Page 106 of The Stolen Throne
My throat thickens. The little girl in me that only ever wanted her affection wants to believe those words, even as part of me can’t absorb them.
I think she must see that, because she sighs and sits back, straighter this time. “I can’t change the past. I don’t think I would anyway. It made you who you are, and that got you this far.”
And just like that, we’re back to normal.
“Now you want to take credit for me?” I scoff. I’m not ready to forgive. There’s nineteen years of history here that tell me not to.
She studies my face, the way I’m holding myself. “It took me ages to track you here. I lost you in the desert completely and must have just missed you in Tyndra. I assume that glass monstrosity of a portal was your doing?”
Wait, she went to Tyndra? She found—
Oh, hells in a handbasket, I left it there. The portal I made to get us to Wildernyss. I left it standing in the middle of an icy field.
This is exactly why Tabra should be queen, not me.
At least Omma isn’t telling me off. “How did you know to come here?”
An impatient hand waves my question away. “No time for that. Tell me everything.”
“Why?”
She gives me a familiar, end-of-her-tether scowl. “What do you mean why? I’m not useless. I can help.”
I stare at her.
Omma wants to help? My first instinct is to laugh in her face and then walk away. The reason I don’t, though, is she could be useful. She knows things. She clearly has skills, or she wouldn’t have found me, and she’s essentially a ghost. Plus we can use all the help we can get.
Damn it.
For the second time today and the umpteenth time in general telling this story, I walk her through everything as quickly as I can. At least I don’t have to explain the Arydian royal history or Eidolon’s treachery to our family to her. That helps speed things up.
She says nothing beyond a few clarifying questions, and when I’m done, she sits for the longest time in silence, staring off over the water garden.
Then another sigh and a grimace. “I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
Another grimace. “The Hag showed me a vision once—”
I jerk up a hand. “Hold on. The Hag?”
“Miriam,” Omma corrects.
She knows her name? I didn’t even know that. Everyone in Enora called her the Hag.
Omma sits up straighter, very proper, and bends a look on me that kicks up old habits like lowering my gaze. I fight the urge and win.
“She’s not the Vex she allowed everyone to believe,” she says.
Well, damn. “I knew she was too good at catching me.”
That earns me an eye roll. “She showed me her power only once. Some kind of…seeing—not foresight. Hindsight, maybe? But a vision she could share, like watching it in my own mind.”
“What did she show you?”
“A sand nymph talking to someone I couldn’t see who was locked in a dungeon. It made no sense at the time. I didn’t even realize it was the same sand nymph who blessed you and Tabra at your birth. They all look alike to me.”
Which is such an Omma thing to say. Sand nymphs are as varied in looks as humans.
