Blood-tied Lies

~Chapter 21~

The drowning darkness peeled away as warm, flickering light flooded my vision. The blurry glow softened and the world around me grew sharper until I could trace every detail on the ceiling of an expensively decorated room. Gold. Lots of gold curved into flowers and vines across the stark white paint on that ceiling.

My head turned and I stared up at my mother's face as she stared down at me. She looked younger, her face not as worn from years in the forest chasing after Ananta and me. Her amber eyes shone in the light of the chandelier suspended from the ceiling by a gleaming, golden chain. There were no shadows in those eyes. None, because this was before we left the High Kingdom. Before my father ruined our family.

I hated him. I wished he was dead. My mother had finally narrated the story I'd longed to hear for so many years and I was grateful that she told me but now I couldn't shake the feeling of resentment and anger toward my father.

My mother was softly humming a lullaby, gently rocking back and forth. The beautiful melody and the warm breeze that floated into the room were enough to make my eyelids heavy until I couldn't keep them open anymore. While my eyes remained closed, my head was spinning with ideas. If I wasn't seeing through her eyes, then I must have been looking through my own. It would have had to have been years ago when I was only a baby and the lavish room suggested this was the same wealthy household from my earlier dreams. Perhaps my father had been a wealthy lord in order to afford such an expensive house.

A loud thump startled me and my eyes shot open. My mother hissed as she glared at whoever was repeatedly apologizing. When they left the room, she looked back down at me and smiled weakly. "I'm sorry about that," she said. "Shut your sweet eyes again my little princess." She turned her head toward what I assumed was the door and cautiously glanced around us. When she appeared satisfied that no one was around, she waved her hand and light sparks shot up toward the ceiling. Like every time I'd seen this before, swirls of blue and purple glittered in the dark dome that expanded into a starry night sky.

I'd had this dream many times before, but this one was clearer, longer, and the uneasy feeling that this wouldn't end well crept over me. Still, I couldn't help but marvel at the twinkling stars that looked down upon me. Such joy and happiness here and it was peace that made my mother's shoulders relax. Peace that allowed her smile to reach her eyes. Her calm demeanor hid no worry, so at odds with the smiles I saw on her face now that masked her lingering pain and bitterness.

I heard the door open and my mother whirled around, the starry dome vanishing with a quick wave of her hand.

"Astra..." that familiar male voice trailed off.

"Actaeon, I- I can explain." my mother stuttered.

The name was like a punch in the gut and I knew then where I was.

"You lied." His words were quiet and shaky.

"Actaeon, please..." my mother's plea was no louder than a whisper.

"You lied to me, to my family, to everyone in this kingdom! You're a liar and a traitor and-" He stopped and my mother held onto me a little tighter. "Is she... like you too?" A careful question in the calm before the storm.

"I don't know," my mother replied.

Silence. Utter stillness and I could feel the tension in that room. I shuddered when my mother at last spoke. "Say something. Please."

"Get out," he said.

My mother didn't move.

"I said get out! Go! Leave and never come back." His tone was filled with icy rage. By now, shouts and the clanking of metal rang in the distance.

"Please, don't do this..."

"Leave, before I change my mind and have both of you executed." Those words. It was the voice of a man who was angry and scared but still in too much shock to do what he would have done to anyone else.

My mother's power erupted and I felt the castle shake beneath us. Every candle was blown out in a strong gust of wind that rattled the chandelier and in the darkness, green flames danced at her fingertips. Her face, illuminated in the crackling light, was contorted with fury as she muttered a spell between her clenched teeth.

"Sixteen years, a raging flame, from deep hatred and cold-hearted pain. Its bright green glow by firelight shall take a life at the stroke of midnight. In sixteen years, from time it's cast, when curse hits victim they shall fall at last. This curse shall lift when victim dies unless it be broken by magic blood-ties."

It was not a spell. No, it was a curse and it would kill Actaeon in sixteen years. I heard him fall to his knees, his breaths ragged and shaky as if a force had slammed into his chest. "What did you do?" he rasped.

"Consider it my parting gift," my mother spat. She broke into a run for the open doors to the balcony as thundering footsteps of a dozen guards approached the room and jumped.