by Lucia Ashta
It’d been hard to speak of these things before, when Ilara’d teased them out of me with tender kisses, our hot and sticky limbs entwined. When I lay there naked with her, but only felt truly naked when I’d had to admit that someone who should’ve loved me didn’t.
I didn’t want to do it again, and this time without the lovemaking to soften the way.
“Tanus?” Ilara prompted.
I drew a deep breath that made my chest hurt even more, and answered her, because even if I didn’t want to, I’d do anything for this woman and the deep and sadly swirling cosmos of her eyes. “My mother left me when I was eight years old, and she never came back.”
That was enough to answer her question, and I didn’t want to talk of it more, I really didn’t. But something in her eyes wordlessly asked for the rest, and as if I were fully and completely under this woman’s spell, I found my lips moving and saying words I never wanted to say again. “This is the first time I’ve seen her since I was a boy. I thought she was dead.”
And why did I think she was dead? Ilara’s eyes prompted.
I went on, “It was easier to think her dead than to accept that she knowingly left me with a man whom she supposedly left because of his crazed instability, that she’d leave a child who couldn’t yet defend himself from his father, unprotected. Because the only kind of person that would do something like that is a mother who doesn’t love her child.”
I looked down, taking in the thin blanket that covered me for the first time, outlining a thick lump around one of my calves. That’s right, a hyena had nearly cut my calf in half. But it didn’t hurt as much as my heart did as I continued to speak. “I needed to believe that my mother loved me, even if she didn’t.”
“There are lots of reasons why a person abandons someone they love.” Ilara’s words were infinitely gentle. “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”
“I think that’s exactly what it means. Because when you love someone, you do what’s best for them, no matter the cost. I went to hell and back to find you when everyone said you were dead.” It might not have been hell, but the Wilds were close, with the mowabs and rebels that killed first and questioned whether they should’ve later. “Wouldn’t you have done the same for me? For someone you love? Would you abandon a person you loved, a child?”
Ilara didn’t answer. She wouldn’t abandon anyone who needed her. She knew it, and so did I.
A full minute ticked by in which she squeezed my hand harder, edged closer on the chair, and something behind my head softly marked the beating of my heart.
Finally, she asked, “Did you know you had a brother?”
“Not really. I’d heard that when she left my dad it was because she was in love with some other man, maybe even carrying his child. But I never followed that to the possibility that I had a real, live brother walking around somewhere.”
“Did things ever get better after your mom left? Was your dad, I don’t know, ever good to you?”
“No, things never got better; they got worse. Brachius, whom I thought was my father up until right before you arrived on Origins, only became crueler and more distant the more he devoted himself to splicing. And splicing is his obsession. He’s the one I believe tried to kill you. I think I told you that.”
She nodded absently. “So you raised yourself?”
“Pretty much. Dolpheus and I basically raised each other once his father died. How is he? How are the others?”
“Everyone’s okay, except for Aletox. He hasn’t woken up yet, and he might not.”
“So Lila survived the viper bite? She’s out of danger?”
“Yes. She got lucky. The doctor said a king cobra bit her, and king cobras are the most fatal snakes there are. But this one didn’t inject her with poison, so all she has is two angry-looking puncture wounds.”
“And Kai? His arm’s all right?”
“Yes. The doctor stitched him right back up. He’s okay.”
“And Dolpheus and you? The dehydration didn’t harm any of you?”
“Nope. They ran IVs into all of us, and I feel tired, but otherwise well. I was just worried about you. Now that you’re awake, I’ll start feeling lots better fast, I’m sure.”
“Where’s Dolpheus?”
“I sent him to sleep in one of the other rooms. He’s barely left your bedside. I finally managed to convince him that I needed him rested and strong so he could defend you if anything should happen.”
I lifted an eyebrow. It was one of the few parts of me that didn’t hurt when I moved it. “Is anything happening? Are we under attack?” I tried to scoot to the side of the bed.
“Whoa.” Ilara shot a hand out to stop me. “Hold up there, soldier. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
“But if we’re under attack...”
“I never said we were. Relax.”
I tried to, but I’d never been good at lying back and doing nothing when there was something to be done. I had no idea what that something might be on this foreign planet in a situation I couldn’t have predicted even if I’d tried, but surely there was something I could be doing that was better than doing nothing.
“Tanus, there’s nothing more important for you to do than get better. You need to heal. You almost died, like, for real.”
I shrugged, unconvinced.
Ilara sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. I couldn’t help but notice how it pushed her breasts up, making them swell enticingly.
Her smile told me she knew what I was looking at, but that she meant business. “Tanus, listen to me. You almost died. Do you get that? Died. Dead. Not going anywhere ever again kind of thing. Your calf required extensive surgery to piece back together. Your shoulder, too. And the bullet wounds?” A shiver wracked her shoulders, making her breasts jiggle for a second. “Well, let’s just say you were lucky as fuck. One bullet shot straight through to your back, but somehow missed vital organs and your spine. The second one lodged in your stomach, but as far as the damage, well, the doctor says you’re one lucky fucker. Maybe he used different language, but still. He says the second bullet didn’t cause any damage you couldn’t heal from. Overall, the gods were watching over you. But you need to heal, and that takes time, and lots of it.”
“What’s all this I’m hooked up to?”
“Proof that you almost died and you need to take it easy. Fluids, antibiotics, and some good old fashioned morphine to dull the pain.” She uncrossed her arms and sat back up, bringing a hand to my leg. “What were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed, jumping in front of a gun like that. You never, ever jump in front of a gun, you hear me?”
“It was either you or me, love. One of us was going to get shot.”
The cosmos in her irises had been swirling furiously. Now they came to a complete stop. “It should’ve been me. I was the one that started it all. I should’ve just held my temper.”
“Like hell you should’ve!”
“Then you wouldn’t have been shot. If only I hadn’t lashed out at that guy.”
“The one with his gun up your skirt? Or the one with his leg between yours?” I was angrier than a convalescing man should be. I was ready to tear at my tubes and plow toward avenging her honor. “If you hadn’t gotten to them first, I would have, and I’d have snapped them in half, I can promise you that.” I meant it.
She acknowledged my truth with a nod. “Promise me you’ll never get in the way of a bullet meant for me again?”
“Only if you promise me you’ll never be in the path of a bullet again.”
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
Of course she couldn’t. She was a magnet to danger. The woman always had been. “Then I’m not making any promises either.”
She stared at me, I stared back, until it was less effort to close my eyes against that piercing, searching gaze.
“You’re not going to ask about Aletox, are you?”
I didn’t want to. “Well? Go ahead then. Tell me.”
“He’s alive, but barely. He lost too much blood and fluid when we were out in the desert. He’s been operated on, his wound sewn up, and with the amount of antibiotics they’re pumping into him now to clear up the infection, they say there’s a chance he might make it.”
“How big of a chance?” I ground out, reluctantly.
“A small one.”
“Maybe that’s all he deserves.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“So where are we?”
“At your mother’s place. She has a house here in Cairo. A pretty nice one, really.”
“And how’d she find us?”
“Apparently Aletox activated some kind of beacon in the transport machine that she was able to detect. I’m not clear on the details yet. But once we left the transport machine, she didn’t know which direction we’d head, you know, since we didn’t either. So she and Narcisse separated and went to the two closest and most likely points. She waited near the pyramids and Narcisse waited in Libya. She says she figured it was most likely we’d go toward the pyramids since they’re so much like condensers, but of course we didn’t know we were heading that way. It was just dumb luck.”
“Is that really what you believe? That it was just luck that brought us to the condensers?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“Anyway, once your mother saw us, she called Narcisse to come back and meet us.”
“And when she came to us she was able to stop the men who were attacking us?”
“Yeah. Your mother surprised even me. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She spoke Arabic, and every single one of those men heeled. They bowed their head to her and tucked their tails between their legs.”
“Really?”
“Really. She made some calls on her phone, and in minutes men with stretchers showed up to take all of us in for treatment.”
“And then my mother had us brought here?”
“Basically, though you were in the hospital for a while first.”
“What about IDs and visas and money and all those things you said we’d need to go to the hospital?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like your mother plays by the rules that apply to others. And what’s her name, by the way, so I don’t keep having to call her your mother?”
The word slipped from my lips before I could stop them. “Yudelle.” It was a name I never thought I’d have to say again. “Are you going to tell her I’m awake?”
“Hell no. Now that I know what she did to you, she’ll have to go through me if she wants to get to you.”
That was the Ilara I knew and loved, the one who’d just finished telling me my mother was a force to be reckoned with, before announcing that she was such a force herself.
25
“And where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I stilled in mid-movement, but not because I had any intention of obeying the woman. “Wherever the hell I feel like going. In this case, to the condensers with all of you.”
“You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”
“I’ll do whatever I please.”
“You’ll do as your mother tells you and you’ll get back in that bed and rest. It’s the only way you’ll recover.”
“You’re not my mother anymore.”
The woman who had, nonetheless, once been my mother, brought a hand to her chest in offense. “Excuse me?”
“You lost the right to call yourself my mother when you abandoned me centuries ago.”
“I didn’t abandon you. It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh? You left me as a boy, a boy, and never came back. What else would you call that? You never even bothered to give me an explanation. One morning, you were just gone, forever. That’s the very definition of abandonment.”
“That’s not what was supposed to happen.”
“Really? Because I can’t think what else you’d expect would happen when you left me with a man who was becoming crueler and more uncaring by the day. Did you expect me to appreciate that you forsook me?”
“It was necessary. I feared Brachius would kill me and the unborn child I carried. I owed it to the baby in my womb not to wait for that to happen.”
I resumed my preparations to leave this room, this woman’s home, and hopefully her life forever. I suppressed the pain every movement triggered. I wasn’t the vulnerable boy she left behind any longer. I refused to act like one. “Well at least you were a mother to one son.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s not?” There was danger seething in the words I forced myself to make calm. Anyone with an ear that could really listen would realize it. “You abandoned a boy of eight to fend for himself. I believed you loved me. It took me years—years—before I realized you were never coming back for me, that my life was really the cruel one I had to face every day.” I’d said more than I wanted. I searched the room’s sparsely decorated surfaces. “Where are my clothes?”
“I do love you, Tanus. My son.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Of course I will. No matter what you say, you’re my son. I did what I had to do to save a child growing inside me. And your life was happy without me, wasn’t it? You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating at all. And you’re either lying to me or fooling yourself, because you know there’s no way on O I could ever be happy with that man raising me. That’s why you left him, isn’t it? Because splicing was changing him? Making him something different, evil?” I hadn’t yet decided if I agreed with Lila’s assessment about the evil nature of splicing or the people affected by it, but I threw that in anyway.
“That’s why I left Brachius. But that’s not who raised you.”
“You’re right. He didn’t raise me. I raised myself. Where the hell are my clothes?”
“Disposed of.”
“Disposed of? Why? What on O am I supposed to wear?”
“You’re not supposed to wear anything but a hospital gown for weeks. Your clothes were disposed of because they had to be cut from you in pre-op.”
Whatever that meant. “Then I need new clothes, and I need them now.”
“You’ll have clothes when you need them.”
“I’ll have them now.” I guessed my words conveyed some of the danger that roiled through me, because she stepped out of the room for a second.
“You’ll have new clothing soon.”
I didn’t want to back down, but my legs had started to tremble. I perched on the edge of the bed, the gown flapping open in the back.
“Did you and Aletox not get along?” she said with a furrowed brow.
“Not particularly. But what’s he got to do with you abandoning me?” It was a question I’d hoped wouldn’t slip out. But now that it had, I waited for her answer with more anticipation than I wanted to admit to.
“Because he, as you know, is your father. And he took care of you and raised you when I had to leave, not Brachius.”
There’d be no need for Lila’s blood comparisons. I could read the truth in her eyes. Aletox was my father. “Aletox only told me he was my father a few days ago. He didn’t lift a finger to raise me or help me with Brachius, the man I believed was my true father.”
She stumbled into the vacant chair next to my bed. I scooted away on my mattress.
“Aletox was supposed to raise you. Not Brachius.”
“Well, he didn’t, and I’m not sure that would’ve been any better for me than believing Brachius was my father. Both of them were cold and indifferent to me. What would’ve been the difference? Ignored by one man or the other. It’s all the same.”
“But he promised me.”
“Then he broke his promise. I became an orphan the day you left me.”
She slumped into her chair, but wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t understand. He’s a good man.”
“I don’t think he is. He’s never done a damned think to make me even suspect he mi
ght be. He’s the reason we crash landed here in the first place. He tricked us into coming here and didn’t warn us of any of the dangers.”
“That can’t be. He loves me. He loves you. He would’ve done anything to protect you.”
“He didn’t.” And I refused to count the one time he came to rescue me from the royal palace and abandoned me in the tunnels with royal guards in pursuit.
“I don’t understand. How could this be?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not going to waste a second more thinking about it. I learned to accept that I don’t have parents a long time ago.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true, woman. You’re the only one deluding yourself into thinking you’re still my mother. A mother mothers. You haven’t for a very long time.”
“Don’t call me ‘woman.’”
“I call it like I see it, Yudelle.”
She shuddered as if I’d just hurled the worst insult at her I could come up with.
Then Dolpheus, the man who’d been saving me since I first needed saving, strolled into the room. He gave me then her one quick look, and then focused on me. He leaned against the bed, inserting himself in the heavy air between Yudelle and me. It wasn’t a subtle gesture, and I was grateful for it.
He looked only at me while he spoke. “How are you, my friend?”
“I’ve been better, but I’ll live.”
“Aye, and I’m grateful for it.”
“So where’re we off to?”
He raised his eyebrows. “You think you’re up for it?”
“Hell yeah. I need to get out of this place as quickly as possible.”
“You’re sure you’re up for it?”
Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows at him.
“Okay, okay,” he said, hands up in surrender. “It’s just that you looked pretty bad when they took you in to fix you up. They told us they didn’t know if you were going to make it.”