Alize sat in the tent she shared with Sosje. She considered the two masses of fabric before her. The dress she had worn, one Kell had lent her, would disguise her as a willow woman and enable her return to Parousia, a city she could barely navigate filled with people who condemned her sisters and their clans. The other outfit, loose Hrumi trousers and a long tunic, promised return to a place of acceptance and predictability, where she understood the role she was expected to play. She would harvest salt from the Inland Sea the west, and assume that her sisters would somehow be freed from the Parousia prison. It would no longer be her responsibility.
Such a bitterly tempting option.
But she knew that neither the dress nor the Hrumi outfit could truly restore to the life she had led before the earthquakes. Without her magic, the forest was silent and unfamiliar. And just as painful, Alize could hear Idir’s voice in her head still, cutting open the Hrumi narrative to reveal what the rest of the world saw. In Alize’s mind, Idir spoke with Hesna’s soft surety. Alize hugged knees to her stomach and bent her head over the two outfits. Neither identity could provide the solace she sought.
“Go on,” Sosje murmured beside her, “take the dress.”
Alize closed her eyes, grateful for her sister’s affirmation, but fighting it nonetheless. “It’s not me.”
Sosje smiled, “In all your duties, what purpose can vanity serve?” Her words echoed Kell’s in the forest, coaxing Alize into the very same task. Alize’s memories of autumn seemed to belong to someone else, they felt so distant. Now she studied the dress. Though the accusation of vanity had once infuriated Alize, she knew better now.
“It’s not vanity, it’s discomfort.”
“Then let me help you, sister.”
Alize concentrated on the flickering tent flap ahead of her as she rose to assemble the dress with limp fingers.
Behind her, Sosje pulled the back closed, her hands strong and sure. “Your task will free our sisters. But you need the disguise.”
Alize scrunched her eyes shut. “Everything I am is a disguise! Even I can’t see through it anymore!”
“You are Hrumi – what more is there to know?”
“Sosje.” Alize turned to her. “It’s not enough!” My life fell apart, that night in the Temple, and no matter what I try, the pieces no longer fit back together.
“I don’t follow.”
Alize inhaled so deeply her lungs ached. “During my time in the citadel, I fought the Deku, hard, with my fists, my wits and a hunger strike.” Alize flushed with the memory of that weakness, her strength draining from her loose skin.
“But the Deku refused to release me. And worse, even when they were cruel to me, they forgave me everything. They only wanted to treat me kindly. It was my behavior that drove them to violence.” The truth began to spill forth. Alize had lost the ability to keep it deep inside her. Not with Sosje listening so kindly.
She remembered Viken’s treatment. The days he visited her, his spoke only with pity, and it undermined Alize’s resolve, her fury. She knew not how to fight someone so powerful he dared to console her very efforts. His victory was always assured.
“For all my rebellion,” Alize utterer, “the Deku leader did not deign to even engage my anger. It made me furious. “
“Of course it did,” Sosje affirmed.
Sosje’s instant understanding made Alize braver. She stole a glance at her sister.
Sosje met her eyes. Somehow her steadiness was the encouragement Alize had been seeking.
“Iedaja, my keeper, she dug trees from the frozen ground and lined my chambers with them because she saw how much I missed the forest. When the poor plants died, I was not sure which of us felt more distraught.”
Though Alize never asked for it, Iedaja had made it clear that she commiserated with Alize, through the fighting, the escape attempts. During her hunger strike, Iedaja had stayed by Alize’s side, smoothing her hair from her face when Alize was too weak. For all Alize had resented the role Iedaja played in her abduction, she could not wholly dismiss her kindness.
“Not since Hesna,” Alize huddled her shoulders, feeling the cold more acutely, “did I feel someone had cared for me so much, without any higher justification. She tried to shoulder my suffering instead. All the plush pillows and lavender sweets were poor recompense for my imprisonment, but her intentions-”
“She held you prisoner,” Sosje said flatly.
“That’s not how she saw it.” Alize’s voice faltered as she came closer to the truth. “Iedaja fervently believed she was helping me. She only wanted me to believe it.”
“You know not her agenda.”
“Iedaja,” Alize whispered, “knew my parents. They were Deku too.”
Sosje had frozen where she sat, her eyes wide and her mangled fingers rising to cover her mouth. All the color had washed from her cheeks.
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“And I know,” Alize tried to harden her voice, but it trembled. “The Priestess told me in the Temple that Hesna took me from the Deku.”
The world met Alize’s admission with silence. She inhaled deeply and bit her lip, fearful for her sister’s reaction.
Sosje had not yet released her breath.
Alize tried to appeal to her sympathies. “I know the Deku soultrussing and it disgusts me.” Alize shook her head adamantly.
Sosje gathered herself together. Her eyes carried a new steeliness. “That reflects more on you then her. She can’t change who you are. And you did escape. Now you are the only Hrumi who can free our sisters.”
“I’m not anyone’s hero, Sosje! I’m just trying to find a way to live with myself!
Sosje grasped Alize’s shoulder. “Sister, the only identity you need is the one that makes you proud. And you can be certain that if Hesna rescued you, she did it as a favor. The women who become Hrumi are those that suffered the greatest abuses as children.”
Alize bit her cheek, wishing she could still believe that.
“And Hesna never kept you prisoner.”
“She kept the truth from me,” Alize whispered bitterly.
“You know the reason for her silence. Hesna died fighting Celile for the right to tell you the truth. I was just a child, when Hesna brought you to the camp. She brought you, and she brought news that Thrasa was dead. And we never knew the story, Celile forced her to keep it secret.”
“Hesna,” Alize scoffed, “was a fool to follow Celillie’s rules!”
“She thought she would win-”
“It doesn’t matter! She let Celillie control her, even though she knew it wasn’t right!” Alize wrapped her arms around herself. She knew that condemnation sounded so disrespectful to her mentor. Even as she hated herself for saying it, she hated it for being true. She hated that Hesna had made that mistake.
“I mean, I agree with you. I think Hesna was wrong to do that.” Sosje answered.
At Sosje's words, Alize fell into silence, almost tumbling over her thoughts. For such an allegation, Alize had expected a strong reprimand. The Hrumi had strict decorum, and Alize had just condemned Hesna for respecting them. She had not expected Sosje to concur.
Sosje continued. “I’m sure, if she were here, Hesna would agree with you too. But she only knew one way to fight Celillie, so that’s what she did. She challenged Celile and she did it out of love. If this woman Iedaja had truly cared for you-”
“Love?” Alize nearly wept for the absurdity. “What do you know of love? Your falcons disfigure you and you call that love!”
Sosje reddened. “I promise you I know what love isn’t - it isn’t debt!”
“No one’s talking about debt.”
“Guilt is debt. Don’t let this woman dictate your identity. You must show her – show all the Deku that their heritage cannot subsume the one you choose. Save our sisters and we’ll fight the Deku together, fight to break any power they think they have over you.”
“I’ll have to convince myself first,” Alize shook her head. The filth of her confession clung to her skin, sticky, staining her bones with her inheritance of cruelty.
But Sosje saw none of it, refused to see it.
It helped Alize try to raise her chin as she left the tent.
Alize departed from the camp without ceremony. She and her new companion Menah would share Alize’s horse to support Alize’s story of capturing a Hrumi.
Winter still smothered the forest, dusting the meadows with frost in the morning and leaving the naked trees shivering. Somewhere spring lay waiting, but the cold ruled with iron will, keeping the tubers and roots cowering in the earth.
When Hrumi camp fell behind them, Alize dismounted her horse and held her hand out to Menah to do the same. Menah frowned but accepted, planting her feet on the ground next to Alize.
Alize grunted as she swiftly remounting her horse and pulled the reigns. Orders or no, she refused to bring another sister to suffer in Parousia.
“Wait!” Menah cried. “I must go with you.”
The desperation of her response slowed Alize. She halted her horse in the clearing and turned back to her sister. Menah was younger than Celile and softer in her appearance. Though her posture, her movements, her very stillness all confirmed her Hrumi strength, Alize saw in her something else too. An anguish, the type born only from failure.
But it mattered not for this journey. Alize spoke, “I do not consent to endangering you, sister. Benay doesn’t know the cities and Sargons as I do – I never entertained this strategy, and I will not have your blood on my hands.” Alize began spur her horse.
Menah shouted in reply. “You think I will not follow? Now that I know the name of the city, I can find it myself!”
“Your sacrifice will yield nothing, trust me. Go back and blame this on me.”
“This is my choice!” Menah shouted. “I need your support! But I see – I see I mistook you for a lighthouse.”
Alize startled to hear Menah use her own Alize’s own words. Hesna’s words. In truth she had not given much thought to Menah’s motivations. She had worries enough.
“I pressed Benay to let me come.” Menah spoke. Her cheeks flushed red. “I atone for a broken trust. My mentee was at the Temple Battle. Her menarche came early, so her dagger is bound, but she was too young for battle.”
Alize bit back her surprise. In the years she had trained with Hesna, her mentor had been careful to keep her far from any area of conflict. No child had any business near the Temple battle before her dagger binding ceremony. It would leave them far too vulnerable to the world’s outside threats.
“If she did not survive, her death is on my hands, not the Sargons.”
Alize’s mind rushed, centering on the memory of the young despondent girl in the Parousia prison. She groped for the girl’s name.
“Inna,” Alize murmured finally. The woman reacted immediately and Alize quickly continued, “She lives. She is struggling.”
Menah tilted her head back took a moment to catch her breath. “Thank Rehsan. You’ve seen her?”
“I’ve seen her and the woman that lays claim to her. Her willow mother.”
Menah wrung her hands. “It’s not possible. Her mother is dead.”
In her mind Alize played through Melis’s story of her daughter’s abduction. She watched Menah shrewdly, all too conscious of the knowledge that her own story had been fabricated. “Then tell me sister, how did Inna come to the Hrumi?”
“Her rescue?” the sister straightened. “I rescued her myself, from the Priam province. She and two siblings were orphans of the Scab Plague. When I found them they were near mad with fever. In the end, only Inna survived.”
“Does she remember this?” Alize asked.
“It is not our practice to speak of the past.”
“But she must bear scars from the plague?”
“Just a few pocket marks on her stomach.”
That was something Alize could confirm. If true, it could refute Melis’s claims over the girl. Alize hoped the news would strike the dull despair from the girl’s eyes.
“I am coming with you,” Menah reasserted.
“Yes,” Alize nodded, “I believe you must.”
They spoke little as they passed beneath the forest canopy. Any Hrumi well knew to avoid the roads, and Alize wanted to accompany her companion to Parousia herself, not risk relinquishing her to any patrolling Sargons. Menah sat with her head high. They both knew that when they approached the city, Menah would have to abandon her Hrumi pride and appear defeated, if they were to convince anyone of their story.
Alize halted her horse when they reached the road they would take to the city. Here Menah would become the prisoner, and Alize the hunter.
Neither felt comfortable in her role.