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A figure stepped into the hall, shadows cloaking all but her legs and bare feet, but that was all I needed to see to stop my heart.
“Mama?” I rasped. “You’re— You’re—”alive?stuck in my throat.
Unseen hands seized me and Meli, and lifted us into the air. I swallowed a shriek of surprise as we flew over her head, and wound up behind her—protected by her.
“Mama, how are you doing this!” Meli cried.
Our mother didn’t answer. She had one focus and one focus only. Dropping her fist, Kirwan slammed to the floor, his head bouncing off the wood.
“O...lene, wait—”
“Agh!” She twisted and he moved with her, flying into the opposite wall.
“Olene!” Blood wept from a dozen cuts and wounds on his horrible, hideous face. “Wait, stop, please! I didn’t want it to come to this!”
Mama picked up his sword.
“None of this was my fault!”
One of the crystals on his lapel glowed. Mama snapped her fist back and they tore out of his many hiding places, bouncing across the floor—one of them hitting my slackened jaw.
“It wasn’t me,” he bellowed. “It washer! That demon child!”
I didn’t have to ask to know he was speaking about me.
“She’s the reason we could never be happy. I love you! I’ve always loved you, but she destroyed everything!” Kirwan strained and thrashed, his limbs pinned to the wall.
Mama halted before him, her back facing us. “I can promise you two things here today, Kirwan. I never loved you. You are the most despicable of men. Lower than a worm. Filthier than the scum-sucking bottom feeders found crawling through shit. I’ve hated you from the moment we met, and every day I prayed to Meya for your death. How could any woman love you?” she hissed. “You don’t even love yourself. The only thing you’ve ever done right in your life is Meliora.”
The delusional fool had the audacity to gape at her in slack-jawed surprise. “Olene, what are you saying? This isn’t you. This isher! Ruining everything. Coming between us!”
“And my second promise,” Mama continued on, raising her sword. “You will never hurt my children again.”
I grabbed Meliora, covering her face with my body.
“Olene, don’t—”
Mama’s sword struck true—severing his head from his shoulders. It thudded on the ground, the bug-eyed look of surprise still on his face.
I held Meliora close, not letting her look. No matter how much she despised the man, she was only sixteen. I wouldn’t have her watch her mother kill her father.
“Mama?” I croaked. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond for throwing out her hands. Snapping them together, Kirwan’s head flew off the ground and pinned back to the wall. “Eldur!”
The body burst into flames, smacking us over the head with heat. Greedily they consumed him, reducing the great and fearsome Kirwan Dawnbreaker to nothing but ash. She swept it out the door and slammed it shut with a cold efficiency that reminded me of something I often forgot. My mother went towar right alongside my father. She was never a wilting flower... and she never feared a monster.
“Mama?” I said softly. “Are... you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay, faywen, but I need you to check on the children.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Her tone brokered no argument. I loosened my grip on Meli standing up. My sister broke from me and ran to our mother, burying her face in her chest as she sobbed.
I left them be, knowing Meli was with the exact person she needed at that moment.
