Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(91)
“I’m sorry you lost him,” Lina said, her voice faint. “It was me, you know. I’m the one who fell in love. If it hadn’t happened, would everything have gone the way you and Mama wanted?”
“No, sweetness. Perhaps it could have, if Jasmina had managed not to have you at all, but as it was, as soon as Mara found her again and discovered the two of you, there was no question what would happen. You merely sped things up a bit. Otherwise, once I burned out—and I would have in another year or two, he couldn’t spare me from that; I would have stopped being able to dance for him, disappeared from his world just in time to die back in my own body in the cave—Mara would simply have claimed you one way or the other.”
“Why didn’t she just take us to begin with?” I wondered. “She knew where we were for years. Why did she let Mama keep us at all?”
“I imagine it’s because the sacrifice must have a willing component in order to function—the mother’s sacrifice of one of her daughters is the fuel for the spell itself. Mara would have hoped that Jasmina would come around once she tired of the constant battle it was to have you and to hide you; that would have been easiest for her. And if Jasmina refused to the bitter end, well, Mara would simply have woven a different web of lies to entice you to sacrifice, for each other and for your mother. That’s why she let you come to her. So that every step you took was a testament to your free will.”
Like a snake charmer, singing the song that wound our inevitable way to her.
“How do you think she found Mama in the first place?” Malina asked.
She flicked one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “I’m not sure. Jasmina would have known to shed her ribbons and not take her scent with her.”
So that was why she’d had Ko?tana craft her the Scent of Home as a substitute, I realized in a flash. To evoke the feel and scent of coven when she missed it most, to indulge as safely as she could.
“But perhaps she still had some dab of it on her somewhere,” Dunja continued, “we all wore it every day. And she had to run quick, while they were distracted with offering me, so she might not have been as thorough as she needed about washing it off. Even the slightest bit of Mara’s blood still on her skin might have been beacon enough.”
“What awful bullshit this all is,” I said, clenching my fists against my thighs. “Mara said the sacrifice was mutual, agreed on between the mother and daughters. We were only going to compete against each other because we couldn’t agree.”
Dunja snorted. “Hardly. She knew you couldn’t possibly agree, the way she set it up for you. There’s always a contest between daughters—it’s part of the appeal the bargain holds for him, the thing that strikes his fancy. Two beauties vying so mightily for his hand. Then once he chooses between them, Mara sparks that daughter’s love to seal the bond.”
“He sounds kind of like a raging bastard,” Malina noted. “No offense to you.”
“Oh, he is, no mistake,” Dunja agreed mildly. “But also devastating, charming as the summer day is long.”
We went silent for a moment, listening to the life stirring in the ferns and foliage around us. Something snuffled curiously before rushing off with a high-pitched call. I wasn’t afraid; there was nothing here we couldn’t fend off, between the three of us.
“I’m sorry if I’ve got this wrong,” I began. “But you seem to miss him, and it sounds like you were happiest when you were serving. And then Mama would have lived forever, if she’d stayed in coven and given up one of us. So why is it all so terrible? The chalet is gorgeous, and Shimora said there were others all over the world. It seems like it could be a lovely life.”
“Because there’s no choice about it,” Dunja said, flat. “No consent in anything. We’re taught how to walk, to talk, to move, to think. Only to be beautiful, and amusing. Mara doesn’t strip us of love for each other, of course; I’m not sure even she could go so far. So there is that. But so much forced molding empties out the gleam, makes it hollow. Like anything else, magic takes freedom to thrive. That’s why you two are so different, I think. Because you grew up free.”
“What do you mean?”
She shifted in her sleeping bag, rustling, stretching out her arms until her hands tangled in my hair. She ran it idly through her fingers, stroking each long strand just like Mama had done when I was little. Maybe the two of them had done that for each other. I wondered if she was still in that room, trapped by roses, on the precipice of death. Or if Mara had already let her die now that the charade was over. It strained my heart to think that nothing we could do would save her, but at least if we managed to break free, we would be doing the one thing she had fought so hard and miserably to do herself. We’d be forging a new kind of legacy for her.
“Mara’s line were all true witches once,” Dunja said. “The first nine tiers still are, with a weakening in every generation. The gleam is meant to be a vehicle for the bearer’s will, in whatever form it takes. Instead, all our training turns it into no more than a parlor trick, empty flash and glitter with no true strength behind it. Women like us were leaders, once, healers and warriors and priestesses. Before Mara turned us into living dolls.”
The wind picked up her hair, and it drifted above us like moonlit spider silk. “That’s why the two of you are still so strong, reared to all that freedom. And you, Iris, have something none of the rest of us have had: the infinite bloom, the ultimate culmination of the gleam. Though the first nine can all impose their will upon this world through the gleam, only the infinite bloom lets you grasp hold of space and time, fling your will so far and wide that you can even call upon the gods. Only she has ever been able to do that.”