I yanked my hands back. Dropped them to my sides. The pressure in the room vanished. The monsters gasped and sagged with relief.
I did not mean to do that. I wasn't even trying to use power. I was just gesturing.
"Are they that weak?" I asked. "One little hand motion and they almost die?"
One Thousand Thirty's expression was carefully neutral. "My Queen, they are among the strongest creatures in any realm. The problem is not their weakness."
"Then what is it?"
"It is your strength. The ancient mana that flows through you,they cannot handle even a fraction of it. A casual gesture from you carries more power than most gods can summon in their lifetime."
Mana. Ancient. Gods.
I was really going to need that library.
"One Thousand Thirty," I said.
"My Queen."
"I need a library."
He didn't ask why. He didn't hesitate. He simply nodded and flicked his hand.
Da dun.
One moment, I was on the throne, surrounded by thousands of recovering monsters. The next moment, I was seated in a well-lit chamber, surrounded by books.
The library was enormous. Not in size,the room itself was maybe the size of a school gymnasium,but in density. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, packed with books, scrolls, tablets, crystals, and objects I couldn't even identify. The ceiling was gold,of course it was gold,but the light came from somewhere soft and warm, like afternoon sun filtered through curtains.
The table in front of me was gold. The chair I sat in was gold but somehow comfortable. The floor was gold but covered in rugs that looked soft enough to sleep on.
I was alone. The shadows had stayed behind.
For the first time since the purple light took me, I was alone.
I sat there for a moment, breathing. The gown rustled. The crown caught the light. My golden eyes reflected off every polished surface.
Then One Thousand Thirty appeared beside me, silent, sudden, holding a book.
The book was old. Not old like a library book from college. Old like something that had existed before the concept of time was invented. Its cover was gold, pattern, surprise, and it seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat.
"You asked for this, my Queen," he said, placing it on the table in front of me. "Many centuries ago. You said that if you ever forgot, we were to give you this."
I looked at the cover. No title. No author. Just a symbol I didn't recognize but somehow knew was mine.
I opened the book.
The handwriting stopped my heart. I knew that handwriting. I had seen it a thousand times,on grocery lists, on permission slips, on sticky notes stuck to the fridge reminding someone to take out the trash.
It was my handwriting. But older. Colder. Written by a hand that had killed without hesitation and built empires without breaking a sweat.
I started reading.
The first page said: "If you are reading this, you have forgotten. That was part of the plan. Do not panic. Do not scream. Everything that has happened was meant to happen.
Your name is not the name you currently use. Your children are not your children. And the human world is not your home.
You are the Eternal Queen of the Abyssal Realm. You have ruled for seven hundred thirty thousand years. And you chose to forget so that you could remember what you were fighting for.
Read carefully. You do not have much time."
My hands were shaking. My golden, glowing, impossible hands.
I turned the page.
What nonsense does that even mean? Your children are not your children.
Are you freaking kidding me?
I pushed those two out of my vagina. The youngest one came out of my stomach. Do you know what an epidural even means? Do you know what recovery from a C-section feels like? The way your body rips itself apart to bring a human into the world and then expects you to just function afterwards?
I remember. I remember everything.
The first time I held Chloe, she was purple and screaming and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The nurse tried to take her away for weighing and I almost bit the woman's hand off. Mine, my body said. Mine, mine, mine.
Mia came out sunny side up,that's what the doctor called it, like it was cute,which meant eighteen hours of labor and a tear that took months to heal. And every time I looked at her scrunched-up angry face, I thought worth it. Every single second. Worth it.
Lily was the C-section. Planned. Calm. Or it was supposed to be calm, until my blood pressure dropped and the room filled with panic and I woke up hours later with a scar across my lower abdomen and a baby in a plastic bassinet who had no idea how close she came to never meeting me.
Do you know how hard it is to move while breastfeeding while you're bleeding at the same time? Do you know what it's like to have a nurse come into your hospital room every four hours and ask if you've pooped or farted yet, and you have to answer honestly because if you haven't, that means something is wrong?
I know motherhood. I know it in my bones. In the stretch marks on my belly. In the calcium deposits in my left wrist from carrying car seats. In the permanent dark circles under eyes that used to be bright.
And this book,this stupid, ancient, gold-covered book,is telling me that my children are not my children?
"Jessa," the next page read, because apparently the book knew I would be angry. "I know you're angry. You should be. If you weren't angry, I would be disappointed in myself. But read carefully. Your children are real. Your love for them is real. But they are not biologically yours. You chose them. You found them. You protected them. And then you made yourself forget so that you could love them without the weight of what you really are."
I stared at the page.
Chose them? Found them? What the hell does that mean?
I remember the pregnancy tests. Both lines. Every time. I remember the morning sickness with Chloe that lasted all day every day for four months. I remember the cravings with Mia,pickles and peanut butter, which my husband still brings up at dinner parties like it's hilarious. I remember the ultrasound with Lily, the little heartbeat flickering on the screen, the technician saying "everything looks perfect."
Those memories are real. They have to be real.
I read more. The words blurred together. Something about being the Eternal Queen of the Abyssal Realm. Something about ruling for seven hundred thirty thousand years. Something about a plan. Something about choosing to forget.
"You are not from the monster realm originally," the book continued. "You came from somewhere else. Somewhere beyond even our understanding. And when you arrived, you were... broken. Furious. You killed half the population with a scream not because you were evil, but because you were in pain. You didn't know how to be anything except destruction. So you built this realm to teach yourself control. To teach yourself patience. To teach yourself how to love again.
And after seven hundred thirty thousand years, you decided you needed to remember what it felt like to be small. To be vulnerable. To be human.
So you made yourself forget. You created a human body. You gave yourself human memories. And you found three children who needed a mother.
They are yours. But not in the way you think."
Not yours, my ass!