Jalika_Wright

“What are you making me watch?” my words came out breathlessly

This scene was one that was all too familiar. It was the last scene of my people. Around me and before me, people were being chased down and  impaled with silvered swords. Men, women, children, the blades and their wielders cared for not who they struck, for they struck all equally without mercy or hesitation. This was the ruthlessness of mankind my Grandmother warned me about, the cruelty we hoped was their distant past and not their present yet here we stood. Here I stood, unable to do much more than scream in agony and rage at my own foolinesses. This was all my fault. I had loved the wrong  man and he took that love and wielded it to destroy my world.

The past. Our past. This moment caused all that you know to come to be. This was the nightmare that haunted me, the ash that covered my room every morning came from here. I relived this moment so many times that it was impossible to forget. It was a part of the core of my soul, engraved as a warning to all.

We watched as a man came over to the imprisonment rune and spoke words to us. To me.

“I love you. I do, I just...I love my family and people more. The choice was my people or yours and I chose. That doesn’t mean we cannot have a happy future though...if you can forgive me. Please forgive me.” There were tears in his voice and in his eyes as he spoke to me.

All I could do was scream in agony and attack the barrier between us. I had loved him fiercely and completely and he had betrayed not just me but everyone I loved. He had destroyed the very essence of what made me who I am. My family, my people, our lands, our story, all wiped out by him and his betrayal. Forgiveness? Never. I would rather stop breathing. I would rather stop ceasing to be than to forgive this violation. This is too big, too heavy to be forgiven in generations, let alone for a false belief of a one time love. I would destroy him and everything he ever held dear, just like he did to me.

Table of Bitter Sugars

Table of contents

Volume 1