Lover Avenged(117)

Rehv’s throat got tight, a sudden, horrible suspicion parking in his brain’s front lot.

His mother’s voice was weak but forthright. “I approached the bed, and he reached for my hand, and I held his palm within mine own. I told him then that I loved my born son and that I was to be mated to a male of the glymera and that all was not lost. My father searched my face for the truth in the words I spoke, and when he was satisfied with what he saw, he closed his eyes…and drifted away. I knew that if I hadn’t come…” She took a deep breath. “Verily, I cannot leave this earth the way things are.”

Rehv shook his head. “Everyone’s fine, Mahmen. Bella and her young are well and safe. I’m-”

“Stop it.” His mother reached up and grabbed onto his chin, the way she had when he’d been very young and prone to causing trouble. “I know what you did. I know you killed my hellren, Rempoon.”

Rehv weighed whether it was better to keep up the lie, but given his mother’s expression, the truth was out, and nothing he could say would dissuade her from it.

“How,” he said. “How did you find out?”

“Who else would have? Who else could have?” As she released her hold and stroked his cheek, he yearned to feel the warm touch. “Do not forget, I saw this face of yours each time my hellren lost his temper. My son, my strong, powerful son. Look at you.”

The honest, loving pride she had for him was something he’d never understood, given the circumstances of his conception.

“I also know,” she whispered, “that you killed your birth father. Twenty-five years ago.”

Now, that really got his attention. “You were not supposed to know. Any of this. Who told you about it?”

She took her hand from his face and pointed over to her makeup table, to a crystal bowl that he’d always assumed was for her manicures. “Old habits of a Chosen scribe, they die hard. I saw it in the water. Right after it happened.”

“And you kept it all to yourself,” he said with wonder.

“And could not any longer. Which was why I brought you here.”

That horrible feeling resurged, the result of his being trapped between what his mother was going to ask him to do and his strong conviction that his sister wasn’t going to benefit from knowing all her family’s dirty, evil secrets. Bella had stayed protected from this nastiness all her life, and there was no reason to do a full disclosure now, especially if their mother was dying.

Which Madalina wasn’t, he reminded himself.

“Mahmen-”

“Your sister must never be told.”

Rehv stiffened, praying he’d heard her right. “Excuse me?”

“Swear to me you shall do everything in your power to ensure that she never knows.” As his mother leaned forward and gripped his arms, he could tell she was really digging her fingers in by the way the bones in her hands and wrists stood out starkly. “I don’t want her to carry these burdens. You were forced to, and I would have spared you this if I could have, but I couldn’t. And if she doesn’t know, then the next generation will not have to suffer. Nalla will not bear the weight either. It can die with you and me. Swear to me.”

Rehv stared up into his mother’s eyes and never loved her more.

He nodded once. “Look upon mine face and be assured, I so swear it. Bella and her issue shall never know. The past shall die with thee and me.”

His mother’s shoulders eased under her dressing gown, and her shuddering sigh spoke loudly of her relief. “You are the son other mothers may only wish for.”

“How can that possibly be true,” he said softly.

“How can it not.”

Madalina gathered herself up and took the kerchief from his hand. “I must needs do this one again, and then perhaps you will help me to my bed?”

“Of course. And I’d like to call Havers.”

“No.”

“Mahmen-”

“I should like my passing to be without medical intervention. None would save me now, anyway.”

“You can’t know that-”

She lifted her lovely hand with its heavy diamond ring. “I shall be dead before nightfall tomorrow. I saw it within the bowl.”

Rehv’s breath left him, his lungs refusing to work. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready. I’m not ready…

Madalina was so precise with the final kerchief, lining up its corners carefully, sweeping the iron back and forth slowly. When she was finished, she moved the perfect square over to the others, making sure that everything was lined up.

“It is done,” she said.

Rehv leaned on his cane to rise and offered her his arm, and together they shuffled into her bedroom, both unsteady.