Chapter 10 The Mother of Shadows
The smoke from the burned houses tasted like copper and ash. I stood in the middle of the street where I used to play as a child, but I didn't feel like that girl anymore. The black wings on my back twitched, heavy and cold.
"Mother?" I whispered. My voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from a deep well.
The woman standing before me looked like the mother who had taught me to weave. She had the same tired lines around her eyes and the same gray streaks in her hair. But her eyes, those twin pits of endless black, told a different story.
"The girl I raised is dead, Eara," she said. She didn't sound sad. She sounded hungry. "She died the moment she put on that noble’s dress. You are a queen now. And a queen needs to make a choice."
She gestured with the silver dagger toward the cellar. I could hear the muffled sobbing of children. They were Weavers. They were my people.
"Kill them," my mother commanded. "Their fear will feed the mark on your arm. It will give you the power to tear down the Sun Palace for good. Isn't that what you wanted? Revenge? To make the nobles scream the way we did?"
I looked at the black sun mark on my arm. It was pulsing, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. Every time a child sobbed, the mark grew darker. It wanted that pain. It wanted to drink their terror.
I wanted them to pay, I thought, picturing Lady Seraphine and the High Priest. But not like this. Not by becoming the thing that hurts the innocent.
"I won't do it," I said, my voice growing stronger. I stepped forward, the silver-blue light in my left eye flickering against the black of my right. "Lower the knife, Mother."
"Mother?" She laughed, and the sound was like a thousand dead leaves skittering on stone. "I am the Shadow of the Moon, Eara. I am the one the Sun King’s ancestors couldn't kill. I waited twenty years in this filthy district, pretending to be a servant, just to watch you grow into this weapon."
She wasn't my mother. She was a spy. A ghost. A monster who had used me from the day I was born.
The betrayal hurt worse than the black mark. Every hug, every meal she had cooked for me, every time she had tucked me into bed, it was all a lie. She had been grooming a monster.
"You used me," I hissed. The black wings snapped open, throwing a shadow across the ruins. "You’re no better than the Council."
"I am much worse," she smiled.
She lunged. She was fast, faster than any human. The silver dagger aimed for my throat, but I caught her wrist. The black mark on my arm flared, and a shock of cold energy blasted between us.
We crashed through the wall of a ruined cottage. Dust and splinters flew everywhere. I pinned her to the ground, my hands shaking with a violent urge to snap her neck. The mark was screaming at me to kill her, to taste her blood, to let the darkness take over.
"Do it!" she taunted, her black eyes mocking me. "Give in to the Void! Become the Queen of the Dead!"
"No!" I roared.
I didn't use the darkness. I reached deep inside, past the black sun and the ice, to the tiny spark of starlight. I used it when I was a simple weaver. I imagined the threads of the silk. I imagined the way the light felt when it was soft and kind.
I wove a cage of pure silver light around her. It wasn't a weapon of death; it was a web of peace.
She screamed as the light touched her. The black oil began to leak out of her pores, evaporating into the air. "You fool!" she shrieked. "You can't hold the darkness back forever! The Shadow-King is coming for his bride!"
With a final burst of light, she dissolved into a pile of black ash. The silver dagger clattered to the floor.
I slumped against the wall, gasping for air. The black wings vanished, and my vision returned to normal. I ran to the cellar and pulled the doors open. Six children huddled there, staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.
"It’s okay," I whispered, reaching out a hand. "I’m Eara. I’m going to get you out of here."
They didn't move. They looked at my arm, at the black mark that was still there, waiting.
"You're the monster," one of the boys whispered. "The King’s monster."
I felt a sharp pang in my chest. I had saved them, but to them, I was just another nightmare from the palace.
Suddenly, the ground shook. I looked up to see a line of golden fire moving through the streets. Solis was coming. I could see his golden hair shining in the dark, his guards following him with torches.
"Eara!" he shouted. "Where are you?"
I wanted to run to him. I wanted him to hold me and tell me it was over. But then I looked at the children. If Solis found me like this, the Council would find me too. They would see the mark. They would see the children’s fear. They would use it as an excuse to burn the whole district.
I had to leave. I had to find a way to kill the mark before it killed me.
I turned to run into the shadows, but a hand grabbed my shoulder. It wasn't Solis.
I spun around and saw a man in a silver cloak. He wore a mask that looked like a crescent moon. He held a staff that hummed with a power I recognized.
"The Weaver districts are no longer safe for you, Princess," he said.
"Who are you?" I demanded, pulling the silver dagger from the floor.
"I am the one who actually saved you from the palace twenty years ago," he said, reaching up to remove his mask.
I gasped. The face beneath the mask was exactly like the man from the throne room, my father. But he looked younger, and his eyes were full of a desperate fear.
"That wasn't me in the throne room, Eara," he whispered. "That was a trap. And the man you just saved... the king... he isn't Solis anymore."
I looked back toward the golden fire in the street. "Solis" was standing there, looking straight at me. He smiled, and for a split second, his eyes flashed black.
"Run," my father said, grabbing my hand. "Before he eats your soul."