imagined it. But the girl’s eyes were just a little dark.
Rune wanted to fall upon the ground and beat it with her fists, crying and laughing and screaming hysterically.
I am the witch’s daughter.
I really am.
It was there. No longer unspoken. No longer could she pretend otherwise and hide from that particular foul truth.
She was the fucking witch’s daughter.
She controlled herself, though her insides quivered with a disgust and horror too strong to stomp down. “You’re my sister?”
“Damascus is my mother by blood. You have two mothers and four fathers by…magic.” Again, she shrugged. “I suppose I am your sister, in a vague sort of way.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, there it was.
The joy.
And then, remorse and self-hatred at that joy.
She’d wanted a mother. A real fucking mother.
Now she had one. And a sister.
“Two mothers?” she asked, pushing against her stomach with a tight fist.
The woman nodded. “This will be difficult to explain, but you’re not made simply of or from Damascus. She carried you—at least for a short time—but you’re created from Mother Skyll as well.” She opened her arms wide as though to embrace the entire world. “You’re the daughter of Skyll.”
It made sense that she’d been birthed from earth and sky and moon. From sun and water and animal. From Skyll.
She felt it.
“You haven’t accepted this world yet, have you?”
Rune clenched her fists. “I don’t know.” I don’t know how.
“When you do, her power will be yours, Princess.” The other daughter moved a bit closer and peered into Rune’s eyes. “Enough to defeat the evil that would destroy her, and that would destroy you.” She thumped her chest with a closed fist. “We will defeat it.”
“What’s your name?” Rune asked.
“You may call me Snow.” The woman smiled almost shyly. “It’s the name I chose once I extracted myself from my mother.”
“No one mentioned you to me. I didn’t know you existed.” Rune shook her head, trying to think of how that could have happened.
If Gunnar, Brasque, or any of them knew about the witch, surely they knew about the daughter. Surely.
But Snow shrugged. “I am not important. I am nothing. Few knew me. I am a disappointment and embarrassment to the witch. Not enough power to suit her, not enough evil to wield what power I have…” Again, she smiled. “I was her shame.”
“Shame,” Jim said. “I’ve heard of you. I thought you were a legend created by the storytellers. The witch refused to name you until she knew you, and then she named you Shame.”
Snow inclined her head, then looked at him with eyes so icy that even Rune shivered. “You will not mention that again.”
Jim held up his hands and backed away. “I’ll just go cook you all some food.”
“You killed Ian,” Rune said. “You didn’t have to fucking kill him.”
“I’m sorry,” Snow said. “I’m not perfect, Your Highness. When I’m attacked, it’s my nature to send the attack back.” She inclined her head. “That’s the extent of my power—that, and the wall.”
“Why am I so weak?”
Snow laughed. “You’re not weak. You are all the power that is. You simply must let it be. Accept it.” She took Rune’s arm and turned her in a circle. “See the sky, the trees, the ground. Breathe the air and feel the life. This is the mother you need to know. Your true mother. You must simply accept her.”
Rune swallowed and looked away. “How much do you know about me?”
Snow shrugged. “More than some, less than others. I’ll share with you anything I am capable of sharing.”
Rune’s heart beat with excitement. She wanted to know everything there was to know and she wanted to know it all at once. “Tell me.”
“I only know what I’ve heard over the years. I doubt anyone knows your entire story. You were taken away to protect you until it was time for you to come into your power. You were weak. You are not weak now. You were created to be Skyll’s defense, but my mother’s doctors informed her that you would rise up to destroy her. She meant to kill you—had sent her man to do the deed to the baby in the crib—but you were already gone.”
“They created a monster,” Rune said, her voice hoarse. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re a mystery,” one of the other women declared. “Not a monster.”
“You are everything you absorbed. You are what touched you. Flesh. Magic. Blood.” Snow squeezed Rune’s arm. “Death.”
Rune nodded. “The shimmer lords.”
“And more.”
She still didn’t really understand. If Mother Skyll had helped create her, where then