Chapter Fifty-One
ELENA
When I awoke, my heart was pounding in my chest so hard that I could feel it in my throat. What had I been dreaming of? Nothing. That timeless void, that empty space in my memory that existed between my fall from the tower, and my rebirth in Jonias's catacombs. A chill crawled through me, though I was sweating bullets. I curled into the bedding, and suppressed a horrible sob.
"Can't sleep?" came a whisper from the darkness. In that moment, I wouldn't have cared if the devil himself were in my room; just so long as I wasn't alone.
"No." I whispered back to Mother.
She illuminated a candle, and went about igniting the nearby oil lamp. "You used to get night terrors when you were younger," she muttered, "I'd have to stay up with you until dawn. They started soon after your father died."
"I don't remember them." I moaned, and tried to shift in the bed. I was still too weak, and any strength in me had been exhausted by my climb up the stairs. I eyed the chamber pot that sat just out of reach, and sighed. "Mom," I whispered, "I need to pee."
She raised her brows, then glanced at my predicament. "I see. And um... how does Lady Jonias go about... keeping your modesty?"
"She just tilts me to the side. I can do the rest."
Mother opened the chamber pot, then moved behind me, took me by the shoulders, and pushed me to my side. I fished into my gown, grabbed my cock, and aimed it. With a push, I felt the sweet release in my loins, and I shuddered with satisfaction. I didn't notice how deathly silent the room had become until after my stream sputtered out. That was when the realization came to me.
"Oh, shit." I groaned, "Sorry, Mom, I shouldn't have—"
"It's fine," she muttered, though her hand was shaking against me, "It's well-past time that I accept the reality of what you've become—of
who you are.
"
"
Of who I am.
" I laughed bitterly, made myself modest, and rolled onto my back to look at her, "You should be pleased; you finally got the son you always wanted."
She scowled, though I could tell by the angle of her brows that I'd hurt her. "I didn't want a son, Elena," she said softly, "I was just afraid of having a daughter. A son would be nothing like me at all, but a daughter..."
"Well, your fears were in vain then."
"No, they weren't." Mother whispered. Her face was shadowed by her silvery blonde hair, but a flicker of orange light across her cheek showed that it was wet with tears. She turned around, and sat gingerly at the foot of my bed. "I thought a lot about what you said to me yesterday," she said softly, her voice shaking, "I walked for miles, just thinking about it. Thinking about what I could've done differently, about the things I should've said, or the things I should never have spoken." She laid her right hand over her left in such a way as their profiles were the same. "I used to look at you, and see me at the same age. It terrified me to see that, for I knew what you must've been going through."
"You knew nothing about me."
"I am your mother, Elena!" She hissed, whipping her head so that I saw the fierceness of her tear-speckled gaze. "You are of my blood and flesh." She raised her pressed hands, "You and I walked the same paths, only twenty years apart. The lonesome childhood, the single-peered life, the unsure years of maturation, and the fear. I remember the fear. I tried to save you from it, but I failed." Her hands moved together as she raised them. "The same path. Perhaps the scenery was different, but the turns were the same. I hid myself in a life of politics. You hid yourself in a life of soldiery. We were loners that hid in large packs, dedicating our lives to a distraction so that we wouldn't have to face the truth!" She broke into a sob, then corralled it with a shuddering breath. "Then, our paths diverged." She separated her hands, "I stayed the course my mother set me upon, and it became who I was." She moved her right hand to the ceiling, and opened it as if letting something go, "But Yavara rescued you from that fate, and you became who you always were." She turned her head away, concealing her face from me. "I'm so glad that you had Yavara to save you, Elena."
"Mom?" I asked cautiously, "What are you talking about?"
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "I never married after your father died. I was a woman fresh out of my teens, living in the prime of her youth, and I decided to stay a widow. People thought it was because I'd succumbed to grief, that no other man could ever take his place. In truth, I never took another man, because I no longer had to. His death was my liberation from having to feign the most intimate parts of myself. Like pretending I was interested in making love to a man." She looked slowly up at me, "I'm so glad you had Yavara, Elena, but there was no Yavara to save me."
She bore her shame plainly upon her face when she looked at me, then dropped her head, unable to hold my gaze. I opened my mouth, then closed it, unable to find the words for the moment. It was very easy to see me in her then. The perpetually-downcast face, fearing that someone might see the truth behind the mask if they looked too long; the hunched shoulders, bowed to bear the weight of the hanging head, and the mask that pulled it all downward; the hands folded demurely together, held tight so that they would not gesticulate, and communicate by accident, the truth behind the mask. Mother had always been so controlled, so calculated in every motion and movement. I'd always thought it was who she was; the political schemer, the thoroughbred aristocrat, but it was all a carefully-rehearsed and practiced lie. She was me-or rather, I was her. She is who I would've become had Yavara not forced me to take off the mask. Finally, I found the words that needed to be said.
I extended my hand, and flopped it lifelessly atop hers. "You're twenty years past me on your path, Mom," I whispered, "but you're only a couple steps behind me on mine."
She slowly raised her face, a question in her sapphire eyes.
I beamed to her. "Remember what you told me on the steps: one step at a time. Take it whenever you're ready. I'll be with you every step of the way."
Her bottom lip quivered slightly. Her face turned pale, then flushed at the cheeks. Her eyes strained to stay fixed on me. She gulped, and reached to her neckline. She began unlacing her gown.
My heart leapt into my throat. "Um... Mom?" I asked very, very cautiously, "I didn't... I didn't mean you should take that step... now. I... um... holy shit. I meant I'd be with you as you... you know... found yourself with...
other people.
"
