"Father...?" I asked, my slightly strangled voice carried away by the wind.
"Father?" my father demanded.
"Where have you been? You make an alliance between Kaleveh and Saetche—" the place where Mama was born— "agree to our marriage—" he pointed between himself and Mama— "then disappear months later? What's the meaning of this, Father? You trained me my whole life to be a Chief, then vanished when I needed you most?"
The old man didn't even flinch. He straightened, back suddenly as rigid as an iron rod. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Your daughter—my granddaughter," he half smiled at me, "needs to leave." Even though he definitely hadn't been anywhere near Kaleveh or Saetche, his voice was still smooth, albeit deep and rustic like that of a middle-aged man and not an eighty-year-old like he must've been.
He didn't deserve to call me his granddaughter, not after he had never even seen me. How did he know I was his flesh and blood, when I could've been any of the village girls? How could he know, when he had never held me, walked with me, laughed with me, told me stories of his childhood? He had denied Narreta and Ricco and I the joy of having a grandfather around.
"You disappeared," Father stated calmly. "You left Kaleveh. You don't get to decide what happens to it anymore."
"She is dangerous," he persisted. "she will bring nothing but woe if you let her stay."
Let—as if I didn't belong.
"What!" An exclamation, not a question. It was Mama this time, her cheeks red with fury. What was she remembering? The terrors of her childhood in Saetche, the village dominated by men who took every chance to bend and break her? "You can't send my daughter away! You have. No. Right!"
"Did you not hear me?" My grandfather insisted still. "She's a danger to the village. Did you not see her just then? The more pain one is in, the more powerful their Gift is. She's assisted by both Aithnaton and Alderhawke now. And you'd let her stay? She's dangerous!" he raved, the words senseless, each claim punctuated by the pounding of my heart. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Panic rose in my chest like a wave about to crest. It bubbled up towards the surface like a frothing pot of soup. I couldn't leave. Kaleveh was my life! I was brought up in the ways of the Chieftess. I couldn't survive out there. Out there, where demons roamed. And look, I'd never asked to be blessed.
Pain. Dangerous.
I didn't realise that the rope connecting me to Aithnaton was rising with the water too.
The wave splashed down on the ocean with a force that shook the water.
I didn't mean to. But I felt newly fragile, a wooden carving turned to a glass sculpture. I just exploded. Snapped, decided to hell with what everyone thought.
I completely lost control.
I only saw what I was doing through half-crazed eyes, as someone screamed. It wasn't me this time, and soon the sound was cut off. I could feel Grandma's air trying to choke my fire, but with a pang of guilt, I broke through her weak barriers and set the temple alight. I could sense the gods in my head, urging me to let everything out. They assured me they would make sure everyone was safe while I burned it all off. I saw Grandfather's face light up with terror before filling with all of that I-told-you-so-ness on the face of every big sibling with their arms crossed.
I hated him. And yet I wanted to know why.
He had left all of us. What did he care? What did he want from us?
She's dangerous.
It repeated in my head over and over. I was exploding now, but Aithnaton and Alderhawke had reassured me to let them take care of it. And I would learn to control myself eventually. Right? I'd had enough for one day; couldn't I let go a little? And what business had he, walking in after nineteen years to tell me I had to leave? What business. What?
Walking in after he'd never deigned to visit me and my family in all the years I had grown up without his presence, never ever given me a kiss on the cheek or ever ruffled my hair?
It was his fault.
Burning, untouched in the carnage, I told myself that over and over again.
He deserved it after he'd left his family to rot.
It took a long time for me to calm down. But when my flames finally subsided, the whole temple was unscathed, even the altar. The floor was glass now, though, the sand melted, a sheet of crystal beneath my feet. But the rest was made of stone. I shouldn't have been astonished.
I sat on the floor and put my head between my knees. I wished I could just hide there forever.
Grandfather—Grandfather, who I was told had left years ago, who I never stopped thinking didn't want me, just kept ranting where he left off. "Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. As for why I left, I didn't want to stick around for the bad things that were sure to follow. It was all their fault, theirs, theirs, theirs—"
"Who's fault?" Grandma cut her estranged husband off sharply. Her honey voice had now solidified into dagger-like shards of ice. I lifted my head, resting it on my shoulder to see them better. They had stopped just inside the pillars of the temple. If they paid me any heed, I couldn't tell.
His fault. His damned fault. Not ours—not ever.
"Saetche's, and her's."
"Who's?"
Grandfather pointed a crooked finger at my mama. "Her's."
I was stunned to find that Mama had gone as white as a sheet, pale as bone.
"What do you mean, Naoko's? You made your peace with Saetche long ago, and let them get married, whatever the consequences! If you cared so much, why didn't you stop them from saying their vows?" Grandma interjected.
"Well, I went through her files. There's no record of her Agecoming. No record of her ever turning sixteen."
"So what?"
Mama was undocumented—she didn't even know exactly how old she was. How did he have her files? I realised what would happen. A one-way journey. A beloved home left behind. The only choice, no matter what happened today.
Then he turned on Mama, bulldozing the very first foundation of my life. "You ran away, didn't you, before the Agecoming? You went back to find they'd forgotten all about it?" Mama didn't respond, standing beside Father. Grandfather's voice became more and more hysterical as he blustered on. "You have the Fire Gift, don't you? You brought Aithnaton's line into ours, and tainted Kaleveh with that danger forever!"
Tainted.
Dangerous.
I looked fearfully to my parents. I saw my father jump. And I saw a kernel of fire appear in my mama's hand. A tiny ball it was, shining fiercely with the heart of a star. She must've trained slowly and secretly, alone for years to get that control. "If you think I am a hazard. Then pray, tell your precious people who you left for two decades. Tell them—that their beloved Chieftess is a menace."
Grandma's voice sounded again, deathly quiet. "You knew Saetche had no restrictions of the Gifts. You knew, AND YOU DAMNED THE CONSEQUENCES! You. I don't want to see you here ever again. I don't care if you were Chief once, or the person I loved. I loved you. And where have you been all these years? You are a traitor. I can't believe you. Get out, and MY granddaughter can decide whatever she wants to do with herself."
Traitor.
Dangerous.
The words rung in my head over and over again. The reverberations reached every pore of me, tainting with their ugly sound.
Without arguing, Grandfather left again. I knew it was forever this time. But before he hobbled off into the now darkening sky, he shouted something.
We can make him pay; the gods hissed in my ear. We know.
"She's dangerous, don't you ever forget that!"
Ever forget.
Dangerous.
No, today was a day I would never forget.
No, I thought.
He could live with his shameful exile.