This scene from Forged in Fire is from the viewpoint of Helia, mother of the immortal king Pietas. We get rare glimpses of her in this book, because it's mainly from Pietas's point of view. But without being inside her head in a few places, a reader would not understand this woman at all. Her son is 7 terran feet tall; Helia is 4'11". He's one of the most powerful Ultras ever created, while she is one of the least. As this scene begins, Helia's husband, Mahikos, is threatening to set fire to a unit of cryogenic life pods. In all of Ultra history, no Ultra has ever killed another by fire. It's the only death they can't come back from. Pietas is facing off with his father, attempting to reason with him.
Forged in Fire
Hard to believe the tall, powerful person facing Mahikos had come from her own body. She, a worker in the scientist class, had given birth to this incredible warrior-scientist. Every time she saw Pietas in action, Helia marveled anew. Though it had been centuries, it felt like she'd held her newborn son yesterday. Perhaps all mothers felt so about their offspring. It did not lessen her awe.
She stood behind him, well back from the verbal fray, listening as Pietas faced his father. Her son's calm words fell on ears closed to reason.
Mahikos demanded to be allowed into camp and take part in the Mingle. To get his way, he threatened to destroy his own people. Instead of working for a solution in the present, he'd rather set fire to the future.
How like Mahikos.
She'd refused the Mingle because to allow his blood to join with hers would put her even deeper under his thrall. Mahikos had insisted if they stuck together, Pietas would accept the terms of the peace talks and submit peacefully.
Pietas? Accept and submit? How long had the man known his son?
She had gone along with it, no better or wiser. What a disgrace to motherhood. She deserved the lowest scorn from her noble son, yet here he was, defending her.
Mahikos had sworn if Pietas surrendered, they'd be given their own world and everything they needed to survive. All she had to do was agree with Mahikos and keep her mouth shut about the deal he'd made.
A replay of her entire marriage. Shut up and obey me, Helia. Do what I tell you, Helia. I know what's best for you, Helia. Do it or you'll be sorry, Helia.
This time, she'd refused with adamant protests. But he'd nagged and wheedled and made promise after promise. When that hadn't swayed her he'd made a single threat. Side with him and make this exile happen, convince Pietas to agree or Mahikos would kill him.
Kill her son.
He'd shown her how he'd do it. Plausible. Possible. Her spouse had hated her son from the moment he saw she loved the boy more than she'd ever loved him. Her son loved her unconditionally. Mahikos gave love to gain what he wanted. He was cruel enough to do as he'd vowed and kill Pietas.
Kill her son!
Helia had given in, but any love she'd ever had for Mahikos died in that moment.
Then, when they arrived on Sempervia, she'd been released from the nightmare of being awakened and refrozen to discover her son was not among them. Thinking him perma-dead, she'd ceased living. How could she survive in a world without her son? Mahikos, Dessy, all the others, everyone claimed it was unchanging destiny. Fate.
No. If fate ruled her life she'd have remained a scientist.
She'd never have become friends with Joss and through her, met a warrior who'd been born in the scientist class and had transformed himself.
Mahikos had freed himself by accident. Once he understood how he'd done it, he freed others and secretly created Ultras without the genetics binding them as slaves. By the time humans realized the danger, it was too late.
Join him, Mahikos had sworn to Helia, and he'd make her what she'd always longed to be: a mother. He knew how to create life and he would make it happen within her. Not be a surrogate for life as some of their kind were, but the mother of her own children.
Her own flesh and blood, Part of her. Hers. How could she refuse?
Instead, he bound her to himself.
His next promise was even more of a lie. Bear me children, and I'll free you.
Once the children were born, his promise changed. It wasn't two children he wanted from her. It was twenty.
Twenty.
While she reeled from the thought of being a breeding machine, she watched how cold he was to the children. How cruel. She protested. Tried to stop him.
He beat her into silent submission.
When he made her pregnant again, she terminated the pregnancy. Every time she discovered she was with child, she destroyed it.
Tore out her own heart with each precious death.
No mother should have to make that kind of decision. Let your child live and be reared like a soldier by an abusive, uncaring monster? Or let him die in peace?
She attempted to free herself, but her very makeup made it impossible. Surely, she could find a way. Perform some research that would uncover the secret that had made Mahikos free. She searched in vain.
Though she could see and understand the process, she had no power to apply the treatment to herself. Freedom tantalized, just beyond her reach. Her bonds existed within her own genetics. That was how humans had kept Ultras captive for so many centuries. How Mahikos enslaved her to his will.
After arriving on Sempervia and discovering Pietas was not among them, she died more each day. She declined to eat, drink, speak. Even for her cherished daughter.
And then a silent howl of empathic rage had swept over the camp two nights ago. No other Ultra had such power. It could be no one but her son.
Pietas was alive.
Hurt. In need. Near.
She couldn't go to him. Instead, she sent the others, refusing to let them tell him how ill she was. Pietas would want to know why, and once he knew the truth, in his anger at her betrayal, he would turn his back. If he discovered her part in his father's charade, he'd never forgive her. Never.
Let Mahikos rage. Let him scream. Let him beg. She would never submit to him again.
No matter how much it hurt her physically to resist and refuse.
If she had to, to keep him from rejoining the camp and taking part, she'd admit her part in Mahikos's conspiracy against Pietas.
Better to face death from her merciful son than his hate-filled father.
Death is just a setback.
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