Chapter Seventy Hanan
chapter seventy
hanan
As I row, I feel my wet clothing sticking to me, but I don’t feel cold.
The sun is high in the sky now, beating down on me.
The light is like blades across my body – a startling, aching sensation.
I listen to my breathing, fierce and confident.
I take a break, dipping one of my hands into the water.
It is teeming with life, everything connected to my own body.
It’s overwhelming, the energy of things long dormant moving beneath the surface.
Creatures that lived in the darkness but now must come to the light to survive.
I feel their confusion, their desperation, their hunger.
I take my hand out and let the wind tickle my wet skin.
The silence in the aftershock is glorious.
It’s empty and hollow and full of potential.
There’s so much unknown. But I know what would have happened if I had succumbed.
If I’d let the royals regain their control over Adarna.
I had to make a choice, for all our sakes.
No one is pure enough to wield such power.
Perhaps we have been doomed for centuries, and this is nature’s rebellion writ large.
We’re so small compared to it all, but we persist – hopeful fools trying to keep back the tide.
My theories and schemes come together as I row, relishing this time to reflect instead of the mindless panic of running.
I remember Priestess Sinaya’s sacrifice and wonder if she found peace.
Whether part of her soul is trapped in that tome, or in the cave, or if any part of her found its way to the Tree of Life.
Not that such a final resting place will remain that way for long, under the queen’s plan.
We have such small hopes for our lives, and even those get shattered by the fates.
I need help. I can’t do this alone, and who knows where the others are, if they’re still safe or even alive.
I remember Sinaya saying she sought aid once she fled the Bastion.
From those who practised necromancy, or the ‘forbidden art’ as she called it.
I still know so little about the worlds outside Paranish, but I don’t remember any place such as that.
Not that they would freely admit to such practises necessarily.
My hand still stings, seawater getting into the wound where I cut myself on the arrow.
Although my body is beginning to heal, it is a slow and painful process.
I stare at the injury and think of the sharp force of the stone talisman.
Like destroying like. I mourn for Adarna.
The death of every living creature is always a loss for us all.
Then I look up, slow realisation dawning on me as I try to keep hold of the thread in my mind.
Adarna’s method of killing was through stone, and that was its own weakness.
Perhaps there was some link between that and the aid Priestess Sinaya sought.
I read an account in the Bastion library I considered apocryphal about the stone that built the Temple of Aistra.
It supposedly came from a unique place. I reach around in my memory, trying to recall the name, to trace the map in my mind’s eye. Orin. The place was called Orin.
I turn towards the Bastion for one last look.
The great fortress has broken, slabs of stone crumbled and displaced, and the flag of the royal sigil is burning, smoke plumes drifting across Paranish.
I had looked up at it from my knees at the Temple of Aistra and wondered what secrets it held.
Now I know. It is built on the labour and lives of its people.
The queen no longer has Adarna, her heart’s desire.
But she will drain every single life-giving force on Paranish if she can.
There will be no peace, no balance in Life, no sanctity in Death while the Bastion exists.
I look at Raina, who stares at me while chewing on her bottom lip, and kiss her forehead. ‘You’re the lucky one, Princess. Let’s see if I can’t make something good out of you.’
Someone as young as Raina is clay, shaped by her memories and experiences, still flexible and yet to be kilned. Perhaps I can turn the salt to sweet.
Count every grain of your rice mountain, Your Grace, and watch it rot. We’ll be coming back for Paranish. And when we do, I hope you see us coming from the prison of your own making.