Golden Stair Read Online Free Page A

to speak, but her mother jabbed a finger in her direction, her eyes tapered into reptilian slits.
     
    “You want to leave the tower? You want to go out there ?” She clutched at her head, mouth slackening as she stared around her. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she sputtered. “You…you have no idea what you’re asking, no idea what’s out there.”
     
    Hands trembling, Dame Gothel ravaged the room with a glance, as if her daughter’s fantasies could be blamed on something in the tower. Her gaze fell on a painting over the fireplace, a landscape of a white, sandy beach with glorious crystal cerulean waves and cresting white breaks. A mermaid lounged in the surf, her beautiful hair floating around her as she beamed up at the sun.
     
    “Is that what you think is out there?” Dame Gothel raged. “This childish dreamworld?”
     
    Ivy cried out in dismay as her mother stomped over to the fireplace and ripped the painting from the wall. Magic crackled in the air as her mother expended her own power to destroy the painting. With sharp, vicious movements, her mother slashed at the painting with fingers curled into claws, tearing the canvas to shreds. She hurled the ruins across the room. Ivy swallowed hard, blinking to rid her eyes of the burning threat of tears. Her mother loomed over her, seeming bigger somehow, like a monster that you didn’t believe was real until it crawled out from under the bed and tried to swallow you.
     
    “I begged the goddess Demeter to create this pocket for you, this small space where no one from the outside world could find you,” Dame Gothel ground out. “I begged her as one mother to another. The five kingdoms are in chaos! There is blood over every blade of grass, a cloud of smoke that never leaves the sky! Screams echo throughout the day and far into the night, the anguished cries of those being murdered and the cruel cries of the ones murdering them. They fight for power, for the ultimate control of the five kingdoms. The world is in chaos and no one is safe…no one except you .”
     
    Ivy dropped her gaze to her feet even as her temper sparked. “There’s more to life than staying safe, Mother,” she choked out. “I’m not a child anymore, at least let me come with you when you go out. I could help.” She swallowed, swaying on her feet as the adrenaline heated her blood, making it harder to think straight. “I know you love me and you just want to keep me safe, but I can’t stay here forever. I love you, Mother, please, let me come with you.”
     
    Her mother’s eyes bulged, showing far too much white. She shouted and snatched the teapot from the stove and heaved it over her head, sending it smashing down onto the floor. Broken ceramic and hot tea flew everywhere, barely missing scalding Ivy’s bare feet. Ivy cried out, throwing her hands up in front of her face, bracing herself against her mother’s fury.
     
    “You want to leave this tower? You want to throw away the safety I’ve fought so hard to get for you?” She grabbed Ivy’s arms and jerked her forward. Ivy yelped, trembling as her mother’s fingers tightened like unforgiving talons around her arms. Her mother’s skin was mottled and spittle had formed at the corners of her mouth.
     
    “Is the life I’ve built for you so horrible?” her mother demanded, her voice a low, guttural growl. “Are you so ungrateful for everything I’ve done that you cannot do the one thing I ask of you?”
     
    “Mother, I didn’t mean it like that—”
     
    “All I ask is that you stay safe. All I ask when I go out to face death on the battlefield is that I go out there with the knowledge that my daughter—the one person I have to love in this world—is safe at home! Are you such a selfish wretch that you can take all that I give you and then deny me the one thing I have that keeps me going?”
     
    Her mother’s voice wavered and she released Ivy to grasp at her own hair, tugging at it as she