Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Lemi stops barking.
Instead he sits down and starts wagging his tail.
I’m too shocked to think, too confused to even be scared anymore.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
And why do I know you? I think.
Why do I know you?
“Brynla,” the woman says.
And her voice turns me inside out.
Brings me to my knees.
I collapse to the ground, hand at my heart, afraid that if I let go it will burst from my chest.
“No,” I whisper. “It can’t be you.”
Her face contorts for a second, the hardened rock crumbling away to reveal the flowing lava underneath, magma rising and falling to create a face. High cheekbones, low-set brow, a doll’s nose. And if her eyes had any color other than red and orange, they would be a bright blue. The same as the dragon. The same eyes I never inherited because I got my father’s brown ones.
“It’s taken you so long to find me,” she says, her voice sounding far away, like I’m hearing it from another room, but hers all the same. “I was starting to think maybe you never would.”
“Mama,” I say, my voice cracking. I try to say more but I can’t, because how can I?
How is this my mother? A woman made of lava.
Voldansa, Sae Balek had said. The unworshipped goddess of the Midlands.
“You’re a goddess?” I ask. “How?”
How? What does this mean?
No, I tell myself, closing my eyes and pressing the heel of my hand into my forehead. No, none of this is real. You died, Brynla. You died out there and none of this is real.
“It’s real, my sweet dear,” my mother says. “And I wish more than anything I could hold you and tell you that you’ll be all right. I think then you would know. But I am real, darling, I promise you.”
I shake my head, daring to look at her. “How? The goddesses aren’t real.”
“They are,” she says.
“You’re dead,” I say simply, staring down at the pool. “I’m seeing ghosts.”
“I never died, Bryn,” she says to me, my old nickname jarring to hear. “They sent me away on purpose because they were afraid of what I could do. They had theories about my blood. But that was their biggest mistake.”
“I don’t understand,” I mutter. Everything hurts, including my head but especially my heart.
“You will. But right now, we don’t have a lot of time, do we?” She looks over her shoulder at Andor’s lifeless body. “Not if you want to save him.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“This man here,” she says. “He is with you, isn’t he?”
“Andor,” I tell her, trying to tamp down the hope in my chest, flaring like a star. “His name is Andor. If you were a goddess you would know that.”
Her lava face smiles. “It doesn’t work like that. But I can still help you, in the way that a goddess can.”
She waves her fingers at the dragon and steps back toward me. I stare at the back of her head for a moment, entranced by the lava, and at the same time, I know this really is her.
The dragon heads pick Andor up again.
“What are you doing?” I call out, panicking. “Leave him alone.”
“I’m saving him,” she says, glancing at me over her shoulder. “That is what you want me to do, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I cry. “Can you?”
She nods. “But it will come at a cost.”
“I don’t care about the cost,” I tell her truthfully. “Bring him back, please bring him back.”
“You might not care,” she says. “But he might. If I bring him back to life, that means draining the suen from his body. It means he’ll no longer be able to heal anyone.”
“I thought you didn’t know everything,” I say softly, my heart in my throat.
“I am Voldansa,” she says. “Goddess of the dragons. Goddess of the Midlands. I know when suen is in someone’s blood and I know what it does.”
“Andor won’t care if he can’t heal,” I say, even though I’m not sure I should be speaking for him. But at this point, I have no choice.
“It means he can’t heal you,” she says, her face turning grim. “I know your pains, child. I feel them when you do. I feel you in the blood and earth.”
My brain still isn’t able to catch up with what’s happening. My mother is alive and a goddess? She can bring Andor back to life?
“I don’t care about my pain,” I tell her. “I’ll deal with it as I always have. I never expected a miracle anyway.”
“All right,” she says. Then she waves her fingers at the dragon, embers flying from them, and the dragon drops Andor into the lava pool.
I cry out, putting my hands over my eyes, feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under me. As long as I saw his body I somehow believed that maybe he would come back, but now that he’s been dropped into the lava pool, I can’t…I can’t…