51. Aurelia

Chapter 51

Aurelia

T he thing that hurts is that I recognise both these medical eagles. After high school, I enrolled in a distance course for healing, but there'd been practical components on which I'd needed to be assessed. Because I wasn't allowed to go anywhere, Dad had sent a car to take me to out-of-hours sessions with tutors that I'd guessed he'd paid off. I'd done many assessments with blonde, middle-aged Susan and at least two exams with the small raven-haired older lady on the left, Mina.

They are experienced healers, the best sort of teachers who preached the values healing eagles needed to have: Consent. Respect. Compassion.

And here they are, working on my mother. Betraying all of those things.

It's my instinct to squeeze them to death for it. But I notice Susan is trying to use her voice. I ease up on my telekinetic hold.

"Aurelia," she says, her brows knitting together. "W-We were not expecting you."

That's what she has to say?

"So you do remember me," I say darkly, my fists clenched so hard my nails burn into my palms.

"Of course."

Mina is sweating, her eyes darting between my terrifying mates. She should be fucking scared.

"You've been hurting my mother," I say quietly. My knees are weak. My heart races irregularly behind my ribs. My urge to tear these women apart might overcome me.

A tear leaks from Susan's eye as her face reddens. "Your father needed female medical personnel. He threatened our families?—"

"We don't have time for this," Lyle mutters.

I gesture to the doors on our left, the one the glittering thread travels through. Swallowing, I say, "Let us in."

Her hasty obedience is the only thing that saves her. As soon as I let Susan go, she takes out her swipe card and hurries to the door, tapping the plastic against the black sensor. The doors swing open, and beyond, a single bed lies with a sole occupant. The machinery for an entire ICU unit lies inside, but I barely see them as I walk through the doors.

I barely feel my feet. I barely feel the air on my skin. A part of me leaves my body completely as I come to stand beside the bed.

The gasp I let out is involuntary when I look upon the intubated woman on the bed, her raven hair strewn about her like a dark shroud. When my legs give away, I don't even try to save myself, my eyes fixed only on her. My beautiful mother, fifteen years older. Paler and smaller than I remember.

Strong arms catch me before I crumple onto the linoleum, and I know it's Scythe by his scent.

Susan strides to the bed and fusses with the sheets. Her voice is hoarse as she says, "What are you going to do?"

I gasp a breath, clutching Scythe's arms as I get back onto my feet. Lyle comes to my rescue, stalking to Susan's side. "What is her physical status? Can she breathe on her own?"

Susan points to the respirator attached to the intubation tube that's down her throat. "She is on life support. Her heart beats on its own, but she has not breathed on her own for over a decade. We have been healing her to keep her going, but she would not live without these machines."

A fresh laceration assaults my heart and I clutch the edge of the mattress. I want to cry. I want to scream. Fury tears through me, fiery hot in my blood.

"Have you sedated her?" I choke out, trying to see what's written on the screen of the small IV machine often used for opiate analgesia.

Mina steps away from a glaring Savage, gesturing to the extensive charts they have on multiple clipboards. "We don't need to anymore. She's not responsive."

"To pain?" I ask, clutching my chest. "What about analgesia?"

Mina gives me a pained look. "Her EEG has not been active for years. I've been re-checking…"

So her brain has no activity. She is brain dead and has been for a long time. I stifle a wild cry, thankful that Scythe still holds me as my knees buckle again. We'd guessed it from what Celeste had revealed, but to hear it, to see it, is breaking me into pieces.

Get it together, Aurelia. We need to get her out. Focus.

"We're taking her right now," I say firmly. To freedom. To peace.

Susan's face crumples as if she is relieved. "Good. That's good, Aurelia."

"Do not use her name," Savage snarls. "Not after what you've done."

"I'm sorry," Mina says, clutching the pendant of the Wild Mother at her throat. "We never wanted to do this. I prayed the drugs wouldn't work. Prayed every night the king would let her go. We begged him in the beginning, but…" She shakes her head.

I wipe my cheeks, taking the chart from Mina to glance down the long list of drugs and medical interventions. Every time they drew blood, every time they checked her organs, had been documented with precision. There is an ultrasound machine in the corner of the room and more equipment that I don't recognise. On the other side is a shelf with bulky folders full of paperwork.

Fifteen years worth of medical charts.

Nausea roils in my stomach.

"None of the treatments worked?" I asked. "There were…never any births?"

Susan shakes her head in shame. "None. They tried everything. None of the embryos lasted more than a week."

Not even my worst enemy deserved a fate such as this.

I glance at Scythe and he nods, removing his arms from around me, albeit reluctantly. My feet are steady as I walk up to the head of the bed, anger, fear, and shame lighting up my blood. She looks so small and fragile in her hospital gown and the tubes keeping her alive are an utter violation. Her lips are dry around the breathing tube and pain strikes me anew when I touch her hand and the IV line gets in the way. I close off the device and start undoing the tape around her hand as Susan and Mina turn off the machines. Mina hands me a circular band aid and I remove the drip from her right hand. There are many marks from where her skin has been pierced so many times.

"Start disconnecting," I say to them. "Be fast about it."

They oblige me with expert efficiency.

I lean down and stroke a finger down her cheek, sniffing when I find her barely warm. I whisper into her pale, perfect ear. "I love you."

Then I watch Susan switch off the machine that keeps her breathing. Her life support.

I'd only seen training videos of it done, and it's well beyond my own area of practice, but I undo the tape keeping her airway in place and extubate her as gently and as quickly as possible. It's a horrible process, messy and noisy, but Susan guides me through it without question.

Gritting my teeth and fighting tears, I listen to her instructions. I could have made her do it, but I need to rescue her from these foreign, heinous objects. I need to make up for what my father had done.

My mother takes a breath on her own, rattling and weak, hardly a real breath. But it makes my heart leap for just a moment. I catch Susan's eye and she shakes her head. I look at my mother's face again, free from obstruction.

Even now, she is stunning. Delicate perfection. We have the same nose, the same eyes too, though I won't get to see those again. Her mouth is smaller than mine, her skin fairer, and she's lost much weight. But she is my mother, as real as my own self. Just…unmoving.

Quickly, they take out each remaining line. She has a central artery line for nutrition that goes right near her heart, and I remove the ECG dots on her chest, hating that I won't get to hear the beep of her heart on the machine now.

"Turn around," I command to my mates.

They oblige and Mina removes the catheter that goes to her bladder.

My mother's body lies unmoving, lifeless before me. She looks as good as dead. I strain my ears and focus on her heartbeats. They are delicate, but there. She doesn't have long.

And I don't want anyone else to have access to her body ever again.

"I want to burn her," I say quietly. "She needs a cremation."

Lyle's eyes are uncertain, but it's Scythe who answers instead. "She is not yours to burn yet, Aurelia."

I whip around in fury. "How dare you?—"

But he's shaking his head and the look on his face scares me. "She is not only loved by you. There is someone else who needs to say goodbye to her first."

It takes me a moment to get over the shock for a second. He doesn't mean— He can't mean?—

But now I glance at my mother with phoenix eyes and the bonds vibrating from her soul are visible to me: one grey and dormant in death and two that still shine with celestial light. The first reaches out north, laced with shadow. And the second, pure but hard as if calcified, stretches out east. Towards the coast.

I nod at Scythe.

Relief shines in his eyes. "Xander is here," he says in the group chat, and just as matter-of-factly, says to Susan and Mina, "Mace will kill you for this, if not your blood contract. Do you want to die now, or later?"

They glance at each other with the realisation, then at me. There's so much pain in my heart right now, I just don't have room for any more. Glancing at Scythe, I realise he is offering them a kindness.

Anger mixes with grief then. That these women are now forced to choose this for themselves.

A heinous burn singes my innermost being. It moves through me, wild and fierce. It whispers for fury. And for justice.

"You should run," I say, my voice dead. "Get as far away as you can."

"He'll find them," Scythe says flatly.

"Try," I say, looking them both in the eyes. " Try. "

They both nod.

"Lyle?" I turn to my lion, who'd never had the chance to save his own mother. My vision blurs. "Will you carry her for me?"

Completely understanding the gravity of this and the trust I have in him, his eyes flutter with emotion. "Of course, my regina."

I carefully drape her blanket back over her and watch as Lyle gently picks her up, half using his telekinesis and half using muscle, so she remains cocooned in the blankets. She looks so small in his arms that I just stare for a moment as Susan and Mina hurry around us, gathering their things.

Finally, she will be free. Finally, there will be no more horrors done to her body. I reach up and stroke her inky dark hair, so like my own.

"While you're at it," Savage says to the eagles, "which way is out?"

We definitely can't go back the way we came, I realise with shock. It's way too far, and there's that monster dwelling there.

"There is an air vent system," Susan says nervously. "If you can climb or levitate everyone up, that is. It is hidden from the outside, you'll just need to break through."

They take us to a service room with a duct in the ceiling. Wide enough for beasts as big as Lyle and Scythe to fit through.

"These weren't on the plans," Scythe tells us. "But I sense no falsehood in them."

"I think I've found the outlet," Xander says, sounding far away. There's a loud metallic screeching noise of something being torn off. "Send Sav up first."

"Always the guinea pig," Savage says, leaping up and grabbing the duct by only his fingers. "Hut, hut!"

Lyle shoots Savage upwards into the vent like a missile. After a moment, Savage shouts down an affirmative. Lyle sends the two eagles and Eugene through next, followed by me.

It's pitch black and so dusty that I sneeze twice. It's thirty feet or more before I start to feel uneasy, but that's when a fresh gust of night air coasts down. I look up to see two white glowing orbs that can only be Xander.

"Tell me when," Lyle says.

I shoot out of the vent like a missile, cold air slicing at my face as I narrowly miss Xander's big head.

"When! When!" I shout.

Lyle lets his power go and I'm left to fall straight back down, right into Savage's arms. "There she is," he says in a soothing voice, planting a kiss on my cheek before setting me down.

I clutch his hand and take a moment to gain my bearings. We're on the lawn at the back of the property, and I turn to see Susan and Mina hurrying towards the front of the estate, their phone lights reflecting their faces as they no doubt call their families to tell them to pack their bags.

Naga mansion towers over me, a silent, malevolent void that sucks everything around it and destroys it.

Fury turns into rage, hot and sharp, while hate is a bitter poison funnelling alongside it. Scythe emerges easily out of the vent, something tucked under his arm and Lyle follows him, my mother cradled safely in his arms. I check on her quickly, brushing the hair off her face. Her heart beats slowly in her small chest. One tiny thump sounds amidst the dark. The rhythm of the dying. There is some magic in her, yet, holding on just barely.

That sound, small and sad, is the only thing that makes my legs work as we hurry across the lawn and round the property.

Each step is agony, is grief, is torment.

I stifle another sob as another tiny thump reaches my ears when we make it to the front of Naga House and the circular driveway that haunted my dreams as a teenager.

And then I'm watching my mother pass through those cursed black gates for the first time in sixteen years.

Only when she is free do I turn around and look at my childhood home. And that primal thing that's been waiting inside of me tears loose.

And screams.

I scream into the frigid night air. For my mother. For the agony she felt. For the agony I now feel. I scream my rage at the mansion that had once been my home. That now represents everything that is evil and abhorrent in the world.

Light explodes into being from that dark place of horror. A red beacon that roars to life. A sacred light that fills my vision with red and orange and yellow. That fills my ears with a roar.

And it is satisfying.

I'm going to burn it down. I'm going to burn it to ashes along with the rest of my father's forsaken world.

Faint voices are shouting. I wonder if they feel the same pain I do. I wonder if they feel this infernal, justice-bringing heat.

Someone touches me and yanks back, exclaiming. There is more shouting, more words. Worried and alarmed.

But I am none of those things.

I am mesmerised by the way flames tear down and rip apart and melt. By the way the acrid scent fills the air. By the way black clouds of smoke billow like hell itself has been called.

Awoken.

Because within me now, something has stirred awake, something colossal and powerful whose voice roars alongside the eagle's cry and the wolf's growl, and the lion's roar and the shark's gnashing, and it will never be put back to sleep.

Large, strong hands grab mine. Fingers wind around my own, squeezing. And a voice like the molten places deep within the earth demands my attention. "Enough, Aurelia."

"Never," I whisper.

It won't be enough until it's all ashes. Until every last brick and tile is consumed by the flames.

Those big hands squeeze mine again and I realise they are just as hot as mine. Just as laced with rage and hunger . This one understands. "It is done, Lady Boneweaver. Lay your power to rest." That voice sidles into my ear like lava, the heat of it a tickling on my hot skin. "It. Is. Done."

Only then do I look up into eyes that blaze white. They stare back at me, colours flickering within. Pink and purple flames, like faint opals living within him.

The dragon man exhales and smoke streams in a steady white band from his nostrils.

Fascinated, I let it wash over me. It smells almost sweet. Almost angry.

Xander drops my hands and it's only then that he steps back to show me what I've done.

The devastation I'm causing.

The entire Naga mansion is a ball of orange-yellow flames. It licks up into the night, black smoke billowing in a giant cloud above, blotting out the stars. There are people stumbling around, running for their lives.

And the sound . No one tells you how truly loud a blaze is. How much it roars like a terrible, living monster.

There's a cracking sound just before one of the stone pillars bends and collapses. I swear it slides to the ground as if it melted from within…

My anger cools, and so does my skin. If I'd been a living flame before, now I'm warm coals, cooled by the frigid night.

Arms wrap around my waist, and I know it's Savage that has me safe in his arms, bundling me into his chest and taking me away to safety.

My last vision of my childhood home is the way the orange blasts frame Xander in an orb, his near seven-foot silhouette as he stands before it, staring at the blaze as if transfixed.