“In the before days, the days before time, or mortals, or creation, the days when the stars shone brighter, forever-bright oer an endless plain, and the gods walked alone... it was in those days that I slew him, and you, my children, were conceived.”
In a ramshackle hut by the side of the road, a woman sat with her legs folded under her. A spear twice her height rested on the dirt floor before her. Eyes lightly closed, she took long, deep breaths, allowing herself to become one with the world around her.
As she breathed, air filling her lungs full to bursting and emptying from her till her body was void, she felt the weight of her hair on her back and the tremor of footfalls against the earth. Within this inner world, she sacrificed her eyesight for so much more. Her vision was sacrificed, transmuted into a higher state of awareness; her nose became the bear’s nose, her hearing the bat’s hearing, and every touch carried a subtle, intimate grace.
Everything in Esserai’s life was sacrifice. She opened her eyes, and her vision returned. Her long black tresses had fallen into her face, and she brushed them behind her ears. As the chiffon wall in front of her burst inwards, Esserai rose fluidly to her feet, the toe of her slipper flicking underneath the spear and kicking it forwards lengthwise.
“Auughh!”
Air whooshed from the man’s lungs as the spear's haft folded into his ribcage and bounced off of him, flying back through the air the way it’d come into Esserai’s outstretched hand. Her long, elegant fingers greeted the spear; she let it slide through her hand until she gripped the bottom of the shaft. She whipped the spear about in a wide, arcing circle, channeling Rei into the weapon and permutating the stout spearhead into a long blade.
The glaive sliced through the monks encircling her. Severed limbs flew into the air, followed closely by gouts of spraying blood and the hoarse cries of maimed men. Dust rose from the earthen floor in a cloud made misty by airborne blood and solid, percolating rei. A bright white sheen of rei rose to the surface of her skin, empowering her movements.
Esserai danced between the men in grey robes arranged around her, the blade of her glaive flowing from neck to arm to sword like a brush between strokes.
“Kill the bitch!” a voice shouted from behind her.
Esserai folded over backwards, her hair whipping in the man's face, blinding him, and the trident tip of her spear plunging into his forehead a moment later, extending and spitting him to the wall behind. Esserai flipped into a backbend, then cartwheeled backwards, hands and feet balancing on the haft of her spear. The weight of the man toppling over carried her up and out of the circle of savaged men. His dead body crashed through the wall, opening a path outside.
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With a yank and a sucking, grating sound, Esserai pulled the spear free from the man’s bald head and ran, the collapsing shack at her back. Wails and curses followed her, but they were her only pursuers. For now. All in the name of their slaver god.
Wet droplets of blood flew from the spear as she twirled it in her hands, cleaning it with the assistance of her friend, the air, and watering the thirsty soil. No matter how much I water it, the land is never quenched. Always thirsty, so thirsty for blood.
Her pursuers had followed her from village to village and town to town for weeks; no matter how many she slew, they continued to send more. Release me, Mother, from this burden. I beg of you, release me. But she was the last, and so she fought, and she walked.
The road stretched out before her, long and hot under the scornful glare of Uzu’s Three Eyes, with fields of tall wheat, grass, and sparse trees spreading on either side for as far as she could see. Esserai looked up at them, touched her forehead with her fore and middle fingers, and then let the hand fall to her side. I am here, though I wish I were not. She sighed. At first, her heart had burned with an insatiable fire, the injustice of their crimes flaming in her mind: unignorable.
Now, after months of walking, her feet hurt. No one ever mentioned the pain of feet, the niggling, blistering hotness that flared with every step. Her clan elders had never mentioned the simple pains of travel in their stories of coming to Illandiel, the land that was their savior, the land that the humans called “the Western Continent.” And the humans, in their great tales and songs of heroes and gods that they loved so dearly and sang from noon to setting eyes in their ugly, unrefined languages, never mentioned it either.
Why couldn’t she just stop, rest, and die? Was revenge really worth it? They had lost, hadn’t they? Her twin hearts grew cold in her breast, and Esserai cried. In her mind’s eye, she heard Corio’s voice in her head, begging her to run to safety. Saw the cruel purple light glistening from obsidian blades as the Yojimata bore down on him, his fangs bared, six tails flared high behind him. She felt the snap, the tearing in her soul as their spirit-bond was severed, her lifelong partner slain before her eyes, and the last of her people vanished from the world.
Her whole clan and the Eiefendril that bonded with them were all purged. Twice purged, and she was the lone survivor. The last.
“The last, my child, and the first. Come to me, blessed one. Come to me.”
The voice was a soft whisper in her head, tugging on the strings of her soul. Esserai lifted her head, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and nodded. She carried the weight of two species, the weight of two races. Revenge was not her master, but responsibility.
“Set me free, your deity; loose me upon this tainted world.”
The gods fawned over their humans, preened over them like spoiled children. But her god waited patiently. Slumbering. For her.