Rhea wants nothing more than to kill her father. But not just because he's any run-of-the-mill scumbag. No, he's a god. And he's the one who cursed her with being a goldblood -- half human, half godling. Good for her, she's willing to do anything to...
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WHEN I GO TO BED THAT NIGHT, I THINK ABOUT WAYS TO KILL THE SON.
He will be the first to go, is what I decide.
He is too curious for his own good. But luckily for me, he is too weak to fight for his life.
His father will come after. I have no doubt that I could handle Bran alone without the protection of a boy, but at the moment, Milos is a convenient shield.
The wife will die with or without my help. I do not know what she is afflicted with, but looking at her, it doesn't seem that she will last long enough for me to do my job.
I think of the son's pleading gestures, tired eyes. Of how he, more than his father, was searching so desperately for help.
I wish I could tell him that there will be none.
Perhaps it would be a small mercy if I killed her first, then. She is close to death anyway.
She looks like my mother did. Right before they took her away and gave me back her ashes.
These are the thoughts I did not allow myself to think in the day. But from the first moment I set eyes on her, I could not help but think of my mother.
I wonder if this is the Mistress' idea of a sick joke. A reminder and provocation of what I lost, and could possibly gain.
The first month after my mother died, I remained in the same house where we had lived for all of my life. I didn't dare go out, afraid that I would be caught. Afraid that someone would see me and recognize me for what I was.
A half-breed. A demigod. A treasure to poach and kill.
We had some bread and water left in the house. I ate every meal in small bites, even the moldy bits. I was never alone; I was always accompanied by the smell of my death my mother left behind.
Her sheets were still strewn across the pallet where she slept, tangled, messy, as if she had simply gone outside to throw up, and would come back soon to resume the busy process of dying.
The urn where her ashes lay sat by the bed, in place of her.
No one ever came to check on me. My mother was not the sort of person who made friends when she was alive, and in death, her presence was even more alienating.
Her eulogy was given in the form of careless remarks from neighbors:
Was there someone who lived in that house?
Oh, really?
A pity that she died then, but I suppose that means someone else will be moving in soon.
I don't know if they ever knew that my mother had a daughter.
When the food finally ran out, I stayed, trembling, unmoving, in a dark corner of our house. Waiting, I don't know for what. I knew no one would come.
