Aazuria knelt on the carpet before her father’s frozen tomb, staring up into his colorless face.
The royal mausoleum was one of the few rooms in the ice palace which was not filled with water. The bodies of ancient kings and queens were entombed in ornately carved, vertically positioned ice coffins, and preserved here so that future generations could look upon the faces and bodies of their ancestors. It rather reminded Aazuria of Trevain’s macabre museums.
Barefoot, and bare-legged, wearing a sea-foam green tunic with a short sword strapped to her hip, this was the first time that Aazuria had physically faced what she had done. She had been sitting in the respectful position of seiza for many hours. Her whole body was numb. When she had first come to the mausoleum, she had tried to kneel respectfully before her father, but her body had refused to comply. Instead, she found herself doubling over until her forehead and arms rested on the carpet, as she wept. This was balasana, or more appropriately, child’s pose. She was kneeling prostrate and in deference.
“Papa,” she had sobbed. “Papa, you were right. What have I done?” With her forehead against the carpet, she could see the world more clearly. “It is better here. It has always been better. I should have left things as they were. If we all stayed and died here it would have been easier than going out into that awful world, with all those awful people.” She had cried for hours until the carpet became soaked, and her warm tears began to freeze in a small radius around her face. “I’m so sorry, Papa.” She continued to cry until there was a small sheet of ice beneath her forehead and nose.
She had not moved from this spot since she had returned to Adlivun. Once she had seen that her sisters were safe, she had come directly to this chamber to wallow in her lot.
When she could no longer rest her face on the frozen carpet, she forced herself to cease her sniveling and straighten into seiza. Aazuria felt suddenly rejuvenated. She was still on her knees, but not in the same pathetic way as before. She was on her knees not as a servant, but as an equal. Not as a beggar, but as a warrior. Aazuria closed her eyes. She imagined her organs untangling themselves from the jumbled mess in which they had been knotted, and aligning themselves properly. She imagined the natural ease with which her breath and energy traveled through her body; all the channels which had been blocked with the rocks and lumber of anguish and the caulk of vitriol opened one by one as she willed it. She sat for hours more in long solitude and reflection, until she felt healed.
She opened her eyes and saw the small sheet of ice on the carpet that had been created by her tears. She smiled at it, knowing that she had cried all the weakness and negativity out of her system. She looked up at her father’s body, and she smiled at him too.
“What happened with Trevain made me question everything I knew, Father. The truth is, I have made peace with what happened between us, and I know that I did the right thing. If not for me, for everyone else. I loved you every day of my life, and will continue to love you for every day that remains—but you were a dark shadow on the brilliant light of Adlivun. Everyone stands a little more proudly, everyone breathes a little more freely now that you are gone. You were my father, and you were good to me; but for too long that blinded me to all the other elements of your character.”
Aazuria gazed up at her father until she was interrupted by a sound from behind her. She turned around to see that Elandria had entered the room.
“Aazuria, you cannot stay here all day and all night,” her sister signed. “It is not healthy to reminisce about things like this.”
“I am feeling much more clear-headed now,” Aazuria responded, also using her hands. “I really needed to come here and confront my guilt and shame.”
Elandria looked up at the man her sister was kneeling before. “I think I need that too. It is funny. I see him now and I feel only sadness, pity, and regret; yet when he was alive I felt only fear of his next motion or word.”
“I know what you mean,” Aazuria responded. “I am sorry it took me so long to do what was needed to be done. A hundred years sooner and perhaps we would not be in the situation we are right now; preparing for war.”
“Everything happens exactly when it is meant to happen, sister. Perhaps if things had been different you would never have met Trevain, and we would not have Alcyone back.”
“Yes. A good thing did come from all this mess.”
“Aazuria, I do not know what happened with Trevain, but he is honorable; he just needs time to adjust to our ways. There is no one that I would rather have as my brother.” Elandria gave Aazuria an affectionate smile as she signed this. “Please promise me that after the war is over you will try to make it work with him.”
“I do not know if I can…” Aazuria looked back up at her father pensively.
A sound pierced the silence of the mausoleum; the whizzing of an arrow.
Aazuria turned back to her sister just in time to see Elandria’s eyes go wide. The silent woman placed a hand to her chest, gasping as she began falling to the floor.
“Elan!” Aazuria yelled, scrambling off the ground and rushing to catch her sister before she fell. “No!”
Elandria felt the softness of her sister’s breast against her cheek. Her hand reached up to grab Aazuria’s arm in a vise-grip. She looked at her sister with horror in her eyes. “Aazuria…” her voice rasped. She was too weak to use her hands, and her eyes were filled with the fear of impending death. “Forgive him.”
This was all she managed to say before she slipped out of consciousness.