Free Web NovelChapter 233: Chapter 233
"How do you know my mother?" Circe asked.
Of all the forms the woman could have chosen, she had taken Thalora’s face. There had to be a reason for that.
"I suppose you have more than earned an explanation," the woman said at last. "So I will give you one."
She rose to her feet, and it was as though the entire cave held its breath in anticipation. The shadows along the walls seemed to draw inward, the pool of water growing unnaturally still.
"Your mother is flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood," the woman continued. "The power that bound us together was stronger than the power holding this weak realm together. That is why her betrayal cut so deeply. Even thirty years later, the wound she left behind has barely healed."
She tilted her head, eyes bright with something sharp and ancient. " She was what humans would call a twin. But we were three, equal halves of the same soul."
Circe felt her pulse quicken, each heartbeat striking harder than the last. Every shred of logic within her rebelled against the claim, urging her to deny it outright. Her mother had been nothing like this unnatural being. Thalora Valdris had been human. She had never shown the faintest trace of magic, never hinted at any hidden power.
Circe opened her mouth to say as much.
Then a memory struck her. free𝑤ebnovel.com
She saw it again; her mother shoving her backward, away from Torben as he lay upon the physician’s table, pale and fading, death already tightening its grip. She remembered the fury in her mother’s eyes, not directed at her but at an empty space in the room. She remembered how Thalora had somehow seen something Circe could only sense and how she had ordered it away with a voice sharp enough to cut glass.
Circe recalled the dark presence looming over Torben’s body, knurled fingers stretching toward the glowing threads that pulsed faintly along his arm.
A sharp laugh snapped Circe out of her spiraling thoughts.
"You are realizing it now, aren’t you?" the woman said with evident satisfaction. "Soon, you will learn that the only true thing you know about your mother is her name. You will come to understand what she took from you."
She moved around the pool of water, circling it as she approached Circe.
She glided more than she walked, each step unnaturally fluid. "You were a very angry child," she went on. "Or so people told you to explain away all your vicious outbursts. They said you lacked control, that you did not know how to temper your impulses."
Her smile sharpened. "And your mother, Thalora, told you those things more than anyone else, all while she knew the truth. She knew, because she was the cause of it."
Circe’s face went slack as she watched the woman draw closer, her mind struggling to keep pace with the weight of what she was hearing.
"Even as a child, you knew," the woman continued. "Your body and soul sensed that something had been taken from you. A part of you was sealed away, and what remained rebelled against the sudden loss in the only way it knew how."
She stopped three steps away from Circe. "For Thalora, it would not do to have her daughter openly displaying any special abilities. It would have raised questions, questions that would have led straight back to her."
Her voice lowered. "She did not want that. So instead of teaching you to wield and control your gifts, she took them from you. Your abilities reminded her too much of the past she abandoned when she ran, and she loved her new life far too much to risk losing it."
A faint scoff escaped her lips. "She gave you something as paltry as archery, as if it could ever replace what she stole. Haven’t you noticed how your rageful outbursts have lessened since I began unraveling the seal that bound your abilities?" frёeωebɳovel.com
It was true.
Circe had noticed the change, but now that it was mentioned, it became impossible to ignore. Her thoughts were quieter, no longer churning like a storm-tossed sea. The constant, simmering rage that had lived beneath her skin for as long as she could remember had cooled, settling into something steadier and more controlled.
For the first time, she no longer felt the need to lash out.
For so long, her anger had been her shield, her only true defense against a world. And now, standing in the hollow heart of the cave, Circe began to realize that the shield had never been meant to exist at all.
To her, the rage that burned hot within her had always felt familiar and safe.
Circe’s mouth fell open. "How—" She shook her head sharply. "No. You’re lying. My mother... my mother would never do the things you’re saying."
In truth, she didn’t know whether the woman was telling the truth or not. She had never been able to properly read her, and now was no different. The woman’s presence was like a closed book, her intentions hidden beneath layers Circe could not peel back.
It was as if the woman knew this. She smiled again, and it was the sort of smile that spoke without words, one that suggested she knew far more than Circe could ever begin to imagine.
Circe’s face twisted in shock, and then the shock hardened into anger. It was the kind of anger that came when one felt their privacy had been violated.
"You saw all my memories," she said, her voice rising. "How dare you!"
The woman had no right. The realization made Circe feel as though she had been violated.
"Of course," the woman replied calmly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "How else was I to know what my sister did to you?" She spoke as if it was no great transgression that she had looked through every intimate corner of Circe’s life. "The two of you are very alike. I have always felt a connection to her, but it grows even stronger whenever I summon you here. Without a doubt, you carry a part of her inside you."
Her gaze drifted over Circe, cool and assessing. "It is a shame you ended up bound to one of those filthy descendants of Marzen," she added lightly. "But that is a problem that can be easily fixed."
