Connections

[Oriena]

Nox would fall on his own sword before he hurt the woman currently trying to carve out his skull, and Oriena was so willing to bet on it that she didn’t move straight away. Her face was flat, but it was the hollow, sinking feeling inside that stilled her. He witnessed too much, far more than she was comfortable with. Not of her mother’s instability, but the proof of Ori’s own weakness. When she approached it wasn’t in haste or surprise, it was softly. The soothing movements of someone well practised in catering solely to another.

“That isn’t what she means,” she muttered under her breath. Her mother didn’t have a bestiary in her head, and she didn’t mean literally in the way Nox assumed. It was delusion. Fear of the same unnatural power her daughter wielded, of a world that had stopped making sense a long time ago. Oriena wore bruises like badges, but there were scars beneath too: evidence of her tumultuous relationship with a woman she remained loyal to and loved and protected with venom. Kneeling she reached for Dezhda’s cheek, ignoring the tear of nails in the first instinct of panic. Truth was she was as likely to turn on them both as settle.

“Shh, Mama,” she soothed. She didn’t flinch when the whip of the rosary caught the corner of her eye as Dezhda yanked it sharply from Nox’s cheek. “He’s an angel. A protector.” The latter she spoke in Russian, refusing to allow Nox to understand the explanation she gave. She continued repeating it as gently as she could while the woman thrashed. Ori had no idea if it ever sank in, but eventually Dezhda whimpered and threw herself off. Not into her daughter’s arms, but into escape. The door to the bedroom smacked shut behind her.