Straight Through The Heart ((ON HOLD))

Chapter Six

Alisa woke the next morning and began packing for her journey to the Parish. Though she had always imagined that this day would come, she wished it was under better pretenses. That her parents were allowing her to go because they saw she would finally be worth upholding the family name, not shipping her out because they thought she'd be better protected somewhere else.

A soft knock on her bedroom door had Alisa turning, and her mother stood in the open doorway. "May I come in?" she asked carefully.

Alisa nodded and returned to folding the clothing she had set aside to bring with her.

She heard her mother's footsteps as she walked across the room and felt the bed sink when she sat at the end of the bed next to Alisa's pile of clothes.

In her thirty-seven years, Azima Rousseau was beautiful, though there was an edge of sorrow in her eyes, in the ever-present downward curve of her mouth. Her hair, bobbed short so that it brushed the top of her shoulders, hung in her face as she surveyed over what Alisa had laid out on her bed to bring with her.

"They'll have you doing a lot of early morning training, so make sure to pack plenty of underclothes," she said softly.

Alisa's chest tightened as she raised her eyes to meet her mother's intense stare. "So you're not going to tell me you changed your mind, to put my clothes away?"

"No." She shook her head. "I'm here to tell you what I should have told you a long time ago."

"What's that?"

"Have a seat, Alisa." Her mother patted the bed next to her, and Alisa moved aside her pack and did what was asked of her.

Her mother folded her leg beneath her as she faced Alisa, hands clenched in her lap as if she didn't know what to do with them. "You know... I was involved with the War of the Rift."

"Everyone knows that... you and Father both."

A slight hesitation. "Yes. But there were... things... that happened before the War that you need to know about."

Alisa watched her mother, the struggle behind her eyes.

"Before the War I was... taken. Beyond the Rift. To Hell. And while I was there I discovered... many things that were unknown to me about our world. And because of that, I fought. Against the Council and the Parish. And continued to fight every day since."

"But they call you the Savior of the Rift," Alisa said carefully. "If you fought against them—"

"They call me that because they know what's best for them. And because it's true. I am the Savior of the Rift... because I was the one who closed the Rift."

"How?" For a single Venandi to have that power...

Her mother only shook her head. "The details are not important, but there's something you need to know. About your father."

Alisa looked towards her open bedroom door as if she could see down the stairs to where her father was most likely preparing breakfast for them before they departed. "Did something happen to him during the War?"

"Alisa... your father..." Her mother took a sharp inhale of breath. "He died during the war."

Her attention whipped back to her mother, the confusion as evident and obvious as the nose on her face. "But he's downstairs."

"Rahn... he's not your father. He didn't... sire you."

Alisa's jaw dropped uncontrollably as she felt the remaining part of her world that seemed whole begin to shatter apart. "Then... who?"