DOFAB#3

Chapter Twenty-Three

Important note: Forget taco Tuesday. Today it's Trisley Tuesday. This is the SECOND, all-new chapter I have posted today. Make sure to read CH 22 first!

~ TRISTAN ~

Where is it?" Sweltering thrage rides on a wave of demonic testosterone, flooding my system, beckoning me to do the unspeakable, the regrettable. It taunts. It claws. It weaves its way into my every atom, demanding me to give in.

"Hello, my son." My mother stands at the altar of the Spring of Evil, staring into the black waters, listening for our maker's whispering will.

"Don't play dumb with me. Where is it? You cut it out, and I want it back."

"It's here, where it's always been." She turns around, placing her hand over the organ in me that beats with Kinley's song. "Your true heart."

"This isn't my true heart. That's the one you tore from me. The one this spell is allowing me to access. It still beats, so where is it?"

Ravish her.

Make the tears flow.

Take her.

Bend her to your will.

Consume her.

Devour her.

Devour her.

Devo—

"Enough!" I shout, Haysha's hissing laughter mimicked by the crackling shadow demons that call this haradonna home.

"While your talaya is a lovely little bird, what if she isn't who you believe her to be? Then what? Back to the quest to end the world?"

The Black Waters shimmer, a mini sea rippling as I have my hands around the vampire who twice gave me life. My mother's platinum white tresses dip into her mother's milk as I keep her bent over the altar. "Did you do it on your maker's behalf? Or did you do it because you actually feared the offspring Thron ripped from your womb, covered in ebony veins that matched his black, beating heart?"

"I fear nothing." My mother pulls forward, paying no heed to the way it tightens my grip on her neck. "Not even the mad god who ate his way out of my womb."

"Argh!" I release the ruler whose blood runs through my veins. "Why won't you tell me where it is?" I pull on the back of my neck, seas of red unfolding behind my eyes.

"Because I no longer have it."

"You what?" My pacing stops, the shadow demons scurrying to their hiding place as I pivot.

"I gave it to her mother, and she threw it into the flame."

The sea of red breaks into a black storm of betrayal.

"You...gave it to her mother?"

"Tristan." My mother holds up her hands. She presses against my chest as ebony mist rises off me. "She came to me years ago. That eevie, she is the ruin of us all. I've seen it. Her mother's trying to save her from something she can't stop. You can't hide a star as bright as her forever. As long as you are determined to stay close, you put us all at risk." My mother places her hand upon my cheek. "You have to let her go. To keep her safe and protect this world."

Scarlet rims my mother's eyes as my furrowed brow deepens. The cells in me object, trembling in fury all the way to my surface. I close my hand over my mother's, tempering the anguish of the beast who can't rise without my sword.