Perhaps I'd thought I could shake off the memories like a dog shaking off water. Leave them behind, as I pushed eastward to my dream of a better future. To the dream of a better place, a better world, that all the Gifted that had fled before me dreamed of.
But nightmares were dreams too. And there were memories I couldn't forget. I watched as I visibly grew thinner, hardly needing food. The journey had been surprisingly smooth so far, with good winds and smooth seas. No doubt that wouldn't last as soon as I jinxed myself on accident and got myself tossed to the bottom of the sea. I wondered how many of the Gifted had made it. How many of their bodies lay on the seabed below, decomposing. Forgotten.
Sometimes it was not the destination that sticks most, but the journey.
The voyage across the land and the sea, that I could not ever forget. The day my grandfather had stormed in and revealed what I had always been afraid of.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
How did I feel?
I needed human company. A friend—to draw out the shadows under my eyes. A friend to talk with me, to practice magic with me. A friend, to cherish. To love. I hadn't had a friend in so long. Not since Saoirse, wild and gloriously uncaged, moved elsewhere. I hadn't thought about Saoirse in years.
To ask me the question, the one query I didn't bother asking myself. How do you feel?
Lost. Alone.
But I did not get a friend, not today. Saoirse wasn't coming back. Except for her, I had never really had friends, many people not willing to face the constant public scrutiny that came with being close to the Chieftess. So I withdrew into myself, the fear that disrupted my sleep drawing out the bones in my starved body. And I let the rot inside fester.
How do you feel?
Like a traitor.
That day passed in a blur. I read. I stared at myself in the mirror, watching my brown skin shed its chocolate glow. I didn't dare touch my magic, not when a single errant thought could blow this boat—and the priceless books on it—into smithereens. Neither did I dare to enter the control room, when another note probably waited.
How do you feel?
Like a liar.
Finally, I convinced myself to get over it and enter the control room. I took a deep breath as I entered, crossing the threshold of that lovingly worn doorway. That door, which slammed shut as soon as I was inside. Blown by a gust of wind. A gust of wind, that seemed to whisper with Auralainei's power, laced with ancient magic, of danger and safety, sweet venom and a promise of eternity.
The door clicked. It locked.
Please no, I begged a god that was probably laughing at me from her throne in the sky. No, this can't be, I tried to convince myself. I didn't even bother trying the door. Was there even a lock on the door? No. It was locked with pure power. Nothing could unlock it.
How do you feel?
Useless.
No, no, no, no, no! Even inside my head, the words I pleaded to the air grew more frightened, more high-pitched without even leaving my mouth. My tongue was locked. Even as I looked around, I knew there was no escape. Backing away in terror, I slammed into the countertop, scattering a pile of papers I had no use for, shattering a hidden mug on the floor. My head whipped from side to side—then my eyes locked on it.
The latest note was taped to the door as usual. My ribs ached from colliding with the desk. My stomach complained as if remembering that I hadn't eaten yet. And my food… in my room. That I had no access to. I wanted to run across the room and rip it off the wall, then shred it into tiny pieces before feeding it to the sea. But I concentrated. And I read.
Because this note was intelligible. And the message it had for me was so important that it had to lock me in here to read it, apparently.
If you wanted, you could tear down this door.
I could imagine a goddess smirking at me, arms crossed tauntingly in a mental dance that she delighted in. Red fireworks exploded in the corners of my vision again, and I backed away uncertainly as I felt it again. That feeling, like I was a stranger in my own body. That I was seeing through the eyes of one with a trillion times more power. Whoever it was, it was not me.
I could see her proud stance, even floating in the air miles up of where I grasped the table with white knuckles, the dare—and threat—glinting in her eyes that shimmered in the sunlight. She was as threateningly beautiful as the legends painted her. Her shining waves of blonde hair flowed to her waist, curling perfectly around her arms. Gauzy white robes swirled mesmerizingly around her tan ankles. Although her posture was immaculate, it was the picture of polite boredom.
A two drops of garnet at her ears, and a band of sparkling rubies in her golden locks—a blood crown—offset her burgundy irises. Round, wine-coloured eyes were set maliciously above pursed lips, high cheekbones shimmering in the light. And I could imagine flying, tearing into that haughty, immortal face with teeth and nails.
Her stance was unmoving, focused, predatory—it was one of a warrior who had never been bested in any battle.
A queen unchallenged.
An empress—not of a kingdom but of the vast expanse of the sky.
A goddess.
Never mind that she was older than likely every soul walking the world combined—one day, I would hunt her down and make her pay, for playing with human lives like they were dolls. Not now. But someday. Human lives lost needlessly. It was atrocious.
He made no sound as he toppled from the tree, but I knew her piercing scream would echo in my head for days after. Time flowed in slow motion as gravity bent his limbs at unnatural angles, flopping like a rag doll onto the floor. He did not move, and I knew enough of death to know he would never move again.
As traitorous to myself, to what I'd been taught, as I felt, I knew that I hated to see death for no reason. Wars were waged, lives lost when debates could've been settled peacefully. Battles drawn out, suffering lengthened, all for the sake of one opinion pitted against another. A dare. Money, more superficial than anything. Pride. Greed, and cruelty the world had more than enough of.
How do you feel?
Vengeful.
No. These were not my thoughts. It was sacrilege to think them. I was a traitor.
I knew that she would not forgive this insolence, this insult, either, when I should bow and grovel at her feet. She arched her chiseled eyebrows, picking up on my body's unwillingness to act. I didn't care.
I did care. But my own body did not obey my wide-eyed fear.
I thought I was screaming by then. Yet there was no sound. My mind ripping itself apart. Rip, rip, rip. As my conscious shredded itself.
How do you feel?
Weak.
Everything has a price.
And what was the cost of a primordial deity's attention?
Why challenge me like this? What was the point?
And I saw her intelligent, serene face twist in a snarl. For a flash, I saw someone else's face flit into my mind. My father's face, chiselled with decades of ruling, cool, calm, indifference, eyes full of wisdom. Go get it, he had told me. Two of the women I love are gone. Bring them back.
You must be stone. For one day you will rule.
Auralainei curled a slender finger towards me. "Come get it," she challenged.
One blink.
And the goddess was gone, vanished into the cloudy depths of her own realm.