving underwater. The raise of the scythe, high in the air. The rush of wind as it came down. A whisper. Forgive me, darling.
If before all had been frozen, now it melted into a rush of movement. It seemed to happen all at once – a clatter of metal underneath me, a sharp, pained breath. Movement in the corner of my eye as mother stumbled back, hands empty, eyes wide. Stillness from the Night Mother, as she watched.
Was it blood that crept down my neck, or sweat?
My eyes met the scythe beneath me, fallen as though I hadn't been there at all. I blinked away tears, a hand to my throat – still whole.
What?
Soft laughter. "True loyalty. You hesitated – but I know too well what it is to hold the blade to your child. You would have followed in my footsteps, loyally, mercilessly." Praise, satisfaction swelled in the Night Mother's words. My mother stood still now, staring at me, then at her. Slowly her features softened and calmed as she understood, a hand moving over her chest, her heart.
Voices rang in my head, an echo.
"But you loved Sithis more. You chose."
"Yes."
"And - and you'll always choose Sithis."
"Yes."
"Come to me, daughter."
They embraced, and she was gone. A wisp of black, vanished, leaving me alone with her again, the scythe before me. I swallowed, over and over. Reassuring myself my throat was intact, even as I wished it weren't.
She'd chosen.
"I hate you!" I was on my feet, near flying, the scythe in hand. Clawing, striking at nothing at all, screaming and sobbing. Senselessly attacking first the ghostly sheen of the Night Mother, then the walls, then the grave itself. Wailing it, over and over. "How dare you. Give her back, give her back you heartless bitch, I hate you!" She stood and watched, unmoving from my blows and unmoved by my cries. She let me continue until I'd chipped stone from the walls, until my hands were red and raw from strikes and my throat raw from screaming and howls. Perhaps she would have said more – I don't know. Explained it, assuaged my pain. Made some sense of it all.
I didn't want sense, not then. I didn't want answers. I wanted my mother.
I fled. I don't remember running from the tomb, or Bravil – only reaching the swamps outside, first running, then trudging, then crawling through the slick mud. Flies stung and bit at my cheeks, reeds sliced against my reaching hands. The rain continued to pound down in sheets, thunder rumbling and groaning above me, seeming to shake the world under my feet. Whatever paths had been in the swamps were long washed away and swallowed by the rising water, the sky and horizon overpowered by towering, swaying trees and vines. I lost my boots in the sucking mud and continued on barefoot, dragging myself on until I couldn't dredge up the strength.
At last I collapsed under a tree. Or, what I thought was a tree – a flash of lightning showed stone, a face, but I was too exhausted to try and understand it. It was some shelter, something to cling to when the world around me seemed to drown.
As I sunk into the mud, eyes drifting shut, I thought I heard another voice. A man laughing, in my head.
The Night Mother, Bellamont, and now this. Just another in the endless stream of voices in my mind.
I slept.