Chapter 9.5 - The Light

Through the cabin's weathered doorframe, Lyna's fingers found the cold embrace of her amulet, her breath turning to mist in the frozen air. The night wind sang through the pines like voices from the grave, carrying secrets that had festered too long in darkness. Before her, beneath the moon's pitiless stare, her son stood like a wraith against the silver-painted field.

"My boy." The words escaped her lips soft as a dying breath, barely stirring the silence that pressed against the cabin walls. Her chest constricted as Einar pressed his palm to his heart, his broad shoulders folding inward like broken wings. Eighteen years of motherhood had not prepared her for this moment, watching her child suffer beneath burdens she had placed upon him.

The familiar torment of a mother's love twisted through her ribs like a blade between bones. Each shuddering breath he drew pierced her soul deeper than the cold bite of night. Distance meant nothing when blood of her blood stood in agony; she felt his pain as surely as blood flowed through her veins.

He suffers because of my silence. The truth struck her like a war hammer to the chest. Guilt settled in her stomach heavy as molten lead. Even after the first dream had come, when she had seen the confusion cloud his eyes like storm clouds over clear skies, she had held her tongue. A coward's choice, dressed in a mother's concern.

Her breath caught sharply in her throat, heart and mind waging war within her breast. Einar had grown distant these past moons, each vision pulling him further from the boy who once ran laughing through these very fields. She could feel it in her bones, the way a sailor feels the coming storm; this was merely the first taste of what was to come. What she had dreaded since his birth, since he had taken his first steps at only three months old, walking as though he remembered how from another life.

She had sworn to protect him, to shield him from the darkness that dwelled in him that would threaten him one day. She had sworn to raise him in love and light, far from the shadows of his true heritage until he was ready for it. But now, watching him crumble beneath the weight of memories of a life he didn’t understand, she felt those promises twist into cruel mockery.

Blood thundered in her ears as the crystal pulsed against her throat, its warmth spreading through her fingers like honey through bread. The ancient thing had been her constant companion for eighteen years. Moonlight caught its faceted surface, scattering rainbow fragments across the cabin's rough walls like scattered hopes.

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"What path do I choose?" Her whisper carried the weight of decades, heavy with the burden of choices that could damn them both. "He bleeds while I..." The words died in her throat as Einar stumbled before the unmarked grave, his fingers tracing its weathered edges as though stone might yield the answers flesh could not provide.

"You would warn me if silence were the greater sin, would you not?" Her fingers tightened around the crystal, feeling its steady pulse like a second heartbeat. "If I should let him drown in ignorance..."

Near the ancient oak, Einar collapsed to his knees as though invisible hands had struck him down. The sight shattered something vital within her chest, the last barriers of a mother's protective instincts crumbling like walls before siege engines. Perhaps it was the death of her resolve. Perhaps it was the birth of her courage.

"Truth then," she breathed against the crystal's warm surface, pressing it to her lips like a lover's final kiss. "Though it destroy us both utterly."

Her grip loosened around the amulet, its comforting warmth fading as night deepened around them like closing jaws. She stood motionless for long moments, watching her heart's greatest treasure kneel broken beneath the moon's indifferent gaze. Then, with the slow deliberation of a woman walking to her execution, she stepped into the night.

Her bare feet found the same worn path his boots had carved, leading toward the oak that had stood sentinel over their lives for years. Toward the grave that held more than bones. Toward truths that would either forge them anew or break them beyond all mending.

The peace she had built with blood and sacrifice might crumble to ash before dawn's light. But perhaps, if the gods still possessed mercy, something stronger might rise from those ashes. Something worthy of the love that had driven her to such desperate lengths.

The crystal grew cold against her breast as she walked, each step carrying her further from the woman she had been and closer to the mother she must become. Behind her, the cabin's dying embers cast her shadow long and dark across the threshold.

There could be no retreat now. The wheel of fate had begun to turn, and she would either guide its course or be crushed beneath its weight.

But her son would not face the darkness alone.