The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [80]
Somehow, B’Elanna got to her feet and stumbled away from the anguish unfolding before her. She found the primitive “knife” her mother had made and hurried back to Miral’s side, fearful that it was too late, fearful that it wasn’t.
“I h-have the knife,” she said, biting her lip so hard she feared she would sever a chunk of it.
Miral opened her eyes. “Good,” she said, her voice a whisper. “This is good. This is ... is how it was meant to unfold.”
B’Elanna couldn’t believe that. Couldn’t. She [239] wanted to grab Miral and shake some sense into her, wanted to tap her comm badge and beam her up to Voyager for some damn proper medical care. Instead, she grasped the knife with hands that were wet with the lifeblood of two mothers—her own, and the mother of the young grikshak she had slain.
Guilt commingled with grief. She realized that she was responsible for the mother grikshak finding Miral’s encampment. Torres had killed its cub and made a cloak out of the young female’s skin. The scent of her child had led the adult directly to them. Miral had known it before she had, and somehow found the whole bizarre thing fitting. “She was avenged,” Miral had said of the beast that had killed her. A mother had slain a mother, the price for the life of a daughter.
But what of the daughter who survived?
“Take the dagger,” Miral said, her lips barely moving. Torres had to lean close to hear. “Make it swift. One blow. Then when you are done, wipe the blood on your clothing and issue the cry. Let them know to expect me.” Her lips, purple with blood, curved in a smile. “I have no ... no doubt that my arrival will cause ... quite the commotion.”
Torres tasted blood. She had indeed bit her lip too hard. Her tongue found and explored the ragged flesh, tasted the saltiness. Her senses were heightened. Everything was clear, sharp, vibrant, and she didn’t want to let a second of it pass without being exalted.
“Momma ... I don’t know if I can do this,” she quavered.
“You can. You can do anything. Have you not learned that by now?” She shuddered in pain. “I cannot [240] feel my legs ... hurry, daughter, or the moment and I shall both pass without honor.”
Torres took a deep breath. She pushed the part of her that quailed from the task into a small box in the back of her mind and shut the lid.
“I love you, Mother,” she said.
“I love you, my daughter,” Miral breathed. Their gazes locked. “We will meet again,” she said, echoing the words the Miral in B’Elanna’s vision had said.
Her throat tight, her eyes burning with tears, B’Elanna managed, “In Sto-Vo-Kor.”
Miral nodded, then with a hint of humor added, “But not too soon, eh?”
Somehow B’Elanna laughed. “No,” she agreed, “not too soon.” Miral’s chest hitched.
“Daughter ... hurry. ...”
Staring right into her mother’s eyes, B’Elanna Torres screamed an incoherent cry and brought the knife down on Miral’s throat.
She was not prepared for the horrible crunching sound, the fountain of blood that pattered, soft and warm, on her face. She was not prepared to see the light go out of her mother’s eyes, even as B’Elanna forced them open. For an instant, her mind danced on the brink of madness. No child should have to do this to a parent.
With hands that trembled, she wiped Miral’s blood on her cloak, the hide of the creature that had sealed Miral’s fate. B’Elanna threw back her head and howled with all the strength she had in her, turning her grief into a victory cry. Surely Kahless himself would hear this sound. And all would know that a warrior was on her way to join them.
[241] She couldn’t recall the Klingon words for the dirge. Panic fluttered in her chest, panic that somehow she’d mess this up, too, like she had messed up so much in her life. The words simply weren’t there.
I’m half human, she thought. Human language will have to do.
“Only Qo’noS endures,” she began. And as she chanted, the darkness of the awful night gave way to a cold, steel-gray dawn.
B’Elanna Torres awoke with a whimper, her limbs aching from being held in a strange position for so long. Her heart felt