Infinity Blade 01- Awakening

tallest mountain in the world, then turning back ten steps from the summit.
    No, she hadn’t tried to undermine his training. But what mother would want her son to go off to certain death? She’d tried to talk him out of it the night before the Feast of the Sacrifice, the most forward of her attempts. By then, it had been too late. For both of them.
    “We have to take you to town,” she exclaimed. “Talk to the elders. There will be celebrations! Parties! Dancing and . . . and . . . And what is that look on your face, my son?”
    “I’ve been to town,” he said, pulling his arm from her grip. “There will be no celebrations, Mother. They sent me away.”
    “Sent you away . . . Why would they . . .” She paused, studying him. “Those small-minded fools. They’re afraid, aren’t they?”
    “I guess they have reason to be,” Siris said, putting the axe aside and sitting down on the stump. “They’re right. People will come looking for me.”
    “That’s nonsense,” she said, crouching down beside him. “Son, I’m not sending you away again. I’m not going through that again.”
    He looked up, but said nothing. Perhaps with the support of the town, he’d have stayed. But with just his mother . . . No. He wouldn’t endanger her.
    Why had he even come to her, then? Because I wanted her to know, he thought. Because I needed to show her that I’m alive. Perhaps a greater kindness would have been to stay away.
    “You’re not going to let me choose, are you?” she said.
    He hesitated, then shook his head.
    Her hand tightened on his arm. “Ever the warrior,” she whispered. “Well, at least let me feed you a good meal. Then perhaps we can talk further.”
    He felt immeasurably better with a good meal in his stomach. His mother hadn’t had any everberries for a pie, unfortunately, but she’d fixed him some peach cobbler. He carefully noted in his logbook:
    I like peach cobbler.
Definitely
like peach cobbler.
    “How many times did I try to feed you that when you were growing up?” she asked him, sitting across the table and watching him as he spooned up the last bite.
    “Dozens,” he said.
    “And you refused every time.”
    “I . . .” It was hard to explain. He’d known his duty, somehow. Even from childhood, he’d known. The town’s expectations had held him to high standards, but the truth was that he’d held himself to them as well.
    “You always were an odd child,” she said. “So solemn. So dutiful. So focused. Sometimes I felt less like a mother to you, and more like a . . . an innkeeper. Even when you were young.”
    It made him uncomfortable when she talked like that. “You never speak of Father. Was he the same?”
    “I didn’t know him long,” she said, looking wistful. “Isn’t that odd to say? We met like it was a dream, married in under a month. Then he was gone, off to be the Sacrifice. He left me with you.”
    She’d come here to Drem’s Maw in order to get away from her old life. She had cousins here, though she’d never really fit in. Neither had he, even though the townspeople had claimed to be proud of being the ones to raise the Sacrifice.
    “He did have a sense of purpose,” she said, nodding. “The same as you.”
    “I wish I had that still,” Siris replied. He looked down at his empty plate, then sighed and stood. “I had hoped that now . . . finally . . . I could go about being myself. Whoever that is.”
    “Must you go, Siris?” she asked. “You could stay, hide here. We could make it work.”
    “No,” he said. I won’t bring this down upon you.
    “I can’t make you stay, I suppose.” She didn’t seem pleased about that. “But where will you go?”
    “I don’t know,” he said, gathering the cloak, wrapped like a pack with his armor inside of it.
    “Are you at least willing to listen to a little advice?”
    “From you?” he said. “Always.”
    “I wished to the lights of heaven that you hadn’t set your feet on this path. But you did, son.”
    “I didn’t have a choice.”
    “That’s foolishness,” she said. “You always have a choice.”
    Foolishness or not, it was still how he felt.
    “You set your feet on this path,” she continued. “So now you need to finish what you began.”
    “I did finish it,” he complained. “I killed the God King! What more could they ask of me?”
    “It’s no longer about what people are asking of you, son,” she said. She reached over, taking his