Lonely days dragged past her like the bodies of runaways being tossed into the evil water after all the life had been beaten from them. The tamers avoided her, so afraid of Gurgaldai they ran from her when she was near. They demanded nothing of Tuya. That was not so bad as far as the changes went. Their lives went on, with always other khorota and new women from the faraway lands coming in to scream at and hit. To most of them, Tuya was one leaf in a forest. To one of them, their favorite leaf. Makhun remained, daring nothing but Tuya knew he schemed, knew the vindication pulsing in him whenever he glared at her. She would not give him another target in her stead. To make pain smaller, she would remain alone. As if she had a choice.

The women avoided her too. None wanted to be connected with the Chosen of the Great Ezen, the one who murdered Sarnai. This was the most unwelcome of changes. They refused her offerings, refused to speak to her. When she was near, they scurried away like they were bugs, and she was the catcher. Tuya realized how much of her will to live came from making pain smaller, from the small moments where a little girl smiled at her from the corner of her eye, from feeling love and expressing it. With Sarnai gone, with everyone treating Tuya like she was gone, she had nobody but herself.

For all the kindness she offered others over the last many cycles of seasons, she had none to give to herself. Her inner dialogue wore over the same thorny paths, where each thought was a barb to her esteem. The words she spoke within her lonely mind were like vines constricting her within her own self-hatred. Her own voice took on all the negative things tamers said about her and seasoned that vitriol with criticisms that only she could know. She learned that no matter how mean others could be, nobody could hurt you quite the way you could hurt yourself. When others said something to you, you could defend yourself. When you said something to yourself, you were the offender, and nobody was left to protect you. When you turn your own hatred inward, you believe it and you become it. It was the ultimate betrayal. Tuya’s mind and body fought against her, binding her to misery and hopelessness.

Tuya stayed up late, reciting these self-loathing conversations, occasionally adding something newly despicable about herself. She was stupid. She was gullible. She was a coward. She was weak. She was unlovable. She was incompetent. She was worthless. She was a failure. Over and over, she would run through every example she could think of that would confirm just how unworthy she was and just how much she deserved to suffer. After all, doesn’t a person who murders someone they love deserve misery?

Misery seeped into her as it grew in the region. With nobody accepting the leaf of the numbroot, many had first blood as the new season thawed the ice and even more of the women grew with child as the season of new life went on. Without her help, some starved and died of untreated wounds. Little girls had nobody to tell them they mattered and thus they too felt worthless and unloved. Tuya took on all that misery as her own. It was her failure that caused this.

With her purpose gone, Tuya was stripped naked of meaning. No, the truth was worse than mere meaninglessness. Gurgaldai ezen Celegan had a purpose for her. She would have first blood any day now and then she would go with him, a tool he would use to make the world his. The world was better off without her.

Tuya wanted to cry. For Zaya and the broken promises, for Sarnai, for little Khula, for the many women, and the many, many tamed creatures that she failed every single day. Yet, she could not cry. The ever-expanding pit in her stomach sucked away all the feeling, all the life, until all that remained was a hollow void. This too, was another indictment against her. If she could not cry for all the pain, did she even care? Did she ever care at all?

Tuya lost herself in a stupor that had all the apathy of the numbroot’s root with none of the numbing of the misery. She went days without eating or drinking, rarely sleeping, mostly thinking of how much she hated herself. When sleep did claim her, it was not her friend. Bloody logs and broken skulls, Zaya being pulled away from her, Gurgaldai coming to take her away, his three-headed chimaera roaring, bleating, and hissing at her. She dreamt of everyone in her region dying, of bodies piling high, bodies that looked like those of the newcomers, and even some that looked like her, all broken like Sarnai’s, as she helped the chimaera feast upon the world. Above all the misery, the voices of the tamed cried for her to free them, but she never could. She stopped trying.

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Sometimes, when she woke from the nightmares, she would let out a scream. Yet, that small burst of emotion was naught but the sky lights that flashed during bad storms, followed by a loud noise but soon gone and forgotten as if they never were. She buried her head into the ground and waited for whatever misery befell her next while she ate away at herself.

Tuya oft thought of the cliffs that overlooked the evil water and the rocks beneath where the tamers threw the bodies of the khorota who birthed girls or who tried to run away. Some khorota found the strength to take themselves over the cliffs, ending their misery. Tuya, as avoided as she was, would be able to make the short journey past the flowing water and over the edge. She could end it all herself, rid the world of a failure and a threat. Each day and each night, the cliffs, and the answer they provided, were never far from her thoughts.

It rained often in the Hollows during the season of birth. It was only on these days of downpour that Tuya remembered a day long ago when she chose hope over hopelessness and love over hate. Her promise to Zaya tried to awaken the slumbering will within her, to fill that dark void in her chest with hope. On these days, she wandered alone into the rains and found enough will to eat or drink, enough to stay alive for a few more days of misery. Like the big lightmaker cracking through the rainmakers and shining down upon her, these moments quickly passed as more and darker rainmakers smothered her hope again. It only took one moment of lapse, one self-loathing thought, one instance of another woman avoiding her, one memory of failure, of love lost, or of the inevitability of Gurgaldai, to bring her back to her hollow and into her stupor of misery.

The season of the rains and rebirth ended, and with it, those moments of hope. Tuya lost her strength as her body wasted away, desiccated like many of the flowers that wilted in the big lightmaker’s wrathful heat. She went days without moving from her hollow. With no food, no water, no love, least of all for herself, she waited to die so that she might join Sarnai, Khula, and the many she failed over the seasons.

Makhun came to her in the night, carrying a large weird rock of good water and a favored strip of meat. Tuya thought she should want his offerings, but she desired nothing of the sort. All she wanted was for him to go away. She looked right through him as if he were an apparition.

He set the offerings beside her and sat in the far corner of the tiny hollow. He sat there for what felt like the longest time, saying nothing, watching her with his tiny, dark eyes. Tuya’s thoughts were frozen, as if she ceased to exist then and there, floating beyond her body like a falling feather. She felt nothing but the weight of her misery swallowing her whole.

She startled when he spoke, as though surprised to still see him there. “Who do you think will suffer if you kill yourself here, khorota?”

Tuya said nothing. She did not care. Right?

Makhun exhaled and leaned in, folding his hands in front of him and shaking his head at her. “Everyone in this region will be killed for your selfishness. Not just me, nor even just the tamers. Everyone here will take the blame for letting you die. Gurgaldai ezen Celegan will ensure we all suffer immensely.”

“I don’t care.” Speaking hurt Tuya’s throat. It had been so long since she drank water, since she spoke. She decided never to do it again, one final act of spite for the tamer that hurt her so much.

He jumped on her, seized her throat and thrashed her about, just for a few moments before pulling himself off her. “Listen, khorota! You will either eat this meat and drink this water before the big lightmaker awakens or you will suffer something much worse than death!”

Tuya did not bother to rub at her throat. She certainly did not bother to respond to him, let alone care about what more suffering he could inflict upon her. How wrong she was.

Makhun leaned against her face, his horrid breath intensifying the ever-present pain in her gut, twisting starvation together with disgust. “If you choose to starve yourself, we will have nothing left to lose. I will drag you out of this tree, throw you down upon the ground, and make you watch as we hurt every khorota in this region. They will suffer and each hit will be because of you. After we have pulled every scream from them, we will kill them all. Then, each of us will beat you, fill you with our seed, and only after all of us have had our turn, will we cut open your guts. You will slowly bleed out while we end our lives as painlessly as possible.” He leaned back, that wicked sneer on his lips. “Or you can drink.”

Tuya felt something other than misery awaken in her gut. The last thing she wanted was to let Makhun choose the way she died. The feeling was just enough for her to sit up and put her head to the weird rock and lap up some good water.

“Now eat.”

Tuya’s stomach hurt as the water went in and the second-to-last thing she wanted was to chew on meat. She did it anyway, taking a small bite and swallowing the tender, juicy offering.

“Good, right? I saved you the best piece.”

She would never admit Makhun was right about anything. She hoped the evil Water Goddess swallowed him, but she kept eating, kept drinking, kept thinking of the cliffs as she ate her final meal. This monster would never decide her fate. Come morning light, Tuya would finally fly away from here.