Mother

A familiar lullaby touched the edges of Deithi's crumbling memories.

"Hush my child, mother is near. Sleep my child, the wolves we won't fear."

It sounded exactly like the voice of his mother. Warm salty tears left their tracks on the young child's cheeks. The little boy cried in his sleep as his mother cradled him close to her chest.

"Deithi," her velvety voice said to him. "Are you having a nightmare, my dear?" Her fingertips brushed across his cheek, wiping away the tears that stained his rosy skin.

"Mother," he mumbled. "Lilian killed me.." Even if it was just a dream, Deithi treasured the feeling of being protected and cared for by his mother. If this was hell then he wanted to be confined in it forever.

"Oh my love, Dei, who is Lilian?" Deithi felt her fingers brush the hair away from his forehead. He was wrapped up in a warm blanket. Soft and fuzzy, it had been his favourite blanket when he was but a boy.

"Nobody..." He replied. "Nobody."

Deithi breathed in his mother's comforting scent of honey and rose. A rush of memories assaulted his mind like forgotten wraiths from his nightmares. The mage was reminded of the cold snowy day that his mother had disappeared. Swallowed up by the black forest, all that was left behind at the foot of a tree was a single bloody glove that Deithi had buried in a small box.

"You've just had a nightmare, Dei. I'll say a prayer for you so go back to sleep." A soft kiss was pressed to his forehead.

Deithi's lashes fluttered open and he stared up at the woman who looked just like his mother. "A demon?" He asked her. Deithi was dead, and so was his mother. It had to be a demon in his personal hell, punishing him with the visions of his mother.

"Foolish child," she chided him. "I'm not a demon." Her long wavy flaxen hair fell loose across her shoulders like heavy strands of perfumed gold. His mother had bright blue eyes like the reflection of the sky on a perfect mirror. If she was a demon then Deithi's soul was truly lost. He had missed his mother terribly after she had disappeared.

"Are you real, mother?" He asked the beautiful woman whose keen intelligent eyes were scrutinising his strange behaviour. "I'm dead and so are you. None of this is real."

"Deithi!" She managed to sound outraged but still gentle. "Has Timor been telling you stories about demons again?"

"No," Deithi felt the fog of confusion lift from his mind. "I- my head hurts." If the demon was playing him then she was truely skilled. His mother's room was decorated exactly as he remembered it so many years ago.

Forest green drapes lined in gold lace hung over the wide window that overlooked an emerald lake. A cloth tapestry painted with fairytale images of deer and forest folk decorated one side of the room. An elegant blue vase with a long neck sat at its place next to his mother's vanity table. Deithi remembered breaking that vase when he was 8 years old.

"I'll call for the physician, Dei," his mother's concerned tone brought him back to the present.

"I don't need a physician," he told her. "What's going on?"

"Yisha," his mother called to her most trusted handmaiden.

Deithi struggled to hold in his revulsion when he saw the young lady appearing from behind a decorative glass door. Purple blooming buds and green ivy was painted on the murky glass door.

"My lady," the handmaiden who had been chosen for her beauty and intelligence bowed her head before the princess. Her ochre-coloured dress was modest but stylish, cut from soft silk gifted to her by the princess.

Deithi hated her with a burning passion. The handmaiden had kidnapped him when he was ten years old. She'd poured sleeping medicine in his bowl of pheasant soup, then smuggled him out of the palace. It had taken considerable will on his end to break the ropes that had tied him to a tree in the forest.

"Deithi is unwell," his mother told the servant girl. "Summon the physician to my chamber."

"Immediately, my lady." Yisha executed a curtsey before glancing at the young boy with concern. Her sandalled feet were silent as she walked out of the room, leaving Deithi confused and angry. The vision he was seeing felt so real. His mother's voice, her gentle touch, and even the scent of incense in the room felt truer than his own thumping heartbeats.

Deithi looked down at his chubby hands that were clutching at his mother's dress. "I-" he was speechless. The little boy held his hand up and stared at them. The skin on his palms was soft; not a single callus to be seen on them.

"Dei, you're scaring mother," the princess' concerned voice interrupted his confused trail of thoughts.

The little boy hid his hands under the blanket. "I'm sorry.."

Princess Celia scooped her son's hand out from under the blanket and she placed a kiss on it. When she looked up to smile at her angelic boy, he snatched his hand out of his mother's grasp and blushed with embarrassment. Deithi was a grown adult man being coddled in the arms of his mother. The reality was creeping in and along with it came the realisation that perhaps he wasn't in hell at all.

"Mother, please let me go," he protested her hug. "I am not a baby-"

"You are my baby," the princess replied. "Dei, stop squirming. The blanket will fall off if you continue to - Deithi! What's gotten into you today?"

The little boy leapt off his mother's lap and shivered when he felt the chilly fingers of cold air steal the warmth from his body. "Where's my coat?"

"Here," she handed him a grey fur lined coat. On the sleeves of the coat were cute yellow ducklings that she had embroidered in her free time. They had been Deithi's favourite animals before he acquired a taste for fatty duck meat.

"I don't like Yisha," he told the princess. "Keep an eye on her, mother. She might try to kidnap me!" Deithi's eyes were as cold as ice. He had taken after his father's green eyes and platinum blond hair. Often times he had wondered what he would have looked like if he had gold blonde hair and blue eyes like his mother.

"Dei, did that woman do something to you?" Celia kneeled on the red gold carpet and searched her son's eyes.

"No," he shook his head. There was no need to involve his mother when he could avenge himself for that night he was left alone in the cold scary forest. The child shuddered as he recalled the howls of a pack of hungry vicious wolves that made the forest their home. "Just a bad dream... Only a dream."

Princess Celia pulled her son in for a hug when she saw the desolate look in his eyes. What terrible dream had wrought such scars in her innocent boy's eyes?

Deithi soaked in the warmth that came from his mother's hug. If this was hell then he would become the devil himself. A long list of names was imprinted deep in his mind. Revenge would begin with Yisha. He wasn't yet ready to face the shadow of Lilian that haunted the dark recesses of his mind. But someday, when the dredges of his love for her would burn out like an abandoned lamp, Deithi would find strength in himself to face the woman who was responsible for destroying everything he held dear.