The Fall Of Snow: Guard Your Heart

36. Thirty-Six

Thirty-Six

Mother

I find her in her bed chambers, facing her gold-framed mirror. The commotion from outside the room seems to muffle when I see her. My fingers tingle as I pass the threshold. I make no effort to silence myself knowing that she is fully aware I'm here. If I know my mother at all, she's waiting for me. Baiting me.

"Took you long enough." Her slick voice strikes fear into my heart.

"Mother." Surprisingly enough, my voice is strong. Angry.

The room is just as I remember it. The rounded canopy bed sits to the left of her massive mahogany armoire. The sitting area is perfectly set for tea, although no one is having any. Her vanity is adorned with several vials and powders. Her most cherished piece of jewelry hangs from the neck of a bust, the jewels sparkling from the light dispersed by the chandelier. I remember when the staff installed the fixture when I was young. It took multiple people and several days for it to be complete. Each string of crystals had to be hung and polished individually once it was up.

"Truth be told, I didn't think you had it in you." She turns to face me, her eyes like a blow to the gut. The emerald green pierces through me, keeping me in place. The eyes that I have known my entire life, the eyes that I wanted so badly to look at me with acceptance. "To come to me willingly," she clarifies. Her amethyst gown spirals around her as she turns. Her dark brown locks are pulled up perfectly, revealing her sharp features under the light.

"But you haven't come here to surrender. No, you came here to . . . what? Kill me?" Her laugh fills the room like spikes hitting the walls. A sound that will darken your soul.

"My dear daughter, you can't truly believe that is a possibility for you?" Her words grind like stones, fueling my anger. But I can't allow anything she says to affect me, because that is what she wants. If there's one thing my mother's good at, it's manipulation. That's how she was able to get the favor of every influential person in this land. She has a gift for deception that goes past any logic.

Not wanting to prolong this any further, I pull an arrow from my quiver and knock it into place. She lifts a brow as if to challenge me, to question me. I exhale before letting it fly, and as I watch it sail across the room, I know she has more up her sleeve. It would never be that easy.

Sure enough, the arrow recoils from her skin like it just struck stone, clattering on the ground between us, no doubt due to some magic she fuzed before I arrived, which takes using my own magic on her off the table. If I know my mother, she will be immune to anything I try. How long the effects will last, I don't know. I just have to stay alive long enough to find out. I pull the sword from my hip, grabbing it with both hands as I step closer.

"You didn't actually think I would let you just waltz in here and shoot an arrow into my chest, did you?” She shakes her head just slightly, her dangling earrings shifting with the movement. “No, dear girl. This isn't the end of my story. It's the end of yours." As quick as a flash, my mother chucks a poisoned dart at me, and I move just in time for it to only graze my cheek. It embeds itself in the wall behind me, nearly a perfect shot. She throws another, and I deflect it with my sword, the metals singing as they collide.

As she grabs another dart, I stalk forward, sword raised. When the next one flies, I bat it away with my blade once again. And again. And again, until I’m in the center of the room and I see her face falter an inch.

Before I have a chance to breathe, a beast comes barreling into the room salivating and growling. Its heavy feet shake the floor beneath us with every beat. My mother screams in terror at the hulking creature, and I jump to the side before recognizing its eyes—baby blue and as round as the sun. It's Coy.

Is it a full moon? I hadn't even realized this during our journey here.

He stalks over to us and my heart pounds in fear. The last time I saw Coy like this he didn't recognize who I was. Sure, he might harm my mother, but he also might harm me. His bloodied fangs tell me it wouldn't be his first kill of the night. His eyes shoot to me as he stalks towards us.

Something must have happened down the hall. Something awful. When I left the scene, the warriors had it under control. There was no worry in my mind when I left. But as soon as the thought forms, it morphs into clarity. If my mother knew we were coming, if she anticipated our arrival, she prepared her guards. Maybe not all of them, but some. Strength, speed, maybe even healing? Were more dispatched from somewhere else in the manor? I don't have time to contemplate it further.

Coy's presence has frightened my mother enough for me to gain some leverage. Enough to gather myself again before another attack. I find my way to my feet and think of how to win this, how to end it once and for all. Waiting until her magic wears off isn't an option any longer. There is no telling how long that will be, and the longer I wait, the more risk of death there is. I rack my brain with something, anything I can do. I look down at my hands and wonder if my idea will work.

Can I possibly overpower her magic with my own? If I touch her, can I fuze weakness into her? Override her ability with my own? I was so sure earlier that the option was off the table, but why? Because I was conditioned to think less of myself? Of my abilities? No more.

It's worth a shot .

As my mother battles Coy using her poisoned darts, I sneak behind her, finding an opportunity. I watch as she dodges Coy's snapping teeth, hoping it's enough of a distraction for her to not figure out what I'm doing. When Coy crashes atop her, slashing his claws across her delicate sleeve, her shoulder is exposed just enough for me to try.

I charge forward and place my hands upon her bare flesh, already feeling my power stir. Skin to skin, I feel her flesh beneath my palm, the same flesh she set my tiny wrinkled newborn body on to rest, to nurse. The same flesh as my own.

I push the swell of emotion away as I thrust my magic outward, as I think of each and every time she tried to end me. She tried to stop my heart from beating, the same heart that she created within her. The same heart she nurtured and grew until she didn't. Until she decided to cleave herself from me. Until she decided I wasn't a part of her anymore. Tears prick my eyes as I will my body to work, to do as I ask.

But my emotions are getting in the way. They're stopping me from fuzing into her. Before I can summon my magic again, she looks at me, finally registering my touch. Her eyes widen in surprise, the glow of my irises reflecting in her pupils.

"What are you doing?" For the first time in my life, I hear my mother's words laced with fear. Actual fear. Never had I heard my mother's voice quiver in terror or fright. Not when my father died, not when she was challenged by a courtier, and not when I almost died by her hand. Never .

But now, in this moment, her voice wavers. Her words are laced with a panic I've never heard.

"Just what you taught me to do, Mother." I barely feel the words as they leave me like my body is on autopilot when I say them, not feeling the weight of what they mean. My mind is clouded with too many emotions to think straight. And for a moment, just a bleating moment, I wonder if it would be easier to surrender than to end my own mother.

She jerks back, distancing herself from me but Coy is right behind her and growls as she tries to scurry away. I search my mother's eyes for any sign of remorse—any sign of love—but find only cold hard darkness.

Our heads snap to the entrance to my mother's chambers when the other warriors break the threshold. Huck is the first one I see, whole and alive. Terran is behind him, followed by Bear. I don't have time to see who else follows before a hard blow connects with my shoulder, sending me flying back into a marble table.

My mother, still on the floor in front of me, kicked me backward with all her might. It's hard to decipher which hurts more, my shoulder, my back that took the brunt of the landing into the table, or my heart for witnessing the lengths she will go to harm her own offspring.

I stagger to my feet as Huck and Terran run to my aid.

An earsplitting scream fills the room as I watch Terran go down, causing Huck to stop in his tracks. I watch in horror as blood spurts from his neck, tainting my mother's poisoned dart that protrudes from his punctured flesh. My heart drops to my gut and I scramble across the floor to him, slipping on his blood as I get closer.

The others fight against my mother, dodging her attempts to maim another as I will my magic to come forward, tears streaming down my face in succession now. One after another they fall to the ground. I breathe out slowly as I place my hands on either side of Terran's face, but already I know it's too late. Already, I see his eyes glaze over, losing focus. My fingers graze his pulse on the sides of his neck but I find nothing but a faint beat. Maybe two.

I try to fuze my magic to him, try to stop the bleeding with my power. I grab for anything I can think of. Blood clotting. Transfusion. Deep restorative sleep. Anything that will reverse this. Anything that will bring him back.

My mother thrashes against Bear and Archer’s grip and they hold her still.

When I feel Huck's hands on my shoulders, I drop my head to Terran's chest and sob, my shoulders wracking my body. I failed him. The person who came to me when I was lost, who could always find the light within the darkness. He's gone, and my mother is to blame.

I suck back my grief and turn toward my mother, who battles four warriors and one beast with the strength of her own magic protecting her. But not for long. This ends now. She will not take another life as long as I'm breathing.

I get to my feet, ignoring my bloodied hands, the cut on my face, and the ache in my shoulder. I lift my head high, feeling Huck's hands fall away, as I see my mother for what she is. A monster. Madam Evangeline is no mother. She is malevolence incarnate. She is the poison that defiles the fruit and she needs to be eradicated.

My eyes flare as I stalk toward my mother, deflecting her feeble attempt at a blade to my face with a swipe of my hand. Power roils within me now, like a volcano about to erupt, and I know my eyes light up like the sun. My body hums with power as if I could levitate.

The others back away as I approach, even Coy in his shifted state, and the great Madam Evangeline begins to tremble—visibly tremble. Something I never believed she was even capable of doing. And I revel in it. I savor the feeling of her quaking in my shadow as I approach. The look in her eyes is enough to tell me what I need to know, what I've always known. What my mother was truly afraid of since the day I was born: that I am more powerful than she will ever be.

I am stronger than my mother and now I've finally embraced it. She never wanted me to discover my potential. She never wanted me to be anything but beneath her. But as I rise before her, my hands itch with unleashed power.

"Snow," she whispers, her voice foreign. Never have I heard my mother sound so timid before. So soft. But still, there's that underlying hiss of resentment that never seems to leave her. Even now, in the last moments of life.

"I could have given you the world if you hadn't betrayed me," the sharp whisper tears from her throat. "You tried to take everything from me." Her emerald eyes pierce into me as I place my hand against her cheek .

"Oh, Mother. You fool yourself. The only thing I was ever after was your love." With that, I release my magic into her, and it's like opening the floodgates on my power. Energy surges out of me and into her, taking hold. My power curls around her energy like vines slithering through her system, snaking around her tethers of life. Her body seizes under my touch and we both begin to shake from the raw power channeling through us, like an electric charge has bonded us.

I can't be sure what part of my magic has fuzed into my mother, but my body seems to know what to do to ensure its survival. It knew how to react to this particular threat. The connection is so strong that, for a moment, I wonder if it will take me down too. If I won't be able to stop this flow of magic before it burns me from within, but all the same I feel it taking hold of each and every part of her.

I watch in a horrified fascination as my mother's hair dulls to a brittle gray, as her skin thins and crepes with age in only a moment, and as her lips thin and pale. This is my mother’s true self, without the help of magic. This is her in her natural state, and it is a woman I do not recognize. I have pulled her magic from her, or maybe I've disabled it in some way. Regardless, the feeling coursing through my veins is euphoric.

"Snow." I hear Huck's voice beside me, low and thick like syrup. "Snow," he says again, bringing me back to the present.

I close my eyes and pull my hands away, severing the connection, and my body sags into his. He catches me, pulls me against his chest whispering to me quietly, "It's over. It's over. It's all over."

I cling to the words feeling more vulnerable now than I ever have in my entire life. Like I'm an exposed nerve, or a rogue bolt of lightning, raw and wild. I sink into him further, letting him hold my fractured pieces together.