Her eyes, blazing with a mixture of agony and fury, bored into Savine's. Every raw emotion she’d bottled up for three agonizing years now erupted. "How long have you been back?!" The question was a guttural roar, tearing from her throat.
Savine’s violet eyes, still holding that unreadable pain, met June’s. "A few days," she replied softly.
The words were a spark to June’s already volatile emotions. Her hand shot out again, another sharp crack echoing through the silent room as it connected with Savine's cheek. "And you didn't think to tell me?!" she spat, her voice thick with tears and disbelief. She backed away a step, shaking her head. "You're lucky my sisters are away at the Scholarik Noctis for school. They couldn't bear this insult. They couldn’t bear you."
The echo of June’s second slap still hung in the air when Asha appeared in the doorway, her brow furrowed with concern. She took in the scene – the First Queen with a red mark blooming on her cheek, and June, trembling with rage and tears.
June’s head snapped towards Asha, her eyes widening with a fresh wave of betrayal. "You knew?" she screamed, her voice raw with disbelief. "Of course you did! How could you not?"
Without waiting for a response, June’s hand flew out, another sharp slap landing on Asha’s cheek. Hurt flashed in June’s eyes, quickly followed by a cold fury. "You're just as bad as her," she spat, her voice thick with contempt, before shoving past both women and storming out of the room, leaving Savine and Asha standing in stunned silence.
Asha touched her stinging cheek, her gaze following June's retreating figure. After a long moment, she sighed softly. "Well," she murmured, turning to Savine, a wry smile touching her lips, "that could have gone better."
Savine brought a hand to her stinging cheek, a single tear tracing a path down her already clean skin. Her violet eyes, still holding that unreadable pain, watched the empty doorway. "It went as I expected," she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "She has grown into such a beautiful young woman. I deserved that."
Asha stepped closer, rubbing her own cheek. "Yes, you did," she agreed, her voice gentle. "But I know June. The woman she has become has her mother's kindness. I think she'll come around, and you two are long overdue for a talk."
Later that night, a soft, hesitant knock echoed through Savine’s chambers. She paused, her hand hovering over a half-packed scroll, her violet eyes narrowing slightly. It was too late for most courtiers, too early for an emergency. She opened the door.
June stood there, swaying ever so slightly, a half-empty bottle of jasmine wine clutched in her hand. Her hair was a little disheveled, her eyes still red-rimmed but now softened by a haze of alcohol.
"I… I need answers," June slurred, her voice a fragile whisper. "I need to know why."
Savine stepped aside, a silent invitation. June stumbled into the room, and Savine motioned towards the plush, embroidered cushions on the bed. "Sit," she said, her voice gentle, surprisingly steady. She held out a hand for the bottle. June relinquished it, her fingers brushing Savine’s.
Savine took a long, deep swallow of the fragrant wine, the warmth spreading through her chest. It was a familiar taste, a small comfort before she plunged into the unfamiliar territory of honesty. She looked at June, truly looked at her, seeing not just the angry young woman from earlier, but the scared child she had left behind.
"I was ashamed of who I was," Savine began, her voice low and raspy. "Ashamed that I couldn't protect you and your sisters in the war. All the charity I had done, all the good deeds… it meant nothing when I was hiding with you, waiting to die." She paused, her gaze distant, lost in a memory June couldn’t share. "I didn't tell you I was leaving because if I looked into your little eyes, I wouldn't have been able to do it."
June, the last vestiges of her anger dissolving into raw grief, let her tears flow freely. "I thought you were dead, Mother," she choked out, her voice thick with emotion, the words catching in her throat like jagged stones. "Asha couldn't tell us where you were. We just woke up one day, and you were gone." Her voice grew stronger, tinged with the old, festering hurt that had become a part of her very being. "I waited at the gate every day for six months for you to come back, every single day, imagining you riding through, a grand return. And you just didn't. You didn't even send word. Not a whisper, not a note, nothing to say you were alive."
Savine sighed, the sound heavy with remorse, a profound weariness settling over her chiseled features. "I went north," she began, her voice low, almost a confession. "To the monasteries of Sun Kong. The journey itself nearly killed me. The mountains were unforgiving, the winds howled like spirits, and every step felt like a penance." She paused, her violet eyes distant, lost in a landscape of harsh memories June couldn’t possibly fathom. "The first year there, I didn't speak. I just… cried. Every day was a battle with myself, with the fear that had consumed me during the war, the shame of feeling so utterly useless, so weak. I was a queen, meant to protect, and I felt like nothing more than a cowering animal."
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She took another slow breath, her gaze returning to June, softening. "But eventually, slowly, painfully, I realized I was no good to you, your sisters, or even myself, how I was. A broken queen could not lead. A terrified mother could not guide. And I resolved to be someone you could be proud of. Someone strong. Someone who you couldn't possibly see as a coward anymore."
"We were already proud of you!" June cried, louder than she intended, the words bursting from her with the force of an uncontrolled torrent. The idea that her mother had ever doubted their immense pride was a fresh wound. Her voice cracked with the conviction that trembled through her entire body. "You were everything to us, Mother! Our queen, our protector, our guiding star! You were the reason we kept going. We didn't need you to be something more, we just needed you."
"I tried to stay for seven years," Savine continued, her voice gaining a quiet strength, though her violet eyes still held a deep sorrow that seemed to pool in their depths. "I put on the face everyone needed, the strong queen, the comforting mother. I smiled when I wanted to weep, I issued decrees when my hands trembled, I offered reassurance when my own heart was filled with dread. But inside, June, every single time I closed my eyes, the war replayed. I saw the fear in your little eyes, felt your small hand gripping mine, heard you crying in the darkness, afraid and alone, even when I was right there with you. And it was killing me. Slowly, agonizingly, it was a silent death of my spirit, chipping away at who I was until there was almost nothing left."
She took June's trembling hand, her touch firm and unexpectedly warm, a stark contrast to the cold dread that had often settled in June's heart over the past years. "If I hadn't left," Savine confessed, her gaze unwavering, "I truly fear I would have ended my own life. The darkness was so pervasive, so heavy. I needed to become stronger for you, stronger for your sisters, stronger for myself. Not just physically, but in here," she tapped her chest, "in my soul. And that's what the monks taught me. They didn't just teach me combat or strategy; they showed me how to live again, how to find peace within myself, instead of just existing in my pain, trapped by the echoes of what we endured."
A fresh tear, heavy with unshed emotion, traced a path down her chiseled cheek, catching the dim light of the room. "I know it was selfish, June. I know the pain I inflicted by leaving you like that, without a word, without a farewell. And from the bottom of my heart, June, I am so profoundly sorry I left you. But," she took a shaky breath, her gaze hardening with a resolve born of newfound conviction, "it is the only part of this I am sorry about. Leaving you was a devastating act, but becoming whole again, becoming someone who can truly stand for Nan Du Tua and for you… that, I do not regret."
June looked at her mother for a long, quiet moment, her gaze searching Savine's face for any hint of falsehood, any lingering shadow of the distant, almost ghostly queen she had mourned. The silence stretched, heavy with unspoken emotions, with the echoes of slaps and confessions, before June lifted the bottle of jasmine wine and took another long, fortifying swig. She sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the entire weight of three years of pain, confusion, and now, a fragile, burgeoning understanding.
"I forgive you, Mother," June said, her voice soft but clear, a raw honesty in every syllable that resonated in the quiet room. "I cannot say for my sisters. I know their hearts, and their hurt runs deep, perhaps even deeper than mine in some ways. But I do. I truly do." Her eyes, though still red-rimmed and betraying the recent storm, held a newfound resolve, a glimpse of the strong woman she had become in her mother's absence. "But what you did has changed me, fundamentally. It has changed all of us. And you have a lot of time and trust to rebuild, more than you can imagine." She paused, her gaze steady on Savine's. "I will be calling my sisters tonight. They deserve to know. They deserve to hear this, or at least that you are back. And I have no doubt they will make their way home, just as I did." June took a shaky breath, the residual anger fading, replaced by a profound weariness. "But as for now, I need to rest. I need to think. My head is swimming, and my heart feels… too much. We have a lot of catching up to do on the morrow. And we will. Just… not tonight."
June pushed herself up from the plush cushions of the bed, the slight sway in her step barely noticeable now that the immediate emotional maelstrom had passed. She walked to the door, her back to Savine, the weight of her sudden forgiveness a tangible thing in the air between them. With a soft click, the door shut, leaving her mother alone in the dimly lit chambers. As if on cue, the moon, which had been hiding coyly behind a thick veil of clouds, emerged, bathing Savine in its soft, silvery light. It cast long shadows across the room, mirroring the complex landscape of her thoughts, leaving her with the quiet hope of a shattered family beginning, at long last, to heal.
The briny air of Bristort, usually a welcome invigorant, felt like a suffocating shroud to Elara. Each gust carried not the scent of the sea, but the metallic tang of cosmic dust and the phantom ozone of creation. Her aviankin student, Kallen, a blur of iridescent emerald and sapphire, zipped excitedly ahead. "Professor Elara, we're here! Bristort!" His chirps, usually a pleasant melody, now pierced her skull like tiny, sharp needles.
Elara managed a rictus of a smile, a desperate attempt to appear normal as her mind wrestled with a universe that was rapidly unraveling. The Whispering Tome, a malevolent weight against her hip, thrummed with a horrifying, inaudible song, pouring raw, unbidden truths directly into her consciousness.
…and Emma ripped her way into existence from the Void…
The vision was no longer a distant memory, but a visceral, all-consuming horror. The Void, a primordial, endless darkness, wasn't empty; it was a hungry maw, writhing with an unseen, unspeakable agony. Then, a tear. Not a gentle unfolding, but a monstrous, agonizing rupture as Emma tore through, a being of blinding, screaming light erupting from an abyss that shrieked in silent agony. Elara felt the tearing, the primordial violation of existence, in her own bones. Others followed, not births, but grotesque emergences, each ripping a fresh, festering wound in the fabric of nothingness.