Eyes in the Water Read Free Page B

but growing and loving never are. It’s time to let
go, but your love will always be with her. Tell her you’re not
thinking of yourself, but of your loyalty to a promise. You may
return, you may not…but she is not unloved or alone.”
    His face flushed. He had caught glimpses of
this woman during their time in Selenia. She had still been much a
child then—as was he—but when that regal strength had shown
through, it had left him stammering. So despite the strange
reticence he had experienced from her here on Alatrice, he could
see that the Colette from his past had only grown wiser and
stronger. He forgave all in that instant, amazed at the mature
woman whose mind was awake and seeing.
    She’s so good.
    He had no comparably elegant words to share,
so he spoke simply into the silver case: “I’m coming. I’ll be there
soon.” He clapped it shut with pruned fingers and sloshed up the
steps.
    His heart glowed alive with excitement as the
words resounded in his mind: I’m coming. I’ll be there
soon.
    And yes, my gortei . Even Colette
hints at it, though she doesn’t know what it means.
    The forces of fate were gearing vigorously to
life. He must move with haste.
    ~
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    Brenol gazed at his mother, who stared back
at him with a clamped jaw and narrowed eyes. Mousy brown hair hung
limply against her face.
    “I cannot say,” he replied, fidgeting. He
towered over her, and could have easily plucked the wispy woman up
into his arms, but she somehow still made him feel like a grammar
school sprout.
    “Is this about the traitor?”
    “He has a name,” Brenol replied.
    “Is it about him?”
    Brenol sighed. “Somewhat,” he added
reluctantly.
    “Is that all you have to say?” Her voice was
not angry.
    The young man’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You expected this,” he said. How?
    His mother’s features slackened suddenly, and
she peered at him with uncharacteristic understanding. “Bren,
you’re my child. I see. You have a hole.”
    Brenol raised his brow.
    Her face twitched as she fought anxiously for
the words. “Since you came back. And Darse left. There’s been a
hole.”
    The young man regarded his mother
quietly.
    She tugged at her sleeves. “You’re more adult
than before—more grown—and I don’t know, but there’s something
you’ve been waiting on… I-I didn’t know what.” Her fingers found a
loose string and twirled it between thumb and finger over and over
again. “And the itch has been growing—to leave, to move…something.”
Her amber eyes locked onto his, and her thin lips pinched together
while she waited for his response. When it did not come, she
discarded the string with an exaggerated swipe of the hand and
spoke with a strength he had never before heard from her. “I’m not
going to cage you. You’re not my pet.”
    The word made him grimace, his memory
shooting back to Darse’s horrific experience with Fingers, but
still he was stunned. Her lucidity, her insights, her words. It had
taken him eighteen orbits to glimpse it behind all the angst and
awkward behavior, but there was more to this broken woman than he
could imagine. Brenol stared in disbelief.
    The fullness of her words suddenly struck
him.
    She’s letting me go.
    It was without charge, without explanation.
It was more love than he had ever expected from her—or ever before
received. He stared into her eyes and sensed the world around him
continuing despite his efforts to stand still. This was his first
moment of connection with her, and he felt the bitter irony that it
was also his last. Eventually he choked out the words that Colette
had shared through the aurenal. Flowing from his lips, though, they
seemed inane and meager.
    How can one actually say goodbye to one’s
mother?
    The experience was too sour, too bitter.
Without meaning to, he blurted out, “Come. Come with me.”
    Her face jumped in suspicion. “You want me to
come?”
    Brenol nodded, surprised