Tuya, a seedling with arms thinner than the branches she was beaten with, disheveled hair shaded like the dirt she was covered in, and skin like the sand darkened by the evil waters where they drowned those who birthed girls like her, looked out from the gap in her hollow to bear witness to another day of life in the Celegan Hollows.
The tamers howled in the rain, their guttural voices shattering sleep’s illusions. Tuya was no great-winged bird that could fly away from here in search of a place in the faraway lands where people looked like her and did not hate her, if such a place ever existed beyond the stories Zaya told when the tamers were distracted. She was one of countless girls in the Hollows. Even if most did not look like her, it did not change that her only purpose of existence, as the tamers reminded with every swing of the branch, every kick in the gut, every offering of meat, was to survive until first blood and carry the seed of mighty tamers.
The tamers prowled around one such girl. She must have been one of their favorites, for Tuya counted off the tamers surrounding their claim, and she ran out of fingers. Nearly every man who lived in this section of dense woods, where trees with great holes in their base reached up toward Celegana’s Spire, wanted to be the first to mount this fresh claim. The few tamers not hollering for a chance to battle each other for the blooded girl were the ones who knew they could not hope to win.
Tuya would run out of fingers and toes long before she finished counting the khorota like her that peeked through the openings of the other smaller hollows. They crouched low in the dim light of the dawn, hiding their bruised faces, swollen eyes, and bony bodies, not daring to even whisper. For all their silence, Tuya heard them nearly as loud as she did their masters. The air felt thick with their thoughts, blessings to the Goddess that it was another’s turn. Their relief permeated Tuya’s mind, a steady pulse of gratitude, an emotion most unusual in the Hollows.
The reprieve never lasted. The girl they corralled and fought over would be the first blood, but not the last. This tamer would lose to that one and he would come for another. Whether a small, useless khorota like Tuya that they could bludgeon to death with logs or fists, or a grown, blooded woman like Zaya that they could unleash their stymied lust upon.
This realization infected them all and they shrank back into their hollows, not daring to show anything of themselves lest they be the one the losers chose to punish. Their fear thrummed within Tuya, its baleful tones intertwining with the lust and hatred of the tamers as they prepared to fight each other for the blooded.
Tuya tried to mute their thoughts and the feelings paired with them. She tried to silence those tones of misery and conquest, but the noise was too loud. Her own depressed soul emitted the same pains as loud as anyone else, screaming silently into this void once her little eyes caught a glimpse of the girl being dragged, shrieking for Celegana to give her strength.
It was Sarnai. Sarnai, the one who worked the animal hides better than the rest of them. Sarnai, the snowy-fleshed girl who had once helped Tuya when she did not find enough berries. That small handful of red that saved her from many days of spilling her own redness, possibly kept her from going back to the land, back to Divine Celegana. Sarnai, the one Tamer Khargoth battered but a few sunrises ago, rooting her in place within her hollow for being too slow with mending his zebra hides. Sarnai, the one who smiled at Tuya when she snuck her a weird rock full of good water. Sarnai, a girl just like her, even if she looked like the tamers and nothing like Tuya. Sarnai was the blooded.
Tuya repeated Sarnai’s name in her head, hoping the girl survived her first blood, feeling something she had no name for but knew was the most important feeling of all. It was the reason she woke up each day, striving to touch it even for a few moments like rare morsels of meat a tamer might give to Zaya and Zaya might sneak to her. It was there when Zaya told her stories of faraway lands. It was there when Sarnai smiled at her. It was there, forbidden to Tuya, but ever the sweetest fruit that grew in the Hollows.
Khargoth slammed his fist into Sarnai’s side, screaming for her to stop invoking Celegana’s name. Tuya wished she could take away Sarnai’s pain, her spare water running down her face, that forbidden fruit sheltered within her where no tamer could take it from her.
Tuya focused her thoughts on Sarnai and reached toward her with that nameless feeling burgeoning in her chest like the first lights of day breaking the dark. She tried to share the feeling with Sarnai, tried to let her know that at least one creature in this world wanted her to live. Tuya thought to herself, reaching out with the hope that somehow Sarnai would listen. Be still. Don’t cry. Survive, Sarnai.
Hope was a rare thing in the Hollows. It was even rarer when hopes became truths.
Sarnai’s eyes flickered toward Tuya, then she went still, wiped away the tears on her face, and silenced her pleas.
The tamers roared, “Hoo huh!” and even big Khargoth chanted that the blooded khorota had the resolve of one determined to provide Celegana with a worthy tamer, one he would plant within her today. The other tamers challenged him, declaring they would be the one to fill Sarnai with their blessed seed.
It was nasty Zalmug, Zaya’s claimer, who hollered that they should see what they fought for, to give them the will to withstand the taming of their competitors. That horrible man tore at Sarnai’s hides, ripping them off her before several other tamers held him back demanding he earn the blooded before he touched her.
No matter how much Tuya hoped, no matter how often she dreamt of flying away, no matter if Zaya tried to protect her, some day that would be her. Some tamer would press her face into the ground and hurt her as much as Zalmug did Zaya. In hopeless moments like this, Tuya understood the ones that chose to leap from the cliffs into the evil water.
Crying, gripping at her starved stomach, Tuya skidded away from the opening of Zaya’s hollow and fell into something large and warm. Zaya caught her, made a shushing noise, and folded Tuya into her long arms. This single susurrus sound was drowned by the accelerating hooting of the tamers and the vitriol in their minds, by the sense of despair she tasted from every other unblooded pondering whether they would live through their oppression to experience this day, and by the discordant never-ending cries of those tamed. This last group begged her for a harmony she could not restore, for freedom she could not deliver, and for light when their whole world was dark.
Hope was a rare thing in the Hollows. Life tried to extinguish it from Tuya, like raingivers sealing away the big lightmaker. Dread was easier and far more common. Tuya’s heart quickened, her stomach contracted, sweat ran from her, eliminating the precious water her body hoarded, her tiny bones trembled like the hollows when the ground shook. Memories flooded through her into the deepest trenches of her psyche. Her inner voice echoed what tamers had screamed at her, immortalizing their words within herself. She was an extra mouth to feed. She was useless. She was weak. She was worthless. She was khorota.
Bruises faded and bones mended. Yet, the scars on her mind ran deep and the best she could do was look away from them, gaze off in fantasy, for a time, before the scars reopened and deepened. Those great chasms, trauma’s voids, did not mend with the passage of time. They only grew with each new wound, canyons shaped by the erosion of being hated and hurt. When panic claimed her, Tuya believed that nothing could ever fill these hollows. Nothing could make her whole.
These memories merged and brought on a wave of despair so massive that it could cover the whole world in the evil water and forever drown her in salted misery. Tuya tried to find a ray of light shining through raingivers so thick and dark that it seemed none of the lightmakers could ever possibly break through hopelessness’s pall.
Tuya strained to still her mind and break this cycle. Yet, how did one swim to the shore when the flood was so ferocious? How could they do that, especially if they never learned how to swim? How could one swim to shore, when everyone else is in the flood with you, constantly crying to be saved? Tuya could not escape these raging rapids. How could she?
Hope was a rare thing in the Hollows. But for all the misery of her life, that one nameless feeling nurtured the frail hope and kept it alive. Zaya held Tuya, sheltering her in this affection, quieting the storm within Tuya. Zaya seemed like the Spire rising above countless hollows. The tall woman was bigger than almost all of the tamers, bringing her unwanted attention among those she privately called insecure cretins. Though higher, Zaya’s body was withered like a long-stemmed flower struggling to survive into the snowy seasons. Her stomach swelled with Zalmug’s seed and her body was covered in more bruises than any other khorota in the region. The tamers hated Zaya, not just for her height, but because she came from the faraway land that had once tried to fill the Hollows with old stones.
To the tamers, Zaya came from a horrid place of evil giants who desecrated Celegana’s earth with their blasphemous constructs that defiled Celegana’s natural order. Tuya thought of men bigger than the tamers and wished they would come here and rescue her and Zaya. Alas, the tamers spent their days shoving Zaya’s head into the dirt and taunting her about the end of her people, of how Tugal would kill every last giant among them and fill all the big women with his mighty seed.
“Remember to breathe,” Zaya whispered, her voice the softest thing in this hard world. Zaya showed her, inhaling deep through her nose, holding the air in, then exhaling slowly from her mouth. “Remember the faraway lands.”
Tuya remembered. Zaya told few stories of her home, a place she called the Sunset Kingdom, saying they were an arrogant people best forgotten. It was the stories she told of other faraway lands that filled Tuya’s head with dreams of a better life somewhere else. Places where girls were not born to be beaten and bred, where they were never hungry, hated, or hurt, even lands where women ruled from the old stones like Tugal did from the Spire.
Tuya leaned into Zaya and remembered. She closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and repeated. Each time, Zaya encouraged her, massaged Tuya’s scalp, and kept her close. Zaya grounded Tuya to Celegana’s earth, even as the endless, amorphous cries for freedom tried to pull her away from this shore of safety. Entrapped birds, enraged beasts, persecuted people, all oppressed into the recesses of their own minds by the tamers who controlled their bodies with their mind, cried out for help in a cacophonous chorus.
Tuya yearned to make their pain smaller, but knew not how, and knew that she was a small, tiny, inconsequential thing matched against mighty Tugal and all the tamers beneath him. She felt like a perpetual failure. Guilt bludgeoned her harder than any tamer’s fist. Her helplessness echoed their words of cruelty, reminding her that she was worthless.
“The cries grow louder,” Tuya whimpered. “I cannot make their pain go away.”
Zaya nuzzled the top of Tuya’s head, somehow making Tuya’s pain smaller. “You will find a way, Tuya. But remember…”
Zaya trailed off as the tamer howls outside their tree grew angrier. Near the old stones, a series of rocks that were unnaturally layered, smooth, and straight, only two tamers remained in the challenge for Sarnai’s claim. Many men curled upon the ground, their faces covered in blood, punching the ground and cursing the tamers that made them submit.
Sarnai leaned against the old stones where they left her, covering her bloody thighs and staring still at the ground, drawing strength from Divine Celegana who was said to dwell beneath the dirt, giving them the bounties of nature. Only Khargoth and Zalmug remained standing upon the hallowed ground, battling for the pretty girl who could prepare the furs and hides better than any other in their region. The two mighty tamers glared at each other, faces strained, as their minds warred for supremacy. They were the worst of the tamers here. Tuya hoped they killed each other. Already, one of the losers on the ground was dead from the claiming of Sarnai. At least, she wanted Zalmug to die for all the hurt he inflicted on Zaya.
Alas, change happened often in the Celegan Hollows, and, in Tuya’s experience, it was never good. Were two tamers to die, they might be replaced by even worse monsters. Monsters who sifted through thoughts, punishing you for any mental transgression. Monsters who could track you down and trace you, leaving you nowhere to hide, not even within your own mind. Monsters who cared nothing for you except for planting their seed and using you to bring them good water or Celegana’s blessings. If there was one thing Tuya learned in the turning of the seasons, it was that there was always a worse monster. The pain would never end. She would never be free. The faraway lands were nothing more than a dream that could never come true for Tuya of the Hollows or any of the many like her.
Zaya pressed her mouth against Tuya’s ear. “You must never let the tamers know how well you hear the wild, Tuya.”
“They will hurt me for it?”
“Yes. If they knew what you can hear, they would kill you.”
The void in her chest would not cease to expand until Tuya felt an absolute, gnawing emptiness. All these men had ever done was hurt her simply for being born and they would kill her for something she could not control. Tuya tried to quiet the cries, but they never stopped. “Why?” Tuya croaked. “Why do they hate me?”
She whimpered in the dark, dank, hollowed tree, not understanding and helpless to change anything.
Zaya cradled Tuya in her arms. The wise woman from the faraway land swallowed a heavy lump in her throat. “They hate you because they are afraid of you.”
Tuya could not comprehend. Unlike Zaya, she was small. Her bones were like frail rocks covered by the thinnest layer of dirt. She lacked the strength to contemplate doing anything to the smallest tamer. Them being afraid of her was like her being afraid of the bugs that scurried out when you picked up a stone. These men, these mighty tamers who could seize control of a creature’s mind and body as easily as they could deliver her death with their fists, could not fear a girl like Tuya.
“Tuya, you know about bad dreams where they hurt you?”
She nodded. Not all dreams were of flying away and finding faraway lands where people did not hate her. Reliving beatings, watching women torn from their babes, seeing the tamed beasts stalk them as they ran, women devoured as tamers laughed, visions of her own day of first blood, and on and on. Worst of all, she dreamt of Tugal’s chimaera, a creature said to be able to kill unlike any other. Three-headed monstrosities ruled her dreams as well as her days.
“You are to the tamers, what the chimaera is to us,” Zaya whispered. “A nightmare. You have strength hiding inside of you, Tuya, strength that can break the Spire, but you must keep it secret. You, Tuya, are my hope.”
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Zaya’s words made no sense. Tuya rejected them in her heart. “But I am so small.”
Zaya defied the tamers, risking a beating most severe. Khorota were not allowed to look each other, and definitely not tamers, in the eye. Despite the danger, it felt wonderful to see Zaya’s smile. That tiny feeling with no name was not so small now. For a few moments, fear and hatred were the little things, held at bay by this other sensation. Tuya smiled back at her, working her most atrophied muscles of all.
Zaya’s grin expanded, reflecting Tuya’s. Zaya cupped Tuya’s chin. “How could they not be afraid of little Tuya with the olive skin of the faraway lands of Isihla and the cutest smile?”
Tuya giggled, and joy went too far, summoning the fear. Looking into each other’s eyes! Laughing! Smiling! If the tamers came it would be a beating to end all beatings. Tuya scampered away, not daring to peek out of the hollow. Eyes to the dirt, frowning, and quiet, as they wanted her to be. She hid, making herself small, wondering what strength could possibly be inside of her as the cries of every tamed creature in this world pounded within her skull, begging for freedom that she could not grant them.
It was then, on this rainy, dreary day, that Zaya spoke the most important words Tuya would ever hear in her life. “They fear Tuya, The Untamed, who can listen to the wild and break their binds. They are not afraid of you now, but they should be, and they will be. You can set us free, Tuya.”
Realization dawned on her, a ray of light piercing the dark, dark raingivers and beaming into Tuya’s mind, changing it forevermore. “Do the other khorota not hear the voices I do?”
Zaya whispered, “Some do, but you are stronger, Tuya, stronger than the nightmares of the tamers, stronger than even your dreams could imagine.”
For the first time in her life, Tuya comprehended that she was not useless, that she was not powerless, that she was not hopeless. Dreams filled her young mind, a mind unlike any other and exactly like every other. The empty pit in her chest filled with hope. No matter how many times they tried to drown her, she would never stop swimming for the surface. No matter how they tried to break her, to tame her, she would remain untamed. She would break the binds they held over the others, whether blooded women, little khorota like her, or the endless herd of creatures they possessed. She would bring freedom to the little girls who could only hide and the women who could not escape. She would put the Ezen and his empire on its knees. Thus, dreamed a child exactly like every other and unlike any other.
In that moment, a beacon of hope burning within, Tuya used her power. She closed her eyes and sought out one of the seemingly infinite voices crying for their mind and body to be theirs again. It was like trying to find a specific drop of water in the rushing of the flowing water. The strongest and closest pulses suppressed the others. Zalmug and Khargoth blasted each other with hateful thoughts as they tried to seize possession of the other’s mind. Such violent rage made Tuya shrink away, doubting whether she could ever withstand such a ferocious onslaught.
Tuya retreated from the edges of their minds, sending her consciousness anywhere else as fast as she could. In the turbulence of her escape, she sifted through the pleas of the tamed and sought one distinct enough that she could separate it from the masses. Scrunching her brow, clenching her teeth, and squeezing her eyes shut, she focused until she isolated the cries of a creature soaring above the Hollows. The great bird cried for home, for a place faraway across the big, evil water where a great tree rose above two flowing waters atop the high hill where the flowers of every color bloomed.
Tuya caught the bird’s thought, experienced his feelings, saw his beautiful, wonderful, dreamlike home. His thoughts merged with hers, became one with hers, and resonated with every drop of her being. This bird, unlike her in so many ways, wanted the exact same thing as her. He wanted to fly away to the place where he belonged. A place far away from the Hollows.
Tuya reached her mind toward his and projected to him, Fly away, friend. Be free.
Yet, the bird was not free. A third mind lurked within his, the one that chained his mind and commanded his body. The tamer repelled Tuya, lashing out with psionic hatred. Khorota!
The tamer projected thoughts of ripping out Tuya’s throat and pounding her with his heavy fists, of hordes of tamers lining up to penetrate her, of large beasts devouring her flesh while she still lived, of murdering every other woman, girl, and babe in her region.
Tuya shrank. In her panic, she sought refuge. Tears flowed down her face, as she was plunged back into the flood of memories, into helplessness. She pulled away, defeated and downtrodden. The great bird reached after her, cawing desperately for salvation that only she could provide. Tuya interpreted the bird’s thoughts and feelings. Don’t leave me alone with him! Don’t leave me behind!
Zaya embraced her, pulling Tuya into her lap, whispering, “You are strong, Tuya.”
Tuya wanted to believe in Zaya’s words, wanted to believe she was strong. She wanted not to fail for once in her life. Despite the tamer’s incessant stream of threats, of vitriol, of arrogance, Tuya held to the beacon of hope Zaya lit within her. For the first time, Tuya did not make herself small, she did not hide. Tuya tethered her mind to the bird’s. Fly away, friend. Be free. Fly away to the place where you belong.
Her defiance stunned the tamer. She shoved him with her consciousness, striking him madly with years of suppressed anger, clawing him with psychic talons she never knew she had. Fighting for the freedom of the bird, but also fighting for the little girl who cowered and took her beatings, fighting for every girl in the Hollows who suffered like her.
The tamer’s fury turned to fear as she overpowered him, enveloping him in her wrath and might. His fears transmitted everything he felt and thought to her. He was a mere servant of Tugal ezen Celegan, trying his best not to be humiliated and broken for this failure. For losing to a tiny khorota! He sat high atop Celegana’s Spire, rain matting his dark hair and drenching his furs, skin turning snowier as the blood rushed to his head and flowed from nose, ears, mouth, and eyes while he strained to maintain his control over the giant bird. Yet, right on the surface, he knew it was hopeless for he could not match her might. Defeated by a khorota, a puny, worthless, unblooded girl. Other tamers pointed at him, laughing at his struggle, barraging him with insults. They thought he struggled with the beast. The tamer resolved to never let them know the truth.
He clambered toward the edge of the Spire. Then leapt.
Tuya released his mind as he plummeted. The tamer’s mind vanished from her awareness, like a pebble blown into the evil waters by a mighty wind. He was gone, revealing a hopeful truth. “I am strong.”
Both Zaya and the bird answered, “You are.”
Zaya caressed Tuya’s head, stifling her sobs. Tuya could not comprehend Zaya’s sadness, but she felt every shared sensation of the great bird. He reclaimed his body, adjusting and correcting his flight for the long journey home. Tuya soared above the Hollows, seeing them from the superior eyes of the untamed bird. She did not control the bird as the tamers did, but coexisted. Those great earthen wings glided over the evil waters and his snowy head sought the way home. For once, things felt right.
Such good things did not last in the Hollows of Celegana. Another tamer tried to force itself upon the great bird. The tamer’s angry voice was a great gale blasting into Tuya and her friend. The bird dove, wild thoughts of never wanting to be tamed again sending him into a panicked frenzy. His panic, his plunge into that old, familiar flood, beckoned Tuya to do the same. Her life’s pain compelled her to lose hope, to shrink, to cower, to hide, to await the beating.
For all that, the tamer struggled. Even in fear, her link with the bird barred the tamer as if he was sprinting into impenetrable old stones rather than throwing a little girl into the mud.
I am strong, she reminded herself. Hope flared within her. She did not hide from this man. She did not await the inevitable beating. She definitely did not make herself small. Tuya shielded the great bird’s mind, projecting her will to keep the tamer away. You cannot have him. He is free!
The tamer retreated, abandoning his efforts to break through her walls. Soon, more tamers than she had fingers tried to shatter her protection of the bird. None could so much as make her wince, let alone challenge her. She repelled them, ejecting their consciousnesses back through space, returning them to the bodies of the tamers who tried to take the bird’s freedom.
Once it was clear, no more tamers would challenge her, the great bird steadied his wings and his panic dissipated. In place of fear, he projected his gratitude to her, as well as that nameless, but wonderful, sensation Tuya oft felt. I fly away now, free, the bird thought to her. To the great tree with all the blooms, to my mate, to my life. Forever, you go with my gratitude and, the bird gave name to the feeling, name Tuya knew no words for, name for something she would hold on to, forever, love.
Tuya grasped that feeling and gave voice to it, Fly away to the faraway lands. Fly away to the place where you belong. Fly away with my love, friend. Be free.
Tuya opened her eyes, already missing the feeling of flight, of going to the place she belonged, far, far away. The Hollows soon reminded her of where she remained.
Zalmug collapsed on the ground and gripped his head, roaring in pain and fury. Khargoth wiped the blood from his nose and moved toward his claimed. Sarnai cried out as Khargoth pushed her against the old stones and penetrated her. The big, brawny beast of a man showed no gentleness in his touch and hit Sarnai, berating each sob the frail girl emitted, warning her that if she cried during the planting, she would yield a useless, whiny khorota just like her.
Zaya pulled Tuya away from the opening in the hollowed-out tree they shared. Desperation thrummed from her, Tuya sensing it with her mind. “Promise me, Tuya. Promise me that you will hide your strength from them. Promise me that you will grow and learn to use it.” Zaya’s voice cracked. “Promise me that you will fly away. Promise me that you will free yourself, that you will free as many as you can. Promise me, Tuya.”
Tuya turned to Zaya and again did the weird, wonderful thing where their eyes looked at each other. Alas, there was no smiling now. Zaya’s face was covered in tears. The big woman did not cry when the tamers beat her or forced themselves on her. Why then did she cry now? “Zaya?”
Zaya squeezed Tuya’s shoulders so much that it hurt. “Promise me, Tuya!”
Tuya recoiled. She cowered, sinking low, eyes to the dirt, and scurried away.
Zaya knelt to meet Tuya’s level and softened her voice. “Tuya, promise me you will do your best. Promise me you will fly away from here. Promise me you will grow as strong as you can.”
Tuya held her eyes on the dirt, confused and scared.
Zaya lifted Tuya’s chin until their eyes collided again. “Remember, Tuya, you are strong. You can do anything. Promise me you will do your best. Promise me you will—
Zaya crashed to the ground. Tuya twisted in time to see Zalmug’s nasty, scarred face, covered in hair, with blood trailing from his nose, ears, mouth, and eyes. He kicked her in the chest. “No touching!”
Tuya heaved for air, feeling something broken inside of her. Her vision blurred and her ears rang. Zalmug seized her hair and dragged her out of the hollow. This was it. She was going to die. Zalmug chose to take out his rage over the claiming on her. More than ever, Tuya wanted to live, wanted to fly away, to be free. She squealed as he cocked his fist and lifted her off the ground by her hair.
Then the unthinkable happened.
“Stop!”
Even in that moment, when pain racked her world, Tuya understood why Zaya cried and why she wanted Tuya to promise. Zaya knew her fate the moment Zalmug lost the claiming, and she would not let Tuya take her place.
“You do not command Zalmug!”
The tamer tossed Tuya aside. She tumbled to the ground, slipping through the mud. Her chest hurt so bad, she did not know if she would ever rise again.
Zalmug seized Zaya by her long, dark hair, forcing her toward the meadow in the middle of the hollows of this region. Rain and tears blended on Tuya’s face as she watched Zalmug slam Zaya’s head into a tree and then hammer her with a rock the size of tamer’s fist. Tuya winced, knowing each of those hits were for her, and that guilt carried her down into a pit of helplessness and self-loathing. She would not have survived this beating and nobody would have cared, nobody except Zaya.
When Zalmug was done, and Zaya on the verge of death, he discarded her upon the ground like she was dirt. The wisest, bravest, strongest person Tuya knew was nothing to these men and everything to her. The monster spat in Zaya’s face, stepped on the belly swollen with his seed, and screamed for her to obey him. The threats were garbled with sputtering fury, but Tuya knew he would deliver on them. Zaya would be beaten every dawn and every dusk until she birthed his seedling. If she dared to disobey again, he would rip the babe from her womb himself, claiming that if the seedling died in the process, it was because it was a weak, disobedient disgrace just like the one who carried it.
Near the old stones, Sarnai cried out, her face hardly recognizable and her body covered in welts and bruises. Khargoth pulled himself out of her, declaring that he planted a mighty tamer, a great conqueror, within the khorota. He threw her in the mud and commanded she lay there until the rain stopped as punishment for crying like the evil water goddess.
Within Tuya, countless minds called out to her, begging for freedom as Tugal’s tamers possessed their bodies and did his bidding. She gripped at the broken things in her chest, struggling to move, struggling to conceal her own tears lest another tamer kill her for crying.
This was misery. This was pain. Just when she thought it was as bad as it could ever be, she relearned once more that change happened often in the Celegan Hollows and it was never good.
“Get up,” Zalmug barked at Zaya. “We are leaving.”
Tuya clenched her jaw shut, stifling the scream. It escaped her lips as a mousy squeal. She glared at Zalmug, closed her fists, and imagined punching him again and again, just like she had clawed at the tamer’s mind when freeing the bird. He would take Zaya away, leaving her alone in these Hollows where not a person cared whether she lived or died. How could she endure this life without her, without the small pieces of that special feeling? How could she survive this ordeal without Zaya’s love?
Zalmug pulled Zaya to her feet and shoved her to the far side of the meadow. Soon, she would be beyond Tuya’s reach. Zaya looked back, earning her a kick, a shove, and a reminder that if she disobeyed he would rip the little tamer from her womb.
Tuya tried to reach her feet, tried to chase after Zaya, dreaming of hiding behind her and trailing her to wherever she went. The tamers here would not miss her. Zaya was the only one who even knew she existed. Holding her chest, pushing through the pain, she limped after Zaya and Zalmug. Tuya quickened her step, though it intensified each ache in her tiny body. She crunched a branch. Zalmug spotted her.
The tamer yanked Zaya to her knees and stomped toward Tuya. She froze even as her dreams melted away like the snows when the heat returned. Zalmug threw her to the ground, gripped her neck with his meaty paw, and strangled her. Again, she knew this was the end. He spat on her, called her a stupid little khorota, and squeezed until her vision blurred. Tuya’s resistance gave way to not wanting to live in a world without Zaya. She did not fight this man, even though any fight would have been hopeless. Not even Zaya stood up for her now. This was the end.
Zalmug let her go. Tuya gasped for air, though her chest screamed in pain from the heavy breathing. He put his foot on her belly, crushing her into the ground with his man weight. “Weak. You are not even worth the effort of killing. If I see you again, little khorota, I will be the last thing you see. Do you hear me?”
Tuya nodded, blinking back tears. What else could she do?
Satisfied, Zalmug spat on her, barked at Zaya and led her away.
Zaya looked back once, only to be slapped and howled at by Zalmug. How Tuya wished she was stronger, how she wished she could blood him all over the meadow, and every other tamer here from Tugal atop the Spire to the lowest of them down here in the Hollows. Alas, she was weak.
I am strong, she reminded herself.
Tuya reached for Zaya with her consciousness. She found her, walling off her broken spirit from weeping. Tuya touched her mind. I promise, Zaya. I promise I will do my best. I promise I will grow. I promise I will find you and set you free.
Zaya did not look back again, but Tuya heard her thoughts and felt Zaya’s love. Fly away, Tuya. Free yourself and never look back.
Like that, Zaya was gone. Gone from sight and gone from Tuya’s mind. She would never be gone from memory, nor from her heart.
Tuya remembered. She breathed in, stilled the breathing, and breathed out, just like Zaya taught her. She could have chosen to give in to her pain as the tamers took away her everything. She could have accepted their words, could have seen herself as weak and worthless. Tuya could have given away her power, refused to believe she could ever set anyone free, least of all herself. Tuya could have chosen to let this be the moment where despair became the shadow that followed her for all her days.
Instead, Tuya of the Hollows closed her eyes. She heard the cries of the tamed and made an oath during the worst moment of her young life, an oath to hope, even though her pain had never been worse. I will fly away, mother, but I will grow strong enough to free you and everyone who is tamed. I promise.
Tuya opened her eyes. In a world unlike any other and exactly like every other, there was a child exactly like any other and unlike every other. Had anyone cared, which everyone should, had anyone seen, which nobody did, they would have noticed that when she opened her eyes something was changed. For once, this change was good, and this change carried the hopes of millions, and the dreams of generations, even though they did not know it, and many would never know.
Tuya’s eyes were not the same brown of the land they had been before she shut them. Had anyone cared or dared to see, they would see that those brown eyes were now a shimmering silver, like two radiant lightmakers stolen from the night sky. Despite the darkness of this world unlike any other and exactly like every other, this child exactly like every other and unlike any other saw light where others saw only darkness. That small change would make all the difference in the story of a world unlike any other and exactly like every other.