Miracle of the Moon Goddess

4: The rules have changed

As soon as I can escape court I do. I refuse to look at my father as I go, pretending to freshen up. My father betrayed me. He had given me so much hope, but they were all shattered in a matter of minutes. Was me becoming queen never in his plans at all, and just something he told me? But why would he tell me about us saving mom’s world? Why not send me off to train to become a concubine and not decisive me?

Too many thoughts go in my mind as I’m carried back home. I’m alone in the palanquin, something father wouldn’t have allowed had he known, but I don’t care. I need to get away. He can complain as much as he wants, but I will no longer listen to him. Especially considering what types of men he wants to give me off to.

Close to home I dry my tears. I cannot let anyone know. There are other people to consider at home. I don’t want them to worry about me too. The first thing I meet when the door is opened for me is Mother Green’s warm embrace. From the looks of it, she has been waiting for me for some time. Her green scales look pale, almost gray with worry and her pupils are almost round, despite the bright light.

The cave is quiet, and I turn my head to the bedrooms.

“Angel and Mother Brown are comforting Thea as we speak. The girl has fallen asleep, but both are still with her. Your mother is still lucid if you want to talk to her,” Mother Green answers with a hushed voice as I’m about to ask about them.

“Thea needs her more than me.” I shake my head as I speak, holding my tears in.

I would love to talk to mom. It’s only a matter of time before she goes back to her previous state. If we’re lucky, father won’t put her under again, and maybe with time she will become herself. It’s what I’ve hoped every time she has been awake, but her time up is getting shorter every time. I don’t know why my father is so angry at her.

Maybe it isn’t anger? Maybe she has been telling me truthful things about her world and warned me about my future? She once told me my fate would be like hers, maybe worse, but I never believed her. And at that point I still believed she and father loved each other.

Because why has he changed his mind, wanting me to be a concubine instead of the next Wolf Queen? I thought we were going to liberate the werewolves from the lycans. Was all that a lie? I always thought he was better than my grandmother, but maybe he’s not? Or is it out of his hands? Was this fight for mom’s people just a hopeless dream and now grandmother has quashed it?

There are too many things not adding up, and I’m realizing why no one wants to answer my questions. They don’t want me to know the truth about anything.

My energy is draining as all of my pent-up emotions try to well up in me and burst out like an overflowing floodgate. My body keeps its rigid shell, but it will take nothing for me to break. And I don’t want that to happen. Not while I’m surrounded by my Mothers. They might mean well, but it’s not fair for me to leave this burden on their shoulders. They already carry so much for mom and my siblings.

“No, Thea needs mom tonight,” I repeat more to myself than Mother Green. “I can try again tomorrow. Can you help me to my bath instead?”

Mother Green gives me a comforting smile. She might know more about this than I thought. And if she tells me about it she might be killed for it. So I won’t ask her. Not about this. Though there will always be something to ask about.

We head to my bathroom where Mother Green begins taking off jewelry, and details on my dress. My elaborate dress is fastened in several complicated ways and if I was to undress without help, I would have ripped it apart. Mother Green’s deft hands make quick work on it, though, but it still takes time for her to help me. As she works, she tells me about what she’s heard from the castle, making me impressed with the rumor mill among slaves.

The slave girl who tripped at court was serving in court for the first time today. She was too young for the job, but her pretty looks cursed her for starting working early. She was relatively expensive too, being bred to be a showpiece.

“Will her pain be permanent, you think?” I ask, feeling for her again. Those vicious monsters did it on purpose. I have no doubt about that, and I’m not expecting anyone to deny it either.

“No, the slaves at the palace will help her. They have their secrets.” Mother Green does not share more than that, and I accept it knowing it’s a reason for her tight lips. I might have shown compassion for them, but I’ve lived a privileged life. True elves will find me easy to break should they suspect I have the slave’s secrets.

“What happened after Angel and Thea left?” Mother Green asks, sensing correctly that more happened. I don’t want to share, but she’s prodding. “Did they torture more slaves?”

“No,” I shake my head, trying to keep my lips tight.

I’m relieved there was no more abuse other than what the young slave girl received, but at the same time, I fear for my future. It coils inside me and in the end the worried face of Mother Green is enough for me to give in and share my burden.

“Grandmother wants me to become a concubine. Father wanted me in court to introduce the four men who laid their claim on me,” I say a bit too loud, but without my voice quivering. “It was horrible!”

It’s enough for the dam to break. I cry, not wanting to think of the question they made me answer. Mother Green hugs me and pats my back gently, easing me as everything ripples through me. The concern for the young slave girl, the fear of what those four men will do to me given the choice, and the disappointment that the rose-colored future I’ve been told is nothing but lies.

“Choosing a prospect often takes a long time, so if they only just started the process, you might be safe for a couple of more years.” The comforting words calm me a little, but my tears keep falling as Mother Green hugs me closer. It’s like when I was young and I had to leave this world for off-world training.

“I thought I would marry someone after saving mom’s world. I thought I would have seen more worlds by then. Oh, Mother Green, I want to see the moon again!”

At my exclamation, she freezes her comforting movements on my back. Her sudden rigid body makes me even more nervous than I already was. Slowly, she releases me from the hug and looks me into my face. I can’t read her eyes or quivering beak.

“Again?”

It’s only one word, but with it, I hear so much pain, needs, and most vital of all: I hear hope.

I’m not sure why the thought of me seeing the moon for the first time gives her so much hope. In mere seconds, she loses her calm, soothing personality, and she completely loses it before me. Her tears stream, and her breathing becomes shallow when I nod. If I didn’t know any better I would have feared she had something stuck in her throat and in a way, maybe she does?

I, on the other hand, stop crying. I’m completely shocked by her reaction. Why does she care about me seeing the moon? I’m about to ask when her mouth opens to speak.

“Blessed by the Moonlight, her soul will be forged from two halves, and her journey begins.” Her words make it go cold through me. It’s like they belong to me, like I’ve known them forever, but I’ve never heard them before.

“Oh, never mind me, I’m just silly,” she suddenly exclaims and dries her tears.

The mood change in front of me stuns me, and I want to inquire, but I’m distracted by the commotion coming from mom’s room. We both stand up and follow the noise to check it out. Mom’s voice is so loud her words are clear before I reach her room.

“She’s too young for this!” Her voice is cracking.

I’m not sure if she is herself anymore or lost in her mind again. Sometimes she has shouting matches with herself. Most of the time, she shouts at father whether or not he’s there.

“If she had been a good little girl, this would not have happened, but it’s out of my control Angel,” father says calmly at the same time as I open the door.

“She’s only a child! You can’t take my little girl away from me!” Something shatters against the wall as I walk in. “You can’t give her to one of those vile men!”

So it’s me they are talking about, even if I’m hardly a child. Though, knowing mom, she most likely doesn’t know my age. I’m okay with that. Not that I think my father knows either, but that is from lack of care, not confusion. Come to think about it, I can’t be sure either. The constant time changes between worlds can confuse the best of us, and elves rarely care for their age. What’s another year for an immortal being?

Regardless, it doesn’t matter how old I am. It warms my heart that mom is still fighting for me. That she’s still trying to protect me. Nevertheless, I hate it will bring her trouble. Ignoring the pieces of broken glass on the floor, I walk directly to mom to embrace her.

“Mom, please. He will not listen when you get angry.”

“Who are you?” she asks, and my heart sinks.

“It’s me, mom. Celeste,” I whisper.

“Celeste? One of Mrs. Goodwell’s grandchildren?” I almost groan.

This was a new one from her. She named me after a woman who helped her after her parents died, and has never mistaken me for her or any of her family. Not like today. Usually, my name is enough for her to know I’m her daughter.

“No. Celeste, your daughter. You named me after Mrs. Goodwell. Remember?” A spark of recognition enters her eyes, and I see sadness in her.

“You smell different,” she sniffs at me.

Oh, Moon Goddess, I hope she doesn’t reveal my wolf! I laugh it away, hoping she will not talk further on the matter. I cannot let father know; he is already furious enough!

“I’m not a child anymore, mom,” I explain to her, and she nods.

“You’re still too young for those men Aubrey introduced you to.” Father almost stomps his feet when mom doesn’t respect grandmother’s title. Still, I won’t let this become another fight about who is disrespecting who again.

“Yeah, on this, I can agree,” I say, turning to my father. He looks ready to pop his angry vein. “Those men are ancient!”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. The claims are set. The candidates will be tested, and one of them will make you his concubine, like Empress Aubrey has deemed fit.” His face is made of stone, but I’m not ready to give up.

“Can’t you…” father holds up a hand.

“As I tried to explain to Angel, if you had behaved like the half-elf you are and not gone beyond your station, this would not have happened. We need to control your antics, and this is how Empress Aubrey deems fit.” he cites his words like they are rehearsed.

Perhaps this wasn’t what he wanted after all. Besides, he knows just as well as me that those men will never control me. I will make sure of that, and mom will help me in any way she can. When her mind is straight, at least.

“The rules have changed, Celeste. You have lived a good life for now. As soon as the selection is over, your life will be to bring forth hybrids that will take over your mother’s homeworld. You are nothing in the grand scheme of things,” his calculating voice explains, but all I hear are the words not spoken.

I will never roam free again. I will never see the moon, and I will never shift into my wolf. The wolf he doesn’t know of. She stirs inside of me, realizing the same.

Not only that, but his words shatter the lies he’s made me believe. Elves aren’t here to liberate mom’s world.

They will conquer it.

Because we are nothing in the grand scheme of things.

We like all the creatures they have enslaved.

Again something shatters against the wall, and I turn to mom, who is in full rage mode. I’ve seen her like this many times before, but this is the first time I recognize she’s not only angry at father. Boiling inside her is also a need to shift, something we cannot do in this world.

Mom growls like a feral beast, and when father goes closer, she attacks him with her human teeth and nails. Looking at her, another hard truth hits me. This will be me in a few years. I thought receiving my wolf's soul would be a blessing, but one day I will become a madwoman like my mother. There is only one way out: escape. But how?

“Calm yourself, or I will put you in a stasis chamber!” father shouts at mom, but her mind is beyond listening now.

“NO!” I scream at him. “Let her be! If you only let her shift, she will….”

“Kill my unborn children!” he growls at me. Slamming her down onto the bed, he spells her so she cannot move more than an inch. Her eyes dart wildly back and forth, but I cannot help her.

“She is mine, and they are mine. I decide what will and will not happen to you, them, and her. You hear me?” Father’s voice is filled with fury and while he speaks, he turns towards me, pointing at me as he comes closer with every word uttered. “I’ve been too nice to you, girl, but this will not continue. If you step over the line again, I will put you in stasis, too!”

I cannot hold back my tears as he talks. Fear grips my dual souls. Fear for myself, but also for mom. “Please, fath…” I stop myself from repeating the same mistake I always do. “Please, my Sire, Prince Terra. Don’t put her in the stasis chamber again. Her mind is too far gone already. She might not come back again if you do this,” I beg of him, and spot a shade of sadness in his eyes.

He still has some love for her. Is that why he treats her like this? Because she doesn’t love him back? Doesn’t he understand that this is not how he will earn her love? What he’s doing is not okay and as I study the emotions fading from his eyes, I understand why this is the most important lesson mom will teach me. I will never accept a man if he treats me like my father treats my mom. I will fight it in any way I can like mom has. I just need to find out how to fight before it’s too late.

“I have enjoyed the company of your mother, but her body is a tool to be used. She will continue to bring forth children for me. I need her body for that, not her mind. The stasis chamber will ensure her physical health, and that is the only thing that matters.”

Tears almost cloud over my eyes, but through them, I see him frozen to the spot. He hates those words just as much as me, even so, he does as promised. Before I have the chance to dry my eyes, he steps over to mom. He’s in the shape of one of her mates, the dark one, not the one I saw in Damien’s portal. Father caresses mom’s cheek, and she leans into the touch, suddenly calm.

I sink to the floor, exhausted by fear and heartache while father seduces mom to follow him to the stasis chamber. He leaves the doors open, letting me listen to him as he makes her climb in before he casts the spell needed for the chamber to work. Then he leaves the cave, and I’m alone on the floor.

I don’t know how long I sit there caught in my racing mind before an electrifying jolt wakes me up. It comes from a gentle touch on my cheek. I lean into the caress before strong arms lift me up. There is a familiarity with these arms, but something is new about them.

“Bjørnar?”

“Shh, Celeste. Let’s get you to bed,” my secret childhood friend tells me. He’s calm as always, something he has inherited from his mom, Mother Brown. I’m anything but calm. My skin buzzes most delightfully, and my wolf howls in excitement.

“Mate!”