Chronicles of the Selphia Plains [Rune Factory 4]

The Cry of the Peacock Part IV

Avani woke the next morning when Bhima threw the covers off and rose. He disappeared for several minutes, leaving her still bound to the bed. When he returned, she saw he’d washed away her blood from his skin and that he carried a basin of steaming water and a sponge in one hand and a towel in the other. He set them down, pulled on his trousers, and sat next to her on the bed. He cast a healing spell on her, then squeezed the excess water from the dripping sponge and washed the dried blood from her.

As he bathed her, she looked at him, asking, “Why?”

“I’m not letting you out bloodied and injured for all to see. Besides, you need to keep healthy if you’re going to have my children. The wounds are meant to admonish you, not weaken you.”

“No, I meant… I meant why me? You said something about a prophesy, but… that’s the first I’d ever heard of it.”

He snorted as if in disbelief. After a moment, he said, “When you were born, one of the seers—the one that named you, I don’t remember which one it was now—declared that you would one day change the fate of the world. I had already begun to desire to bring about a change among us—among our people—to return us to our former strength and glory. And even then I recognized that it would be critical for my family’s line for me to have sons and heirs. A woman that had been so marked seemed to me ideal for my plans—who better to give birth to my sons, than a woman who was to change history? After thinking about it for a while, I realized that my ambition and your prophesy fit together: you would marry me and give me sons, and with these sons, I would overthrow the stagnant, weak governments that had sprung up over time. Then once again the Ventuani would rule the land, and we would rule the Ventuani, my sons and I.”

“But… but my father is the Ra’mara, and Rishi is his heir—not me,” she replied her eyes opening wide.

He made no reply, but instead roughly toweled her off. Before releasing her, though, he looked her squarely in the eyes and said, “Remember what I told you. Stay away from Sundara—at least until you have fulfilled your duty to me. I will not be tricked into rearing the cuckoo’s chick. If you continue to defy me… it will not go well with you. Once you have borne my sons, you may have your freedom to pursue your interests as you wish.” Then he unfastened her bonds, returned them to their cupboard, and left without so much as a glance behind.

**************

Once her morning work was completed, Avani made her way to the sibylline temple, where her twin could often be found studying in the library. Essentially blind since birth, he needed an assistant to read to him from the scrolls and tomes collected there. She found him there this morning, sitting in the warmth of the sunlight shining through one of the great glass windows as the student who had accompanied him that day read to him from one of the more recently acquired volumes—apparently he had an interest in metallurgy that morning, judging from the text the boy was reading aloud.

Hesitating in the doorway, her approach unnoticed by either reader or listener, she watched her brother with a soft look in her eyes. She loved her twin dearly, and although she was his elder by only nineteen minutes, she had always felt protective of him.

They had little in common, physically—with his green-gold hair and exceptionally pale eyes, he looked more like their father’s people, while she favored their mother’s family, which had a high proportion of Avanani born among their ranks, from which she inherited her green hair and eyes. And Rishi had the broad-shouldered, tall build of their father, while she was slender and lithe, most resembling her mother’s mother in all their family.

Despite his handicap, Rishi was the first to become aware of his sister’s presence. He smiled and stood, holding out his hands to her as she stepped forward. “Avani, my love! I’m surprised, you seem to have spent most of your spare time in the woods lately.”