To My Mother, Who Failed

To My Mother,

If by some miracle this ever lands in your hands, over seas and territories and whatever else seperates us in this world, I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn I'm still alive.

And more shocked to learn I can write and read.

You'd think I wouldn't remember much of you, only being eight the last time you saw me. But I remember. I remember the pallor to your cheeks, the brown of your hair that was shiny and kept regardless of our poverty, the way your voice could swindle a man out of his last coin.

I didn't understand the exchange of money before you allowed those warriors to load me into a carriage. But I remember your cold demeanor, more so than the chill you gave me from birth, as you sold me to the Frockian Tribes without a last glance.

But I didn't think of you much after that. I didn't consider what you were thinking when you sold me into slavery. I didn't think about where you were while I was raised by an indifferent hand in the Rearing House. I thought of little to nothing when I was autioned and bought by a man who tried to use my body to make him immortal sons, to no avail.

I wondered about you for a moment when I was eating poisonous berries, drowning myself, and throwing my body from a roof. Because as I tried to die, I hoped you were already dead.

I considered you for a moment when I was saved by a sister I didn't know existed. Since you bore no other children, you probably assumed I was alone in this world like you were. Jokes on you. I have three sisters and a man I look up to as a father, even more so than your kind-hearted husband who raised and cared for me as if I was his own. Do you think about Eddrick, the man you named me after but didn't weep for as he laid dying?

If you do, it's not as much as I do. And not as kindly, I can imagine.

After your betrayal, you who was supposed to be the only one who should have cared aboout me over anything else, I was convinced I would die after a short and depraved life. But I was saved.

And then I spent days, months, and years saving myself. From my past. From my trauma. From you.

I left the Englen Mountain Range and Brisch and everything I understood behind when I got on a ship and didn't look back. I found an empire that doesn't care where I came from, but rather who will vouche for me. And I understand everything I need to know now.

I found knowledge. I found safety. I found mentors that taught me to care for my body and learn to defend it. I found family. I found friends who taught me betrayal and pain isn't always the end result.

And I don't think about you much, Mother. But you do sometimes cross my mind in the late hours of the night, when I sit in the darkness of my chambers and practice my penmanship. Being alone reminds me of being lonely, perhaps. Even before you got rid of me, I felt alone. The first forty years of my life were lonely.

But not anymore. And you need to know that. I need you to know that.

And whether by some turn of events I find your location or this letter simply sits in my desk for the next forty years, I've told you that you failed. Your disregard for my life or worth failed. Because I do matter, more than you ever will.

I've learned selfish, cruel people die in this world.

Maybe you've learned this, too.

Maybe you're dead.

And I'd say I don't care, but I do. I hope you're alive and one day you'll see not what you've done, but what you failed to do.

Sincerely,

The Woman You Birthed, But Was Never Your Daughter.