Chapter 38 Aylah
AYLAH
A ylah huddled half buried in blankets atop a little nest of pillows in the center of the broad tent. Beside her was a cold bowl of porridge, untouched. She had no appetite. There was a fire in her mind, and it held no room for basic necessities.
“… malnourished to the extreme,” she heard a woman outside her tent tell some unseen guest. Her name was Rowan.
She’d introduced herself to Aylah as the surgeon in charge of the medic tent.
They had set it up in preparation for a battle, only there had been no battle, just slaughter, brutal slaughter, as Faron carried her out of the tunnel.
“Her body shows… she’s been tortured. Cut. Scraped. Her skin is so pale, I fear the poor woman has not seen sunlight in years.”
“Thirty years,” Aylah whispered. Even in that deep pit of darkness, she had sensed the rise of the moon.
It had been faint at first, a distant hum in her mind, but then the years crawled along, her blood bled, and its unseen light became her only succor.
Each time she had counted those moonrises she was awake for.
Sometimes she slept through them. Sometimes she had been dead.
Laurence’s annual rituals, though, ensured she never lost track. The winter solstice. The summer harvest. Feasting and drinking, so much drinking, so much… so much…
“Is it all right if we speak with her?” a familiar voice asked, one that warmed Aylah’s heart.
“She needs to rest, Faron.”
Another voice, as pleasant as rain across desert sands.
“She is our sister, Rowan. Make way, and give us our privacy.”
The surgeon relented. The flaps opened, and Aylah winced and looked away. It was night, but the light burned anyway. What cruelty, that she would dream of seeing the stars only for their gentle silver light to be too much for her sensitive eyes.
The flaps closed, returning them to darkness. They all possessed their radiance, though, and in that soothing light she looked upon her brothers and fought for words.
“I waited,” she said. “So long, I waited.”
Faron collapsed to his knees before her, his big arms wrapping around her. The warmth of him washed over Aylah, even through the blankets. She felt an impulse to cry but could not. She had not shed tears in years.
“I’m so glad to have you back,” Faron said. He hugged her gently, as if afraid to break her. He’d never embraced her in such a way before. She used to be as strong as him, equally broad-shouldered and skilled with a sword. To be treated like a porcelain doll…
Aylah pushed aside her blankets, returned his embrace, and buried her face in his chest. She let herself fall into him.
Every part of her, her mind, her thoughts, her feelings, all of it clinging to her brother so that her bitterness, and her brokenness, would not rob her of the joy she deserved.
Her beloved brothers had saved her. She would not judge them now.
“I’m glad, too,” she whispered into his shirt.
Faron’s embrace did not end. Instead he shifted to sit beside her on the pillows, and she gladly leaned against him, his arm around her and her face resting gently against his chest. Sariel sat across from them, Redemption resting across his shoulders.
No blood on it. Aylah wished there was blood.
It would do her good to see proof of the Silveins’ executions.
Instead, it was her brother’s body that was visibly battered and bruised from the tribulations within the castle.
“Calluna searched for you often,” Sariel said. “Every time, she saw only darkness. It left us with questions, and nowhere to search.”
“It is my own fault,” Aylah said. She closed her eyes. “I foolishly told the royal family I was gifted my power through the sun and stars, and so they imprisoned me in darkness.”
She felt Faron stiffen, his anger radiating off him in tangible waves.
“The bastards,” he muttered. “How dare they. How dare they!”
She traced shaking fingers across his chest.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re dead. They’re dead.”
Sariel set his sword down across his lap, careful with the movements. His eyes never left hers.
“You have endured much,” he said. “Are you capable of telling your tale, or should we accept only the comfort of your presence?”
It was so strange, to think of it in the past already. Her entire life, for thirty years, had been dominated by an interminably horrid procession of cruelties and torture… and yet now it was past. She was free of it, at least in body. Her mind was another story.
“I will tell what I can tell,” she said, deciding she owed them that much. Perhaps in the telling, it would become… distant to her. The pain lessened, when shared among family instead of her own to bear.
“It all started with a simple mistake, one we often foolishly make. I was wandering the northern lands and stumbled upon a yearly feast held by King Laurence. The food was fine, the music lovely, and so I participated. Unnamed. Unknown. But then one of his servants fell ill, someone who Laurence had known since he was a child, and he was distraught.”
Aylah had relived this moment incessantly in her mind, each and every time, pretending she had let the old woman die. A thousand different reasons justified it, a thousand different ways in which she had been a fool.
“I healed her,” she continued. “And worse, I did not flee unnoticed in the night. I was swept up in the drinking, singing, and feasting, and the king’s praise was so effusive, so joyous, I thought I would be safe.
I claimed it was no miracle, just a bit of prayer to the goddess; that was my excuse. Only Laurence did not believe me.”
She still remembered the sound of her door bursting open, armed soldiers descending upon her while she lay half naked in her bed, sleeping away the effects of the wine.
“Laurence captured me,” she said. “He sought an explanation for my healing, and I… They hadn’t hurt me yet, you two must understand.
Even then, it seemed he would be reasonable.
He was frightened of our gifts, as humans often are.
I told him only pieces of the truth, that my hands could heal, and as best I knew, the stars had gifted me that blessing since the day I was born.
I did not tell him how long ago I was born, or of the centuries we have walked these lands.
I thought if he believed I was special, he would assign me a role within his kingdom.
Once free of his dungeon, I could plot my escape. ”
Aylah’s hand clenched tightly, bunching the fabric of Faron’s shirt within her fist.
“Instead, he chained me in the deepest, darkest pit of his castle. He demanded I give him my gifts, and I told him truly, I could do no such thing. I endured his beatings and his knives. He would kill me one day, I was certain of it. Once dead, he need only dispose of me somewhere I could recover, preferably in a grave outside his castle. It would not be the first time I clawed myself free from the soil.”
Faron embraced her again, and he kissed her forehead.
“You don’t need to tell us if you’re not ready,” he insisted. “Sariel and I can wait.”
“No,” she said, harsher than she intended. “I have to do this. I have to be free of it. Once you both know, once the knowledge is yours, then I… then it won’t be mine alone. Do you understand?”
Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn’t, but both brothers nodded in the affirmative.
Aylah took a moment to gather her thoughts.
She had always prided herself on being the strongest in their family, the most consistent, and the most mature.
When conflict arose between them, as it often did, she was the mediator.
Sometimes it meant a stern discussion. Sometimes it meant brandishing a sword.
She considered both finely honed skills within her repertoire.
Surely she could be strong now. She could discuss these matters with the cold distance they deserved.
“Laurence’s wife, Alise, was the one who first had the idea,” she said.
“She was convinced my gifts flowed within my blood, and when Laurence tired from years of silence, he let her do with me as she wished. She… bled me, day after day, little cuts so she might fill herself a glass. And then she drank.”
Faron’s disgust was evident, while Sariel looked ready to dig up their corpses so he might murder them anew.
“It did nothing at first, though she claimed it added to her beauty. But then, over time, it did. I saw it. I watched the change. Little scars faded from her body. The stretch marks from birthing her son, gone. She never fell ill. Once Laurence accepted this, he joined Alise in her drinking.”
What had been private bleedings at Alise’s hands became something more.
At first, it was a ritual between the couple, and many times they fucked in her presence, drunk from the consumption of her radiance-blessed blood.
It only demeaned her further, listening to them rut, as the flesh of her left arm blistered and peeled.
Radiance was not to be given to humanity, but they were taking it, taking it from her, and the cruel magic of the vow punished her nonetheless.
Their son was next to join in the feeding, becoming golden, otherworldly, and beloved by the people.
His own wife soon accompanied them, the four taking turns with the knife.
And then, one day, Aylah died. They knew it, too, and yet kept her there.
Perhaps they debated what to do with her.
Perhaps they planned to wring out what blood they could from her corpse and then devour her meat and bones.
The problem was, the death had come from simple blood loss, an easy malady for her body to fix. She awoke a mere day later.
When Alise discovered Aylah was breathing, things became so much worse.