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I passed cell after cell where the inhabitants were scooted so far into the dark recesses, the flickering torches showing flashes of a white, spindly leg, a stick-thin arm. Eyes glowing from the shadows. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female or even alive.
“Anaria?”
I was plastered against the bars of the cell before I even knew I’d moved, shoulder shoved into those iron bars so hard it hurt, my hand stretched out as far as I could reach, toward the darkness where two pale eyes glowed.
She was alive. My mother was alive.
“Gods…how can you be here?” Her ruined fingers gripped the stained floor as she pulled herself toward me, emaciated body scraping horribly on the rock, her clothes little more than scraps.
My head emptied out.
In that split second, I mourned. I raged. I burned from the force of emotions warring within me.
But in the end, I cried, falling to my knees when her hand finally—finally—slipped into mine.
“You don’t have your collar on.” Her pale eyes narrowed on my throat. “What are you doing down here?”
“I came to free you. To take you away from this place.”
“Silly girl, there is no escaping this place.” But she reached through the opening and brushed her knuckles down my face as Tavion approached, pity in his eyes, his scent wrapping around me like a blanket as if he wished to give me some comfort.
Adele’s gaze drifted to Tavion then narrowed, as if she half recognized him. “You came all this way for nothing. Just ask your friend, he’ll tell you.”
“I’ll find the keys,” was all he said, leaving us alone, as if he knew exactly what this moment meant to me.
My mother.
I hadn’t known the truth when I’d met her before, but I did now. Adele was my mother, and now that I’d found her and she was, impossibly, alive, I would not give up until she was free of this place.
I wanted to see her with the wind in her hair and the sun on her face.
I wanted to hear her laugh, her stories of a family I would never know. I wanted her so far away from this miserable city and everyone in it, most especially my father, that Tempeste would become a foggy, distant memory.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Adele’s pale-blue eyes shone fiercely. “You claimed the magic and now that prick will never get his power back.” Her smile turned vicious. “Maybe now he’ll finally die.”
“You were the reason I claimed the power. You gave me the courage to take it for myself.”
She nodded. “Good. I’m glad one of us was able to take back what we deserved.”
“Tavion will find the keys and we’ll get you out of this cell,” I told her quietly. After that…I was wise enough to make no promises.
“I can’t walk.” She peered out at me, nothing behind that gaze but a hollow emptiness that made me want to howl. I wanted to fix her, to piece her back together until she was whole. But it was not up to me to heal Adele.
After what had been done to her…I wondered if healing—true healing—was even possible.
“I know. Tavion will carry you.”
Her face scrunched up in concentration. “I know that name. I’ve heard it before.”
“You knew his brother, Julian.” From the other end of the hall, Tavion’s quick, sure steps faltered.
She settled back on her heels, her hands slipping from the bars, resignation and a little fear on her face. “Ah. You know who I am, then. Did Julian tell you about me?”
Did she evenwantto know me?
Adele had been trapped down here, all alone, since I was born. Maybe she blamed me for her imprisonment.
Maybe shehatedme.
