Chapter 56 S’rsha
S’rsha
Div was small beside Sirsha as they watched Cero bent over the body of Ruhyan Veturius, weaving a type of magic that seemed impossible. Miraculous.
Sirsha almost did not look at Div. She had haunted Sirsha for so long, woven herself into the wounded parts of Sirsha’s mind. She did not want to acknowledge the ravenous, murderous creature who’d forced Sirsha to hunt down her pain and stare it in the face.
But in the end, Sirsha glanced down and saw in the child’s eyes not the monster but the magic that the jinn children had been sundered from, the freedom, the innocence.
Sirsha thought to say something, but in that moment, Div faded into nothingness and Sirsha’s body stiffened.
She felt them moving through her veins like light.
She tried to speak, to give voice to the feeling, for she was not herself anymore but hundreds of other beings, entire lives, futures that had never been.
They called out within her, through her, with her voice and with theirs, again and again and again, saying her name in thanks, in acknowledgment, in benediction. Not the name her family had forced on her when they cast her out, but her true name, the one she was born with.
S’rsha. S’rsha. S’rsha. S’rsha. S’rsha. S’rsha. S’rsha.
And then they were gone. The cavern was just a cavern, glowing silver with the Loha that veined it, and S’rsha was alone in her head and her body, unencumbered finally from the weight of a thousand tortured souls.
It was nearly dawn when they emerged from the cavern, and the hoodoos glowed copper in the morning light. Cero had wrapped his cloak around Ruh, and Karinna held tightly to the child’s hand, looking at him every few seconds as if she was afraid he’d disappear.
Quil offered S’rsha his own cloak and she took it gratefully, breathing in the scent of him before feeling the sharp edges of their broken bond poking at her mind, reminding her of what they’d given up.
S’rsha felt hollow and fragile and light, like the foam on the whitecaps in the Bay of Tears.
She felt as if a strong wind would blow her into nothingness.
“I’m here, S’rsha.” Quil put his arm around her, his lips against her hair. “You’re not alone.”
She sank into him. If there had been anything left inside her, she would have wept.
“We will return you to your encampment, Emperor Aquillus,” one of the jinn said. Umber. “It will not take long.”
Karinna gasped, looking quickly at Quil. “Because she abdicated, right? And not—not because—”
“She’s gone, Kari,” Quil said, slowly meeting S’rsha’s gaze. She understood finally the sorrow that marked his features.
“Emperor,” she whispered. “When?”
“Just before I came to you.” His voice was low. “Aiz, she—” He did not finish, instead glancing at Ruh, who gazed back soberly.
“Will you like me less, Qu—Emperor?” he said in a small voice. “Because I have her heart?”
“It’s your heart now, Ruh.” Quil dropped to his knees in front of the child and pulled him into a hug. “Which makes it the best heart.”
“You heard me,” Ruh said. “In the dreams. You and Cero, the Empress and Musa. But it was you, first. You always were a good listener, Qu—Emperor. Ugh, do I have to keep calling you Emperor?”
Quil smiled, though his eyes were still sad and would be, S’rsha knew, for a long time. “For you, Ruh, I’m just Quil.”
The jinn took them back then, delivering them to the center of the Empire encampment, to the astonishment of those few who saw them arrive so early. Here in the badlands, it was a blood-red dawn, the horizon stained with smoke and ash from a fire to the east that still burned.
“Sirsha?” Raani Sh’ban stood with a few of the other Jaduna, consulting with the Blood Shrike over a map. At her words, one of the jinn stepped forward.
“That,” the jinn Umber said, “is not her name. Her name is S’rsha Inashi-fa, heir of Kin Inashi, and none shall take that name from her. Thus have the jinn decreed.”
“And thus shall it be,” the other seven jinn behind Umber said in booming tones that sent birds flying from nearby trees.
Raani Sh’ban stared, dumbstruck, before nodding fervently, as did the other Jaduna. Satisfied, Umber turned to address Cero, Karinna, Quil, and S’rsha.
“We have our own rites for our dead that we must follow,” Umber said. “We thank you, for setting our children free. We will tell your tale.” Her gaze lingered on Ruh, as if she had more to say. But she seemed to think better of it.
Wind swept through the encampment and the jinn were gone.
The Blood Shrike looked at Cero with wrath, a hand on her scim, and Quil spoke to her quietly, easing her fingers away from her blade.
Two familiar figures shoved out of the command tent a dozen yards away—Sufiyan and Arelia, both talking at the same time when they spotted S’rsha.
Others heard the commotion. The Emperor is returned. The Tel Ilessi is dead. Aiz is dead. Within moments, a crowd began to form. Ruh stepped closer to Cero, grabbing his hand, as if to protect him or, perhaps, to seek protection.
Too many things were occurring at once; too many voices were speaking.
After all that had happened, after living with Div hissing in her ear for so long, the noise was overwhelming.
But S’rsha did not withdraw fully as she wished to, and seconds later, she was grateful.
For at that moment, Laia of Serra emerged from the crowd, trailed by her daughter Zuriya.
The Kehanni cried out, a wail torn from the roots of her soul as she beheld her youngest child, come back to her after she thought him forever lost. Cero stepped back, and Laia ran toward Karinna and Ruh, enveloping them in a hug, pulling Zuriya in, kissing Ruh’s face and hugging him and kissing him again.
S’rsha saw the moment Sufiyan realized why his mother was laughing and crying, and he rushed them, bowling the girls over and grabbing his little brother so tight that Ruh croaked, “I can’t come back again if you suffocate me, Suf.”
The crowd shifted. Elias came through, shoulders tense at the commotion, one hand on the dagger at his waist, his every sinew seemingly exhausted by grief.
Until he saw Ruh.
He stopped short of his family, utterly mute, his face emotionless, almost icy. He dug his hands into his thighs, as if attempting to discern if he was dreaming. The only sound was that of the wind, a gentle whisper.
Then the dam broke, and he fell to his knees as Ruh flew at him. Elias wrapped his son in his arms, his body shaking as he wept.
And S’rsha, who thought she’d harbor a grudge against Elias Veturius for at least a few years, if not eternity, found to her surprise that forgiveness was a lighter weight to carry.
When the big man finally looked up at her, she smiled.
For a few days after her liberation from Div, S’rsha did not know what to do with herself.
“Don’t leave.” Quil had pulled her into his tent moments after Ruh’s family had reunited. “Please. I know the Adah oath is broken. But we don’t have to be, S’rsha.”
But Quil was not just Quil anymore, or even Prince Quil. He was Emperor Aquillus, and he was swept away by the weighty duty upon his shoulders: A shattered Empire to piece together. A broken people to heal.
Still, S’rsha promised to stay, at least for a little while.
She traveled with the entourage that accompanied the new Emperor to Antium, the Empire’s capital and the place where the Gens leaders would converge to swear fealty to him.
It was also where Quil would begin hammering out a treaty with Cero—the only Kegari leader he was willing to negotiate with.
The court, along with most of the civilians, Arelia, Tas, the Jaduna, and Ruh and his family, went with them. Even the jinn who had agreed to help Quil came, though they kept their distance from the humans when they could. S’rsha found she envied them that space.
As they headed north, Quil often tried to ride with S’rsha, to talk to her, but he was usually pulled away within minutes.
When S’rsha did feel like company, she would find Karinna, whose blunt candor she rather enjoyed.
Sufiyan and Tas tried to lure her into card games, but she demurred.
Arelia was persistent, seeking S’rsha nearly every night, trying to draw her out.
But after a few conversations with Sufiyan, she ceased, giving S’rsha the quiet she so craved.
Once they reached Antium, she was given a room in one of the primary palaces—the same one Quil lived in. It should have been easy to talk to him now. But she found herself avoiding him. She did not know what to say.
For S’rsha felt raw inside, haunted by what Div had done to her. What she had allowed Div to do: isolate her, manipulate her. She’d danced to Div’s tune, even breaking the Adah oath, the most precious bond she had. S’rsha’s anger and shame seemed to have no end.
Nor could she forget what she’d seen in the cave, and what she had felt growling within her.
The rage and the loneliness that lived in a simple truth: Her family had wronged her when she was powerless to stop it, and she could never change that fact.
They might never acknowledge the harm they’d done.
She could not change how they saw her: as someone who’d let herself break instead of someone they had broken.
What she needed, S’rsha realized, was time. To think, to heal, to be alone.
She found herself dwelling on her old dream—to buy an inn in the Southern Isles. To never use her Inashi magic again.
A red door. A little bakery. An ocean of a thousand blues. S’rsha tried to see it. All sorts of interesting people would come through her inn. Her identity wouldn’t matter, for the rule of the Isles was that whatever you left behind stayed behind. Secrets were sacred. Peace was valued.
And that, more than anything else, was what made S’rsha decide that it was time to leave the Empire and make her way to the Isles.