I was looking at Vitinia, but she kept her back to me, and refused to respond. Instead, it was Luke’s mouth who addressed me.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met, although I am always happy to welcome more of Aethon’s children to our family,” he said.

  “He loves you, you know. I don’t know if he still does, after what you’ve done to him. Maybe some part of him does, and some part of him hates you. I would. But before? Before he realized who you are? He loved you so much. He admired you. He spent his life trying to live up to your example. I could see it in his eyes. I could hear it in his voice. I could feel it in the tension of exhausted muscles as he walked. He wanted so badly to stand at your level and to look you in the eyes. And I don’t understand. I don’t understand what would be so bad about that? Why you would go to these lengths just to stand a little bit taller than him. Why you would hurt him so much,” I responded. The words he was saying didn’t matter. I knew Vitinia could hear me, and I desperately needed an answer.

  I needed to understand.

  Luke didn’t respond for a long moment. When he did, his voice had changed, just a little. It was no longer the voice of a preacher, simply trying to keep an audience engaged. It had an edge to it. Indignation crept across it like rust on old steel. “I love my mother,” he answered. “Of course I do. And of course I admire her. That is only right. That’s what I am here to speak to you all about, in fact. Aethon’s grace, yes. But also his warmth. Like a father to his children. We are commanded to follow that example in our daily lives. To respect and love our parents. To honor them. So, of course, I love my mother. Of course, I honor her.”

  I bit my lip. I could feel the water filling my eyes. I could feel the sick in my stomach. “It’s cruel. It’s so cruel, Vitinia. It is a cruelty I can’t grasp. How could you allow that? How could you let him admire you so much, for so long? How could you let him reach for you like land for a drowning man? It is cruel. To let your child admire you so much, with such petty vitriol living under your skin. Don’t you see how much it must have hurt him? To realize who you were? And then to realize you never really loved him? Or at least, you never loved him as much as you loved his praise. Can’t you see how much that must hurt? How agonizing it must have been to realize how small you really were, after spending a lifetime standing on your example?” The tears were running down my face as I spoke. There was a tremor in my voice more terrible than the earth when Margaret once opened beneath me. There was a thin sheet between me and a complete collapse. But I needed to understand. I needed there to be a reason.

  Luke’s face hardened. “You make something so simple sound so dramatic,” he laughed. Or, his voice laughed. It didn’t match his glare, and the sound struggled to fit into the hostile air it was released into. “You are just like him. So angry about such small things. So uncharitable. Everything I have done since finding this magic has been a kindness. Everything I'd done for Luke before that was for his sake. And he turned on me. He decided I was cruel. That I was self-obsessed and hateful. When I only ever asked for one thing from my son. I only asked for respect. I am not a monster. I am only a mother, and one who wants to be respected by her child. To not be disregarded and looked down on by my own children. I have asked for nothing but to be spared of my son’s disdain, and his poison.” A few faces looked confused as Luke spoke to me, his mother's words leaving his mouth and shattering across me like glass.

  My hands shook as she spoke to me with her son's lips. It didn’t make any sense. I knew she wasn’t my grandmother, but I couldn’t help but imagine her answer could offer me an explanation for what I’d been through. At least something close, like juice when you need water. Not enough. But something. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What disdain has he shown for you? He trusted you so much, and for far longer than he’ll ever forgive himself for. He was afraid! Don’t you understand that? When your mask first started to slip. He was afraid something was wrong! He thought if he was honest, if he helped you see what you were doing, that you would realize you’d let your pride blind you! He thought you would want to tell the truth!

  “Even that was an act of admiration. Can’t you see that? He admired you enough to believe you were better than what he was seeing. He did respect you. He just… he wanted to be a good man. He wanted both of you to be good, and he thought you’d made a mistake together. I don’t understand what disdain you were feeling!” I begged. Nothing she said was an answer to my question. Nothing could really answer why she would do this to Luke. Or why my grandmother had ruined me.

  “Who do you think you are?” Luke spat. “You know nothing about us! I don’t need you—showing up from nowhere and offering me your judgment. It is this that poisoned my son! People so quick to fear! So quick to hide, and accuse! So quick to judgment! If it weren’t for people like you, I wouldn’t have needed such a firm hand to save my son from himself! You don’t know Luke! You have no idea how unkind he was to me. Of course you don’t know what I mean. Perhaps you should reflect on your own sins before Aethon, instead of making a scene and attacking strangers in the middle of service? We here are gathered in denial of fear-mongering and false accusations like yours.” I curled my hands into fists. I could understand how she wouldn’t know that I had seen her past. But I couldn’t understand how she could genuinely believe what she was saying. At the same time, her words were obviously more than a simple lie.

  “Is it really just the change in your relationship? When he started speaking on his own? Was looking him in the eye instead of down on his head really so hard to bear? Could you not allow him to challenge you even a little without hating him? Or was it simpler than that? Was it just the moment he saw you? Was it impossible to live with, once he’d suggested that you weren’t right about something for the first time? Please. I am not here to fight you. I just want to know. Is pride really worth more to you than he is? Than his own victories, and ideas, and life? Did you have to torment him—him and everyone in this city—who didn’t fall exactly in line with you? Couldn’t you just be proud that he was a good man?” I begged,

  “Proud? His victories? Do you mean when he turned the entire temple against me? When he used the power I had won for him and laid all of his own sins at my feet? When he shut me out and started listening only to the world. Accepting pain that didn’t exist and believing lies about his mother? He only looked up to me as long as I sheltered him. But he let this city poison him against me. He drank from the same well as the sick and let them twist his mind. Until he couldn’t see straight. Until he thought he’d outgrown me. I do love him. I love him more than anything, and he doesn’t know it. Because of you, and everyone like you, who lie to him. Because of invented plagues and imagined slights. And frankly, I am done listening to you,” Vitinia spat with Luke’s voice.

  Luke held a hand out in front of him and, without a chant, water began to flow from his feet like a suddenly opened reservoir. It flooded around my feet and tried to form into walls around me. I barely had to whisper, and my own aura met it. The water slowed as it gathered on either side of me, and I fell to my knees. I believed every word Vitinia had said. Or rather, I believed that she believed it. And it felt like my skin had turned to steel and tightened around my muscles. That really was all there was to it. She’d lost his obedience. She’d lost his admiration. He’d stopped ignoring the pain in the world around him. And that alone had been enough to take his mind from him.

  I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I’d seen what mattered to her when she’d taken my own mind from me. What she would kill for. Such little mistakes. Marrying the wrong person. Attending temple too infrequently. Acknowledging the Quiet. Wearing the wrong clothes. Once she had the power to punish whoever she pleased, it became clear how little it took to attract her ire. Nothing short of obsequious worship would ever truly be enough for her. It was all the same thing. She needed to be in control. She needed her beliefs to be shared. Her judgments to be validated. It was so small. She was so small. And she was so simple.

  I wanted there to be some deeper truth to her. So badly I wanted that. But being asked to give up comfort and admiration was the entire extent of her pain, as far as I could tell. I’m sure she had others. An unkind life in one way or another. I knew she was poor, and that she aged more quickly than she should have. I believed she’d suffered cruelty in her life. She had the wrinkles of a woman who knew what it meant to meet someone cruel. But what she was doing in Beddenmor? What she was spending the souls of the dead to accomplish? It really was just… pride. That was all she needed to kill, and to ruin. Tears ran down my face as the only explanation for my grandmother’s cruelty fell into the water in front of me and tried to build walls to crush me. I slammed a fist into the water and mud in front of me, and I screamed in frustration. The moment I did, aura erupted from the earth and water I’d disturbed.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  If her pride really was what led her to do… all of this, then her pride would be what I attacked. My aura was fire to her water, violent and unrestrained. Her spell burned with the aura of time, and the magic froze around me. I wanted to free Luke, but I couldn’t find the threads I needed to offer him his mind back. So, as I stopped her spell in its tracks, I allowed ‘Lamentations’ to change the world around us. Everyone in the seats would see this. Whether they were controlled by Vitinia, or simply agreed with her. Whoever in her cult was present would see the truth. They would see how small she was. And that would hurt her far more than any violence I was capable of.

  Luke’s office in the hidden temple formed around us, and my stomach lurched as I was reminded of the death I’d been used to inflict on innocent people. A scene I’d watched with Margaret formed before my eyes, and everyone in the garden would see the same. Margaret and Luke, now leaders of their own branch of the church, argued.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I really am. I never meant for things to go this way. I know it wasn’t the plan. It certainly wasn’t my plan. But… I’m tired of apologizing for it. And you’ve been so, so angry recently. And I’m scared. You used to get past this so easily. You used to see clearly if only someone said something. But this time… it’s been months. Nearly a year. And you are still so angry, and only getting angrier! You’re snapping at people for things that never bothered you before. And it feels like you hate being around me. And… I think I know why. And I know how to fix it,” Luke said. Vitinia scoffed and shuffled papers in front of her on the desk.

  “You’re scared? Please. Don’t be so childish. You act as if I’m killing people. Is it really so hard to believe I’m just upset, and that’s alright? This faux concern is just more of your manipulation. Or more poison coming out of your mouth, even if its source is elsewhere. Can’t you see that you’re lost, Luke? Can’t you see you’ve been brainwashed? That’s all this is. I’m upset that lies have stolen my son from me,” Vitinia responded. Luke took a deep breath and leaned against the wall with one arm, resting his forehead against it a moment later.

  “I’m going to address the congregation,” he responded. “We shouldn’t have the position we do, and we’ve pushed it far past what we needed. We have a new home. We have food. More than we need, while others lack it! We have support, and medical care. We don’t need to keep pushing. And… And I can’t keep preaching these sermons you are writing. They aren’t right, Mom. They aren’t true, and they don’t reflect Aethon’s will. I’m going to tell them the truth.” Vitinia actually brightened at this.

  “Oh?” she asked. “You are finally going to tell them that I write your sermons? That I am the real leader of this church? You’re going to give up the position you stole from me?” she asked. Luke sighed.

  “Yes. I never should have taken credit for any of that. I just… I didn’t know how else to get what we needed. To get the support we were after when we started this entire thing. And once we were out of danger… once our bills were paid and our pantries were full… I didn’t know how to tell the truth about that. I still should have. I can’t pretend I wasn’t being selfish—when I decided to maintain the lie. I didn’t see how angry you were, at first. I didn’t see how much it hurt you. And… and I enjoyed being admired myself, for once. So yes, I am going to tell them that. But first… first I am going to tell them the real truth. I am going to tell them what we did,” Luke answered. Vitinia was actually looking energetic for a few breaths, until Luke spoke his final sentence. It was then that the storm descended.

  “Luke. We are doing good with this church. We are addressing sin, which the pretenders above us ignore. We can do more if you hand the congregation over to me, like we always planned, but if you start sowing discontent and doubt, you will only undo all of our work. Our righteous work. You are the one who is scaring me. Aethon will stop you.”

  I let the scene fade as I probed at Luke with my aura. I wasn’t done with it, so I simply left the garden in darkness as various people murmured about the scene they’d just witnessed. I couldn’t find any threads of Luke in the loops before Vitinia stole his mind. He must have been dead. Or perhaps they both were. Which meant he couldn’t speak for himself. The air in his lungs belonged to someone else, and he couldn’t explain what they’d just seen. So I spoke for him.

  “He never did tell you, though, did he? The truth he was talking about? He never revealed anything at all. He just… started hurting people. He showed you new miracles. Magic like you’d never seen, and he told you it was Aethon’s doing. The grace of God. He changed again. Following his mother’s advice, as he had at the start. But he never told you about the rest. So I will,” I shouted. I didn’t even know how I was still forming the words. I just wanted to collapse under the emotional pressure of the moment. But the only way I could think of to free Luke was to say the words he always wanted to. On his behalf.

  “I have said the truth. Every day I have spoken the truth as Aethon reveals it to me!” Luke bellowed. More water joined the spell I was already holding back, but it simply stopped when it met my aura. I was not there for a baptism.

  “His first miracle wasn’t supposed to be his. I saw that much. The messenger of Aethon, back from the dead. It was designed as Vitinia’s miracle. Her moment of triumph. The day she was finally listened to. She was supposed to breathe life into her dead son, and prove to you that she was blessed by Aethon. But that’s exactly what it was. A design. A practiced, if dangerous, performance. Luke allowed himself to nearly drown, and he choked on seawater as his mother prayed over him. She’d made him practice this over and over again. She made him hold his breath back. She made him choke and hold salt water in his mouth for as long as he could, until everyone present thought he was dead. He was only allowed to spit it out once she’d signaled that her part was done.

  “She waited until there were as many people present as possible. She made it as large a show as she could. But she got carried away. She made too much of a show of it. She waited too long, and as she was speaking, he hit his limit. He had to spit the water up. He needed to breathe. Like anyone would. But… despite the small change in plans, it worked. The sun, and the speech about Luke’s faith. The announcement of his death. When he spat the water up, enough people were sold on the miracle. They just weren’t sold on it the right way. It was Luke, not Vitinia, who earned praise. It was his own faith which earned him a second life in the eyes of the witnesses. And it was his words you all listened to.”

  Luke was shouting over me, but I ignored Vitinia’s words on his breath. They only confirmed the story I was telling to those who would listen. Not that it mattered. It was letting the truth out that mattered; it was letting him hear that someone knew who he was. That someone knew what he had done. And that someone knew he was still in there, and he was not his mother.

  “That was enough for her, while he obeyed her. That was enough for her while he worshiped her, and while he spoke her words at her command. But then he stopped. Then he wanted to tell the truth. He wanted to help people his mother hated, and he wanted to be honest. That was why she took his mind from him and used his voice like a whip. She stole him from himself, and she forced him to watch as people bent and broke to his mother's demand. She used him to hurt people he’d grown to love.

  “She used him to hurt people he loved. And I am sorry, Luke. Because I can only think of one way to fix it. Or at least… only one thing I can be trusted to do. There is someone out there who could do better for you. Who could stop Vitinia and save you at the same time. But I can’t. All I can do is offer you a chance at another choice. All I can offer is a chance to do things differently. And I’m sorry. Because it’s going to hurt.”

  “Your lies will find no purchase here. This is a service for Aethon’s faithful, and you will not lead them astray! Who do you think you are? What do you think your spells have to offer these people that Aethon cannot?” Luke screamed.

  Water and snot made a mess of my face as I let ‘Lamentations’ form a new scene around us. “Nothing,” I answered. “No one. Just… Luna’s gift.”

  The world stormed around us like blood and rain, and we all found ourselves on the beach. Luke in the sand, and Vitinia sobbing over his death, and lamenting how faithful he’d been to Aethon. It was another scene I’d watched with Margaret before. There were so many people around. Some kind of festival I wasn’t familiar with. It didn’t matter. Luke was choking, and Vitinia was shouting.

  And I could feel the moment it happened. Luke’s body wasn’t his own, but his soul was. His soul, which had not yet been spent by the quiet. But, just like Margaret, he was in the middle of a time spell half sustained by the souls of Beddenmor’s residents. I understood how it worked, now. The same way I pulled bits of people from other times, he and Margaret could step into the spell, if only as a spirit, and settle into the body they once had. We all watched him. Breaking free from his own body and fighting through the storm of time. We saw as he settled into the boy that was once him.

  And we watched him choke.

  He’d learned who his mother was. And he'd learned it was this moment that let her hurt people. But he didn’t have enough time. He only had one chance. There was only one way to stop everything that had happened after this day on the beach. He didn’t spit up the water this time. And he didn’t swallow. He did convulse, as his body ran out of air. Before his mother’s signal again. But he didn’t let the water free.

  The relief in his eyes made me sick. But it was the first choice he’d made in a long time. He choked. And he choked. And at his mother’s feet, no longer worshiping her as he once had…

  He drowned.