LIROIDS

The Mortal Child

Hakaya’s POV

I was told I was born on a stormy night, when thunder rolled like war drums over Cellon and the sky wept rivers. Perhaps that was why I never feared storms. Perhaps that was why shadows seemed to curl around me like companions, never frightening, only familiar.

I grew up believing I was the daughter of ordinary parents. My foster mother, gentle and kind, rocked me by the fire, her lullabies sweet as honey. My foster father, strong and steady, taught me how to walk the narrow paths between our fields and the woods. They gave me love, laughter, and a place in the world. For years, I believed that was enough.

But even as a child, I knew I was different.

Flowers bloomed when I cried. Not ordinary daisies or poppies, but strange blossoms with petals dark as bruises, their scent heavy and intoxicating. My foster mother would gather them quickly, burning them in the hearth before neighbors could see.

“Why must you destroy them?” I asked her once.

Her hands shook as she fed the flames. “Because, Hakaya, not all beauty is safe. Some flowers are curses.”

Her words haunted me. Curses. Shadows. Strange dreams that clung to me even in the day, dreams of a woman with hair like night, eyes like storms, and blossoms spilling from her chest.

I would wake with her name on my lips, though I did not know how I knew it. Eyela.

As I grew older, whispers followed me. The other children called me odd, touched, and cursed. They would not play with me when I laughed, for shadows gathered in the corners, bending toward me as though I were their queen. They would not walk beside me when I sang, for the earth itself trembled faintly, answering my voice.

I asked my foster parents why I was different. They only looked at each other with eyes full of secrets.

One night, when I was twelve, I overheard them arguing.

“She must be told,” my foster mother whispered fiercely. “We cannot keep this from her forever.”

“And what would you have me say?” my foster father hissed back. “That her true mother was a monster? That she is the daughter of Evilside herself?”

The name froze my blood. Evilside. The word I had heard whispered in the marketplace spat in fear and loathing. The cursed tree that stood in the Dark Forest, blooming lilies of death.

My heart pounded. Could it be true?

I did not confront them, not yet. But the seed of truth had been planted, and it grew wild inside me. I began to dream more vividly. I saw the Tree of Lilies in the forest, its blossoms glowing purple in the moonlight. And within it, I saw her, a woman’s face trapped in bark, her eyes filled with sorrow.

Sometimes she whispered my name. Hakaya.

I should have been afraid. Instead, I felt a strange kinship, as though I were a branch that had been cut from her roots.

The turning point came when I was sixteen. A band of thieves raided our village. They came with torches, laughter sharp as knives, their blades flashing in the firelight. My foster parents shoved me into the cellar, telling me to stay hidden.

But I could not. I heard my mother scream, my father’s shout. Something inside me snapped.

I rose, shadows unfurling around me like wings. The cellar door burst open at my command, the air itself trembling. The thieves turned as I stepped into the firelit night.

One sneered. “What’s this? A little girl came to play?”

The lilies bloomed before my feet, dark and gleaming. The men faltered.

“Leave,” I said, though my voice was not wholly my own. It was deeper, stronger, layered with something ancient.

They laughed. But their laughter choked off when the roots tore through the earth, snaring their legs. They screamed, thrashing, as the lilies drank their blood, blooming brighter.

When it was over, silence fell. My foster parents stared at me with wide, fearful eyes.

“What are you?” my foster father whispered.

The question cut deeper than any blade. I did not answer because I did not know.

But in my heart, I heard the whisper of the tree, of the woman who haunted my dreams.

You are mine, Hakaya. My daughter. My heir.

And though I tried to deny it, I knew it was true.