Lament of the Traitor King (Complete)

Chapter 88 - This Tedious Path I've Chosen Will Swallow Me

Netta found that she could speak. "What are you talking about?"

Her mother walked across the room to the small, pot-bellied stove that was on. Bending down, Hera opened the hatch, peered into it before she stepped away, walking towards Netta.

Netta flinched, then felt a sense of rage beat through her that made her shake. She snapped, "What is all of this? What the fuck do you want from me?"

Hera smirked at her, her youthful features disturbingly ill-fitting for the knowing, cold expression in her eyes. In a single, swift movement, Hera grasped onto the top edge of the photo album in Netta's hands. She said, "I want you to understand why this is all necessary. I want you to have some... concept of what it took to bring you to life. What I went through that made me understand why this all had to happen." Hera took a breath, then pulled, taking the book with her in a quick yank. She said, "I was the orphan of a far larger Coven - the kind that your precious Gardenia was, before I had them trampled."

Netta tried to jerk, the need to strike her mother coming, then leaving her in a single, impotent realization of her inability to do anything with it.

Hera's smirk seemed to grow, as though in understanding of what Netta was thinking. She said, "We lived in a calm, until the day that my Sister, Isolde, discovered through her research, that there had been a definite decrease in the abundance of magic in the world. We laughed. Magic would live forever - damned though it is, it always triumphed over the wills of the Humans. That was before the Humans started to plant the big, noisy machines everywhere." Hera's smirk started to disappear then, fading, even as the cruel glint to her eyes darkened. "That's when the Familiars - our companions - began to fade. For everyone.

'Ours were the first Witches to ever witness the death of magic. We were camped out, traveling as we had since the magic had begun to die, when one of my Sisters was beset with grief. I had a chance - I should have killed her then, but I decided to hide her sickness. A day later, she was discovered by some Humans, when she went on a killing spree, the influence of a Monster possessing her. The clergy - they cornered us, killed most of us. I watched all but one of the women I considered my family, burnt alive. Calliope was the only one who managed to escape with me, and she too bore witness to the horror of both Humans and Monsters."

Netta found herself realizing something. She said, "Callie - she knew what was going on, didn't she?" Gazing up at her mother, Netta was overcome with the instinctual need - for her mother to refute what Netta already knew to be true.

Hera's lips lifted softly. It as close to pitying as Netta had ever seen in her life from the woman. "I am sorry, but she knew what was to happen. Calliope knew that most of the others would have to die. Then she knew that you would be forced back into the fold, lied to like the rest."

"Why."

Hera did smile then, looking down at the photo book. "She saw the very same thing I did on that night, two hundred years ago. She saw how we were hunted like cornered rats, how a Monster rendered one of us into a rabid animal. She knew what lengths we would need to go through, to protect what is left - as well as to build what needs to be created. A fresh start, with power returning to Monsters, and with us to assume control over the Humans and the Monsters."

Netta stared at the madwoman who was her mother, then slowly said, "You talked, before, about the end of the world."

Hera paused, then smiled. "Nothing is so absolute so as to destroy us. Humans will die - many of them - but It will reawaken the magic, give us power."

"Not just Humans," Netta interrupted, anger writhing in her mind. "You've killed our own kind. Our kin."

"Not I. Your Sisters."