Alexa had a black charcoal eye shadow surround her eyelids and a grey smudge underneath her black
eyes. The Elvan woman looked well made up, but false. She had a feeling that those weren’t her real
eyes, as much as the platinum hair colour was not her own, but Clare wasn’t about to point that out.
“Yes, we fought together, but Franchesca has undoubtedly made more enemies than she had friends
or allies.”
Clare didn’t know how that was possible, there were lots of people at the ceremony, how could her
mother have made more enemies.
She couldn’t get used to the name Franchesca. Not Michelle, but Franchesca, was it normal that she
was angry at her mother but at the same time frustrated and hurt that she had to die so soon. Clare’s
stomach tightened into knots. Bile rose and she flinched with the sick feeling. She had forgotten the
painful cramping in her stomach, but now it worsened tenfold.
She looked at Alexa’s expressionless face. This woman, who looked in her early twenties, didn’t even
blink, but just stood up straight directly opposite Clare, refusing to lower her eyes, which just seemed to
tick Clare off, “My mother is dead if you have nothing good to say I suggest you leave.”
Alexa dropped her eyes and looked ahead toward the shore of the lake, “It’s not that simple, we’re all
descendants after all, and I’m the Elvan Princess and half Lightwatcher, a friend of your brother’s.”
“Nathan?”
“No, Calub, I heard he’s missing. I’m here to honour your mother’s death for his sake, but I’m also here
to seek answers from others.”
“You mean Caster’s.”
“It isn’t wise to assume that which you do not know.”
“You don’t like me very much do you?”
“Elvan do not express emotion mildly.”
“Ah, but you are half Lightwatcher.”
Alexa turned her gazes back to Clare, who was certain that the Elvan woman's face was pulled into a
frown, “I really don’t know what he sees in you.” She took in Clare’s appearance as though she was
taking in an unappealing view, “You’re not even blonde, you are barely mature.”
Clare’s stomach felt assaulted as the pain grew to new heights, she felt a bead of sweat trickle her
temple, as she bit down the urge to weep, “I don’t know who the hell you are talking about.” She gritted
out, through clenched teeth, “and frankly I don’t care.”
Clare marched away from Alexa, her hand stuck on her stomach and limped her way toward the crowd.
The pain began to numb in the core of her stomach.
She felt her body now being drawn to the coffin. Inhaling, she smelt a stronger scent of musk, mixed
with the citronella. She walked, crossing paths with a group of Elvan who wore red robes, that
resembled blood, and worked her way closer to the gold coffin, which glistened in the light of the fire
and the Lightwatcher’s souls.
The coffin was decorated with engravings written in ancient script embedded on the golden casket and
in it laid her mother, lifeless, blue eyes now closed by flesh and freckles and deadened by the blueness
in her skin. Breathless, Clare swallowed, her throat squeezing in.
The lifeless body was covered in shiny dust of red, but Clare got closer, her body tensed, the hairs on
her skin stood up, she took a step closer, it wasn’t dust or dry powder, but a slimy liquid that smelt like
musk. It had red shiny beads inside the jelly substance.
She let out a harsh exhale and inhaled a strong smell of musk, which had come from the coffin, before
she put her hand on her mouth, attempting not to scream, but it was too much.
The noise from the crowd had dissipated around her, suddenly it was just her and what was left of her
mother whose skin was so pale, she could’ve sworn it was almost surreal.
Clare’s heart pulsed at higher beats with every second passed, the yearning for her mother’s eyes to
open and stare at her. The smell of her mother’s hands when she would touch her skin, always
smelling of rubber from wearing gloves. Just yesterday that face had smiled at her, those lips had
spoken to her, just yesterday her mother’s arms had held her. She hated the way it happened, she
wished she hadn’t said those things to her. She should’ve tried to understand when her mother told her
that Nathan was her brother, now she would live with this feeling, this hatred of herself, and all the
unasked questions. She wanted to scream, she wanted to yell, parts of her felt like it was exploding,
but all Clare could do, all she could effort to do, was standing there with her hand on her mouth,
gasping for air.
Her body wanted to tear itself up from the inside out, rip her heart out as her mothers had been. She
remembered her mother’s words a year ago, it was a day after she won the swim offs, “You can never
truly love until you have lost, Clare.”
Now she stood there, and she understood, what her mother meant, she understood, loss, and it undid
her. The last threshold she had, the last of her strength, her willpower, gone.
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