Chapter 4 #2
“Oh, Sera!” My mother opens her arms and squeezes me in a suffocating embrace. “Oh, Sera!” She starts to weep, but I know her tears aren’t rooted in sadness.
She sees this as a good thing.
She thinks it means I’ll survive the third trial.
That her remaining child will not die.
“This is wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!” My father laughs, bringing his palm to his forehead, he shakes his head.
“I can’t believe it. My child, my youngest. A Pyroflame.
” But then he looks at me, really looks at me.
His face now serious, the laughter gone.
“But you aren’t happy about it, which means—”
“They saw me.” I finish for him, and he goes pale. “The others saw me. They’ll be coming for me soon.”
And with those words, my mother stands.
“Greerson, barricade the door,” she orders then moves to the small window, peering into the street three stories below. It’s already dark out, so I know she can’t see anything.
My father leaves the room, and I need to tell them that it doesn’t matter what they do. If I stay, it will only be a matter of time before I’m dead.
But I’m frozen.
Glued to the ground, unable to move, unable to speak.
My mother kneels beside me.
“It’s going to be okay, Sera. You’ll make it to trial day.
We’ll inform the Enforcers. We’ll let them know what’s happened.
We’ll get them to station someone outside of our home.
They are not allowed to harm you.” She gives me a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and I know she doesn’t believe the words she’s saying.
The Enforcers don’t care about us. They don’t care about me, and they especially won’t care if I really did murder that man back in that alley.
They’ll either come for me themselves, or simply allow Norin to take care of me for them.
And Norin won’t stop until I’m dead.
In his eyes, I’m his greatest competition, even more so than Char.
Essentari always win the trials.
Always.
Which is why the smart ones keep their abilities hidden until the last possible moment. Until the final trial has officially begun.
Essentari may be strong, they may be powerful, but that doesn’t mean they’re invincible.
There are stories of Essentari who have been murdered before trial day, and I know my mother has heard them.
Seven years ago, a water wielder from Village 32 was ambushed six months before her final trial. She died. And not a single person was arrested for the brutal crime.
I will not become her. Another story. Another cautionary tale.
“Mama,” I say softly. “I need to leave. If I stay here, they’ll find me. They’ll kill me. I have to go.”
She shakes her head because she knows if I leave, I can never return.
I’ll be marked as an evader.
Killed on sight.
So I’ll have to stay gone, and she’ll never see me again.
“She’s right, Cresla.” I didn’t hear my father enter the room, but he’s here now, stroking my mother’s hair.
“No. There has to be another way,” she whispers, eyes filling with tears.
“I have to go, Mama,” I say again because I need her to tell me the same thing. I need her to tell me that I do in fact have to leave; otherwise, I never will.
She grabs my fingers with her own. “I will not lose another daughter.”
“If I stay, you will lose me.”
She sucks in a sharp breath, and I think she’s going to try to convince me. I think she’ll never actually let me leave, but then she whispers, “Okay.” And my heart throbs.
Once again, she wraps me in her arms, and together we cry.
We cry until I know my eyes are red and swollen.
We cry until I’m not sure if I have any tears left to fall.
We cry until my father pulls me to my feet and hands me a bag. I’m not sure when he packed it, but when I look at him, I can tell that he’s been crying, too.
“It has everything you’ll need. At least for a few days. But you’ll have to find water…and fast. I gave you what we received for our rations this week, but it won’t last long.”
“Papa, I can’t take your rations. What will you and Mama do?”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll figure it out,” my mother says as she tucks my hair behind my ear. “We always do.”
“I know it’s hot during the day, but I packed a blanket for the night.
That way, you won’t be forced to generate a flame unless you absolutely have to.
Find shelter. Find safety. But most of all, find happiness, Serafina,” my father says gently, and I wrap my arms around his waist, tucking my chin and pressing my cheek to his chest. “You have always been, and will always be our brave, headstrong, fiercely independent girl.”
And with those words, I can’t help but scoff because right now, I don’t feel like any of those things.
“Don’t do that,” he chastises, still holding me tight.
“Don’t doubt yourself. You’ve been forced to fight since the day you were born.
Every breath, every movement, every passing second, you had to choose to survive.
And you did. You are a survivor, Serafina.
The healers didn’t think you would make it.
But we always knew. We knew how strong you were.
We heard it in your cries, saw it every morning when you opened your eyes.
” He cradles my head in his rough hands, hands that have spent too many hours working in the fields.
“Believe in what you can do, Serafina. Just as we have always believed in you.”
Then, he lets me go and steps away.
He places his arm around my mother, but she inhales deeply as if she just remembered something. She flees from the room but returns just as fast, her once empty hands now clinging to a small box.
“I…I was going to give this to you on your birthday in a few days,” she says, her voice trembling, her fingers shaking. She opens the box, and my eyes go wide because we’ve never had nice things, and I’ve never seen something so beautiful.
A slender charm, shaped like a tapering spiral with the smallest ruby placed in the center, stares back at me. It’s attached to a delicate gold chain that matches the charm in color. The simplicity makes it even more breathtaking.
“Mama,” I finally say, my eyes filling with tears once more. “This is too much. I—”
“Nonsense.” She unclasps the chain and moves to stand behind me.
With the pendant resting high on my chest, she fastens it at the nape of my neck.
“This charm has been passed down through our family for generations. My mother gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday to protect me in my final trial, and now it is yours.”
She stands beside my father once more, and my fingers cover the pendent, desperate to feel the protection she believes it will offer.
“I’ll never take it off,” I tell her, finding it hard to meet her eyes, but I do because I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to look at them again.
“The plants in my room,” I blurt out, my words rushed because there’s still so much to say, so much to tell them, to teach them.
“I added to Telfi’s journals, wrote down more remedies, more uses for the roots and the leaves and the—” I can’t find my words.
Telfi was the one who was good with words.
She was the one who loved to learn, to heal, to help.
“It’s okay, Serafina,” my mother says gently. “Do not worry about us.” Her fists tighten as she holds them close to her chest.
Do not worry.
Do not worry.
But how will they know which leaves to crush to soothe mother’s burns from the tea water she boils each night?
How will they know what tonic to prepare to prevent infection when father manages another deep cut while working in the fields?
Because you wrote it down.
I wrote it down.
All will be well. I relax my flexed fingers.
“Go, Serafina,” my mother orders, and I shake my head because I’m not ready. I will never be ready. “Go, daughter, and I will pray to the gods that we see each other again.”
My eyes hold hers, then my father’s. Committing their image to memory, and silently promising myself that this will not be the last time we are together.
It can’t be.
And then I leave.
I’m out the door, down the stairs, and sprinting through the moonlit street.
My legs burn from the effort, but I do not stop. Because if I stop, I’m afraid I’ll never start again.
I run and I run, all the way to the very edge of Village 28. To the bridge where I’ll wait for Char.
Everything will be okay.
Char is coming.
Everything will be okay.
I will survive.