I can’t turn back time.

I can’t make things better all the time.

I can’t do anything even with all this time.

But I will try. To help make this right. To understand.

The reason.

“Please…Elina. No…Auntie. Tell me what happened at the Trials. Why would Romy…hurt you?”

“I’m not your Auntie. The Secthead and I share no relation anymore. And isn’t it obvious?” Elina’s sunken blue eyes close in pain. The wounds have healed, but the memories have not. Perhaps they never will. “The Secthead has to have said something. Even she can’t avoid the topic completely. Or one of the other Candidates has probably told you. Perideen for sure. In the old days, the Trials were a blood affair. Only one was supposed to survive. The undisputed leader of the Sect who would then recruit followers to the name of Rainstopper. A Raingod whose very name shakes the East.”

“I’ve heard this. But I don’t know what it means. Explain…please?” I do my best to keep my voice as neutral as possible. The worst thing I can do is show pity. Sympathy maybe, but even that may be too much. “Why was it so bad?”

“The first trial wasn’t much worse.” Elina hollowly chuckles. I notice when she lifts her throat that the skin there is smooth. No scars at least on her jugular. “Oh, who am I kidding. Traditionally, the first trial wasn’t even really a trial. It was a kidnapping. Orphans, children with no home, the impoverished, the Rainstopper Sect would round up a thousand children from places no one cared about. Sometimes a few Rainstopper children would also participate, but it was frowned upon. New blood was the goal. Never was the line of Raingods to grow weak and stale from inbreeding. Anyways…they rounded us up. And trained us. That was our first trial. Learning to kill, all of us under the age of six.”

“Okay.” I nod, understanding. “What then?”

“Well, once the oldest of us reached the age of ten, it began. The Second Trial.” Now there is not even a chuckle on Elina’s lips. Her face twists, her natural beauty overpowered by the scars as her face wrinkles. “You have to understand, in those days, the Third Trial was more…a formality then a real trial. The real battle was the Second. Always the Second.” She pauses, stopping to pour more tea and gulp it down before continuing. “We kept the structure of the Trial to a degree, although it changes from Trial to Trial. But the point was the same. A ruthless melee. Kill or be killed. Slaughter until there is no more blood to spill. Yours…or theirs. One man or woman left standing.”

“That’s…awful.” I feel lame saying something so simple, but what else can I say? Such horrors…their ghosts cannot be appeased by mere words. “But then, if only one was supposed to survive, and Romy is Secthead, how did you live?”

“Tch.” Elina grinds her teeth. “Yes, I lived. If you can call this living.” She spreads her unnaturally crooked arms and I wince, now knowing what’s under her sleeves. The one bare arm alone is enough to give me nightmares. “Romy and I were twins. Sisters. We were found together just before our fifth birthdays and brought to the Sect. I was talented in the ways of killing…but it was Romy they really wanted. She…even before the Second Trial began, they were already convinced that the victor might be her.”

“How could they know?”

“Oh, they knew. The Third Trial traditionally was to stop a storm with your sword. You would completely the Second Trial before your tenth birthday and then train for three years under the tutelage of the last Raingod and the Elders. At the age of thirteen, to truly pass the Trials, you’d perform the technique and finally inherit the position. They needed someone with the talent to pass the Third Trial, or else they’d have to repeat the whole damn process. The thing is…Romy…she almost stopped a storm before the Second Trial even began. Heh, you should have seen the Elder’s faces when she did that. Damn near gave them a heart attack. If only it did…” Elina almost spits the words out. I can truly see the hatred she has for the Elders.

“How did you survive then?” I ask. “What happened during the Second Trial?”

“Killing. Lots of killing.” Elina hangs her head, and I see her shake with every breath. “It was…murder of the foulest kind. No…that’s not right. Murder implies premeditation. There was no time to think. It was slaughter. No…that’s not right either. There was no purpose. No meat to harvest. Just blood and bones. You can’t imagine it, Myrr. The dead…were like stepping stones in a river. A river of blood! We walked on their bodies…so many…many…bodies. And danced on their skulls. It was…it was just death. Death of every kind and the worst kinds. Over and over. Neverending. Until…until we were the last ones left. Two murderers of murderers…that’s we were…what we are!”

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“No! You’re not like that anymore. Both of you.” I know it’s pointless but I have to say it anyways. Elina just takes another shaky breath. It seems like she’s not really here with me anymore. Lost in another time and place. Time reversal of a different sort.

“I…I thought we weren’t going to do it. Romy and I…we talked about it before the Second Trial. We wouldn’t fight. But…then she…she found me at the end. When every other Candidate was dead at our feet. We met atop the Cliffs of Sisyphus. We had a deal…with Jarshan. But the other Elders…they didn’t agree to it. I still remember her face when they told us that we had to kill each other. Why did she cry if she was still going to follow their orders? Huh? Why? WHY shed tears for something you’ve already decided to do?!” Elina breaks again. A broken record player asking questions I can’t answer. But I’m beginning to understand what happened. The rest of the story comes out in pieces. “I…I…couldn’t…fight her. She wouldn’t…fight me. That was what we agreed! And Jarshan said yes! But those bastards…it wasn’t enough for them. They’re sick. SICK! They call everyone else trash, but the real trash is them! All they want to see is blood, and death, and for what?! They’re damned…vaunted…traditions. They played us like fools. And she listened to their lies…so easily. Really believed that they just wanted to make sure I would never be a threat. Make it so that I could never be a player in their games. They said they’d let me go as long as the Secthead’s position was secure. Never to be challenged. Or else, they’d kill us both. And then…and then…”

I wait for her as she stops. The sobs are coming out now. Rage and sadness, horrors all told. In a way, I don’t want her to keep going. It seems so painful. But I think she needs to say it to someone.

“Her cuts…at first they were just…flesh wounds. Not meant to hurt. Romy was a master of death. She knew every place a blade could kill and every place a blade would not. But that wasn’t enough for them! Every time she tried to stop, when I begged them to stop, they said it wasn’t enough! That she needed to keep going!” Elina cries out, her arm physically jerking at the memory. I try to grab her hand but she blindly bats me away. “Was it really not enough? My arms…one wasn’t enough? I was a threat still when my legs didn’t work anymore? How…how could I be? I couldn’t even walk! If I tried to crawl, I’d die from the bloodloss! Yuel…I prayed and prayed for him to save me. But where was he?! Why did she keep cutting? What kind of god lets that happen?!”

Oh God…this…Romy…what did you DO?!

“It’s okay…you’re not there anymore!” I can’t reach her. But I sense that the story will be over soon. How can there be more of such horror?

“Even when I couldn’t move a muscle. When every bit of me was bleeding into the rain, they told her to keep cutting. I felt each one of her tears falling inside me. N-No…it hurt so bad…but I lost feeling eventually. And that was when I thought it would finally be over. That they’d let me live. And then…they told her that it was all a lie. That I needed to die anyways. That tradition made it so. Romy should have seen it then! That they were just playing with us! Like animals…making us eat each other! I…she…I can’t forgive her!” Elina howls, and her tears hit the table, landing in her empty teacup with little plinks. I can’t look away. The story…I need to know how it ends no matter how painful it is.

“Why can’t you forgive her? It was them...not her who wanted you dead. What other choice did she have?” I whisper softly. Elina’s response is like that of a zombie. She jerks up, looks me in the face with a hopeless, confused face.

“W-What other choice did she have?” She cries back. Her fingers curl into claws as the healer laughs insanely, “What could she have done? Heh…hehehe…she could have died.”

“Auntie!” I’m shocked. Even with all the hatred in her voice, this is so unlike the woman I’ve come to know that it gets me again. “Please…don’t say that! She saved you, right? You know she had no other choice but to hurt you first! I’m sure if you just…talked with Romy…then everything-“

“No other choice?” Elina stiffens up like a board. “NO OTHER CHOICE?!” Her volume increases until it’s penetrating my ears, nails on chalk. Her hands point to her face, twin arrows to the guilty evidence, “Look at me! Oh she saved us. My sister, finally realized that the Elders were just playing us. There was no way they were going to give up a candidate as good as her. As soon as she touched the blade to her neck and threatened to slit it herself, they gave in. But if she had no other choice, then why do I have these scars on my face? Why did she strike again even after they told her I needed to die? Why not stop right then and there! Why cut my face, TWICE?! Do you know why? Can’t you see it?”

“There must be some...reason-”

“I’ll tell you why! It’s because she was going to do it! She was going to cut my throat! But in the end, she couldn’t do it! So, she gave me these instead!” The two scars laugh hideously along with the healer as she forces her face in front of mine. “That’s why, Myrr. Your glorious Auntie was going to kill me. Who wouldn’t after all, they were threatening to kill us both if she didn’t. And you know what? She did stop before I died. In the end, we both lived. But I can’t forget it! And neither can she! It’s why she keeps running away! She’s never had the courage to come and look me in the eyes, not once! She ran away leaving behind a letter, a freaking letter, making me the Vice Secthead! Do you know how much the Elders hate me? If it wasn’t for Romy threatening to come at night and kill them all in their sleep, they’d throw me off this cliff! I’m not their leader, I’m a cripple! But I do everything she was supposed to do! And she gets to have a family and a...a...” Elina’s eyes are so tired and so sad as they bore into my soul. All the fire seems to go out of her. “She gets to have...damnit...why?”

“What. What does Romy get to have?”

“You. She gets to have you, Myrr.”