Page 72 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

I draw back, trying to quell the shiver running the length of my spine. “Wield it?”

“Yes.”

“Not destroy the darkness? Not overcome it?”

Miriam’s tea is untouched. “He was clear. You must wield that darkness, Thyra.”

I can hardly breathe. “Did he say more? Some explanation, at least?”

“As he turned away, he said only one other thing. ‘One day, her mother will come to Ember looking for her.’”

I lean forward so fast that I spill my tea. “And?”

“I was to turn her away.”

No. I squeeze my eyes closed. “Why would he say that?”

But I already know the answer and I’m speaking the truth even as Miriam mirrors my words.

“I’m a danger to anyone who loves me.”

“You’re a danger to anyone who loves you.”

My shoulders slump, heavy. Hurting. “Did you? Turn her away?”

“I did.”

I try to breathe through my sense of loss, my hands closing hard around my teacup again, trying to grasp whatever I can. “Please… What was she like?”

Miriam reaches for her cup. Gulps the entire contents. She fills it again, this time purely from the carafe. She downs that too.

Her voice is now a rasp. “Your mother was pure fury.”

A glance at the other women’s suddenly pale faces tells me that fury might not come close.

“She came in shadows,” Miriam says. “Dressed in black. Mourner’s garb. Alone but unstoppable. A grieving mother who had found out her baby girl was alive, after all.

“Somehow, she got past our warriors in the east and reached the edge of the celebration that was being held for Maxim’s third birthday. Everyone was there, up on the sand dunes, under the light of the moon. Your mother was about to take out another legion of warriors, when the Mothers and I stepped between her and them, crying for her to stop.”

I can barely speak. “What happened?”

Miriam looks me in the eye as she says, “I have never feared for my life so much as I did in that moment. Your mother’s hands were dripping with these…”

Miriam lifts her own hands from the table, staring at them as if she can see it clearly still. “Black rose petals that turned to ash when they hit the sand, sizzling like acid. Sharp vines wound around her arms and waist. Thorny vines, drawing her blood. And her face was covered in a black veil.

“She told me that your trail led through the Ember Kingdom and she asked me who I was to dare stand between her and her child. I told her I was naught more than another mother, but that I would not help her find you.

“I was certain she was about to strike me down, but Maxim must have slipped free of his guard’s arms. He was only three years old. Fearless. A light in the darkness. Full of joy. Sucking his little thumb, even though it kept lighting on fire.

“He ran up to her even as we screamed. She looked down at him and all her fury…drained away.” Miriam reaches for the carafe again but sets it down without refilling her cup. “Somehow, that was harder to witness.”

I tug the carafe from Miriam’s frozen fingertips, filling my cup to the brim as far as it will allow. Swallowing the sweet liquid, I accept the burn down my throat and the syrupy calm that comes with it.

“She, too, had one last thing to say,” Miriam continues. “She said she would wait for you. You would come to her.”

“Too late,” I whisper. “My father foresaw her death when I was fifteen.”

“Ah.” Miriam falls silent. “I’m so sorry, Thyra.”