| |
Theocratic-Monarchy: SunSide
23rd Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
Pounding skull, burning face, blurred vision, bloody knees. Naina is exhausted.
But no amount of pain compares to the erupting agony of watching Symin on his knees, with twelve Saiths’ ignited eyes around him.
This is it. The final blow.
She sees how little fight Symin has left. He closes his eyes, and Naina closes hers, too. And then all of her pain melts away.
She opens her eyes to find herself in a forest of lush, colorful leaves and stunning trunks. She sits on a log near one massive tree in the center of the clearing. A white cloud of a dress winds around her.
No wounds, no injury, no pain. Her skin simply glows.
“Naina?” a familiar voice calls to her.
Salessa approaches, skin glowing identically, also wrapped in a cloud.
“What’s happening, Lessi?”
Salessa shakes her head. “I have no idea.” She places her hand on Naina’s cheek. “Are you alright?”
Naina raises her hand and places it over Salessa’s. “I’m fine, Lessi. Unless Saith killed us and this is the world beyond?”
“You’re alive,” another familiar voice reassures them.
Symin steps out of the hollow center of the massive tree, a resolute calm in his expression as he takes a seat on the log and invites the twins to join him.
“We’re on the island of Tusa,” he explains. “Where the TreeKeeper carries essences forth into the world beyond.”
Naina raises an eyebrow. “We were just in the courtyard.”
“Physically, we still are. Saith is moments from—” He hesitates and looks around, as if the words he’s searching for will appear at his feet. “I’m not going to survive.”
Naina’s heart sinks into her stomach. “No. There has to be a way.”
He shakes his head, and a sorrowful smile curls the edges of his mouth. “My journey is complete. That’s certain and I can’t change that. But it hasn’t ended in defeat. I faced him. I can die knowing I never gave up. Even when I was afraid.”
He kisses the twins on their foreheads. “Now, I get to say goodbye to each of you in a way I never got to do with Zynima.”
Salessa speaks in a strained voice. “Symin, I think we can still win the fight.”
Symin nods. “I know you can. And you will. You’ll just have to do it without me. It’s time for me to be with my child again.”
Naina’s throat tightens, but she forces words out—the only words she wants to say. “I’m sorry for what I said in Nivyan Hollow. That we couldn’t trust you. I shouldn’t have—”
Symin shakes his head. “You were right. I couldn’t be trusted. Not because I would ever harm you, but because I was letting my emotions cloud my decisions.”
He sighs deeply, and moisture develops on his bottom eyelid. “There’s no way to explain the loss of a child to those who’ve never experienced it. It’s unnatural; it’s the death of hope. I lost it until the day I walked into a small chai shop in Evic.”
Salessa meets his gaze and smiles softly. Tears threaten Naina’s eyes and she quickly wipes them away. Together, they embrace Symin and hold one another for as long as they can.
The TreeKeeper appears from the center of the tree.
“Have they agreed to come?” Symin asks her. “Both of them?”
The TreeKeeper nods. “They have.”
She gestures to an opening between two trees that is filled with a bright, pulsing light from which a figure with bright pink skin appears.
The young woman steps forward and approaches Symin. She appears younger than the twins—seventeen or eighteen. Her smile is bright and infectious.
Symin wraps his arms around her, and she whispers, “Welcome home, Daddy.”
“I’ve missed you,” he responds to her.
She leans back and takes in the lines on his face. “You’ve gotten so old.”
Symin laughs and his pink cheeks burn red.
Zynima turns to the twins and Naina, recalling the torture Saith put her through, blurts out the first words that come to her. “You didn’t deserve what he did to you. I know how it felt.”
Zymina’s smile fades and a profound sincerity washes over her. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
Zynima holds her gaze steadily. “Make him suffer.”
Naina nods. “He will suffer. I promise.”
Another form, royal purple skin glowing, appears out of the light between the trees. Salessa stares, blankly, mesmerized, until Zakia approaches and embraces her, loosening the falcon’s tears.
“I’m sorry,” Zakia says. She reaches up and wipes Salessa’s cheeks. “I had to protect—”
Salessa nods. “I know. You don’t have to explain.” She releases a light sob.
Zakia moves a few loose strands of hair away from Salessa’s face and wraps them behind her ear. She places her forehead against Salessa’s and says, “Find someone to share your chai.”
Symin puts a hand on Zakia’s shoulder. “She’s waiting for us.” He gestures to the TreeKeeper, hovering impatiently by the golden light between the trees.
The three Mega say their final, tearful goodbyes to the Doruh twins before exiting the clearing, hand-in-hand, through the golden light.
As soon as they step through, the TreeKeeper turns to the twins. “Your welcome in my dominion is rescinded.”
The pain shoots back into Naina’s body, wounds open, knees bloody. The courtyard spins around her, but she manages to find Salessa sitting next to Rafael, Kyoko, and the salver cradling Kruga.
Time resumes. The beams reach Symin and he disintegrates into dust, a smile stretched across his lips. The many Saiths collapse into one again, grinning smugly.
Naina’s rage erupts like a volcano in her chest. She shifts back into the bipedal wolf, charging with full force at Saith. She topples him over onto his back and tries to close her jaw around his head, but he blasts her in the face again and she is knocked backward.
She’s unable to hold the lupine shape while exhausted. Her entire body aches, and the dizziness heightens.
Saith approaches her, and with every step, conveys his frustration.
Step. “I have killed...”
Step. “...so many animals.”
Step. “And yet, you...”
Step. “...just won’t stop.”
Step. “I can’t kill you...”
Step. “...but I can tear the Radiant energy from a bloody body.”
He steps onto her hand and her bones crunch under his foot. She cries out in pain.
“You. Stupid. Bitch.”
He winds his leg back, ready to swing it forth into Naina’s face, when a powerful bellow resonates throughout the courtyard.
“SAITH!!”
He moves off of Naina’s hand, and she cradles her bloody, mangled fingers.
Saila and Unisa descend from the sky and land in the courtyard. Unisa, dripping with sweat, stops short, falling to her knees to catch her breath, while Saila marches toward Saith.
“Saila! Daughter!” Saith pleads to her sense of family. “Look at what these brutes have done to your father.”
“You killed Alba.”
Saith’s expression morphs from one of a broken, defenseless father to panicked prey. “Vy-Ro killed Alba.”
Saila continues marching and shakes her head. “You killed Alba.”
“Saila, stop right there.”
“You killed Alba.”
“I said stop!” He blinks, and a stone barrier rises from the ground ahead of her. She blows on it and the barrier turns to sand and flows away with the wind. “Saila, I’m warning you.”
“You killed Alba.”
“Saila, listen to me!” His voice has turned into little more than a frightened whimper. A ball of flames erupts from his mouth and grows as it approaches Saila, but she simply waves her hand at it, as if it were an irritating insect. The fireball changes direction, shooting up into the sky and dissipating.
She makes a fist and the Facilitator’s body stiffens. He’s paralyzed. She lowers her fist quickly and he’s forced onto his knees. For the first time, Naina sees earnest terror in his expression.
Saila stands over the kneeling pixie. “You killed Alba, knowing what she meant to me.” A tear flows down her cheek.
Through a clenched jaw, Saith squeezes out his final plea for survival. “You are a theocrat. A believer. Your spiritual doctrine prohibits you from taking a life, and preaches forgiveness. Honor your gods, prove your devotion. Spare me.”
Saila looks to the horizon, from where the Four will soon rise. “The light of the Four dims at the loss of innocent life. You, your master, his dynasty, have dimmed their light for far too long now.”
She takes a deep breath and gazes into her father’s horrified eyes. “It’s time for them to burn brighter than they have in a millennium. And that can only be achieved when you burn, too.”
She breathes long, continuous flames that grow wider and hotter, engulfing Saith’s body. He screams in agony. It echoes throughout the Castrum until he can scream no longer.
When the fire stops, Saith is gone. All that remains is ash.
Unisa steps forward and helps Naina to her feet. Saila turns and looks up at the highest tower in the Castrum.
“This ends now,” she says. “Zar-Lo is up there.” She begins to rise, but Unisa wraps her fingers around the pixie’s wrist and gently tugs her back down to the ground.
“We can’t kill him,” Unisa says. “There’s a lot I haven’t explained to you, and I promise I will. But he may actually be a valuable resource for us in the future.”
Saila hesitates. “He must face justice.”
Unisa nods. “He will. But violence doesn’t always mean justice. Certainly not today.”
Naina’s gaze lands on Kruga’s broken body and she remembers his warning.
Red-Lo isn’t the greatest threat here. He’s a cog in a far larger mechanism.
“She’s right,” the wolf defends Unisa. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Feathers is right. We’ll need him for battles to come. Violence isn’t the answer today.”
“Let me talk to him,” Unisa proposes.
Saila shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Please, Saila. Trust me. I can talk him into your custody.”
There’s a long hesitation before Saila nods.