Warrior of the Moon

33

He despised these four walls, though he had no choice but to return to them each night. He had made the mistake once of trying to stay at Holly's house overnight, and when he had returned in the morning, he had gotten beaten worse than he ever had before. He had had to cancel all his plans with Holly for a week, too embarrassed to let her see the bruises, and too worried that she would do something reckless if she saw what had happened. And, if he were to admit it to himself, been too scared that his mother would hurt him again if he tried to leave the house too soon after the incident.

Holly had kissed him on his doorstep tonight, early enough that the suns were still visible on the horizon just to be safe, and asked if he wanted her to come in with him; but like always, he denied her. He did not want her and his mother having any interaction if he could help it. His mother already hated her influence in his life as it was - he thought she made him weak. She thought that any sentimentality was weakness, actually. As far as he could tell, she should be his entire life, and they should live it within these walls.

Today had been a bad day. Holly had told him that she wanted to go to Estrell to study in their Academy. She had always hoped to be a Curer, and he supposed he should have seen it coming, seeing as Estrell had the best Curers in all the Realm - their Academy was the only place the royals accepted their Curers from. It had still come as an unpleasant surprise, though, and Holly tried to spin it off as a positive and encouraged him to travel to Azure when she left to get better in his craft as well. She had told him that once they both finished their trainings, they could be together again, and they would be happier for it.

But he was not happy right now. His mother had refused his requests to attend any academies his entire life. She was intent on "passing her skills to him" instead, but every time he had tried to gather magic to do his bidding with the words she whispered to him, he had recoiled from the way it seemed to boil in its veins and released it immediately. There was no way she would ever consent to his following Holly to Estrell, though that was all he wanted to do. To get out of Serenity Point, away from his mother, seemed like a dream. He had always assumed she kept her claws in him so firmly because his father had left her, but he was increasingly growing unsure. She did not seem like somebody who was lonely and trying to find somebody to love. Since he had been a child, he had not felt like she loved him at all. She was interested in him for another reason entirely, and he was beginning to fear what it may be.

Even as he walked into the house, he heard her murmuring from her bedroom. When he glanced down the hall, he saw the flicker of candlelight from underneath the door. He scrunched his nose, but left her undisturbed. Only once had he pushed the door open during one of her "rituals," and it had been when he was too young to know better. She had called him a fool for interrupting her, and he could have sworn he had heard a dark, otherworldly laughter before the candles' flames grew and came for him. The fire burned his hands from where he raised them to block his face, and he no longer cared that his mother seemed soaked in blood, her hair even dripping with it, markings drawn on the floor in it. He had slammed the door and run into his own room in a fit of tears. His mother had not emerged from her own room for over a day after that, and her voice was not the only one he had heard from inside.

"I'm going to need your assistance tonight."

The voice came from behind him, but he ignored it at first, looking for something to eat in their cabinets. He knew there was not much; his mother never went into town when she left the house, and he had not gone to the market in days. He did not know where she went when she did leave, but she did nothing to support them. He had never asked how nobody had come to kick them out of their home. At this point he did not want to know.

"With what?" he asked. He was old enough now to at least pretend she did not frighten him. He had been in this ramshackle house with her for nearly two decades, had experienced things he was quite sure no other child had experienced by their mothers' hand. Not just the abuse, but the method of it; she would hurt him physically, but her magic was her preference. She thought up types of torment that would give other people nightmares. As much as she wanted him to be mindlessly obedient to her in her games, he also knew she loved to punish him. He was not sure which was worse.