Quick warning: there is some violence in the first section of this chapter. Ends once you hit the paragraph that starts with "I do not realize I am shaking in the waking present...".
Here is the last memory that I have of Ruatoy:
She had wanted to show me the new kind of barricade that one of her engineers had developed. It was a ways out from camp, but we'd felt secure in the land we'd been able to hold at that point. Early enough in the war that we still felt comfortable laughing as we trudged through the snow and ice, we were only alerted to the dragon overhead by the brief flicker of a shadow.
Our father's friend, the spirit of the southern bay. We'd all learned to swim under his gentle gaze. Fishermen learned their craft from him.
But he had gone missing in the first days of the war, and now he was before us again. I stood there uselessly, hand against my necklace as my fingers trembled too fiercely to get a good grip on it and my eyes tried to search for the warmth in his bestial gaze.
Ruatoy. Oh, Ruatoy. She'd seen my fear and had darted in front of me with a scowl before blazing past me, a spray of snow behind her as she swung. "Anra! Run!" she yelled out, echoing through the valley.
I don't know why I couldn't. Gasping for breath that wouldn't come, I watched as my sister dug her blade through thick layers of scale. Writhing in pain, the spirit screeched. Even from several feet away the chill of its breath, the smell of rotting meat overwhelmed me.
Ruatoy whirled to face me, her voice ragged and desperate. "Anra!"
My eyes widened and I started to raise my hand to point, but I was too late. There was a crunch of fangs rending through muscle and bone, my sister's strangled scream as she was dragged through the snow and flung into the air.
The crack of her body hitting the ground knocked the breath out of me. I wheezed as the beast that had once been our friend and ally nosed at her bloodied form. Creeping forward, I took my shaking hand and closed it around her sword.
Then I ran until I saw the wall, and didn't look back.
Hearing that my sister's doom has returned to us was like reliving her death all over again. She was the first of our family's losses throughout the war, though not that last I would witness personally.
I do not realize I am shaking in the waking present and not just in that terrible nightmare made flesh until Yendai puts a hand on my shoulder. Grateful for any comfort granted to me right now, I lean into his touch. My eyes are painfully dry where there should be tears.
"Anra? Are you doing okay?" Yendai asks me. Ealshan is looking down at his teacup and pretending not to notice, and I'm strangely thankful for that as well. For some reason, Yendai seeing me upset does not bring about the shame I expected it would, but I suspect it is unique to him.
"I will be. Give me but a moment."
Both of them do, Yendai's warm hand carefully leaving my shoulder like I'm bound to snap at it if he moves too quickly. Wanting to grab it and put it back there is a ridiculous impulse that I focus on not giving into.
"Right. I apologize, Ealshan. Continue."
"Ah, no need to worry yourself, Your Majesty." He clears his throat as if that will make us all forget about my lapse in control, mustache twitching as his eyes flit around for a safe place to look.
"Clearly you are, um, familiar with the form of the spirit. We've taken to calling it 'Bay' for clarity."
"An old war nickname for it. Glad to see it's lived on in the next generation, though I am grieved that it is still so relevant."
YOU ARE READING
Waning of the Sun Gods
FantasyEmpress Anra is one of the last people who remembers what her land was like before the war that claimed the lives of family, leaving her as the last member of the royal line. But as the child of the sun god, she knows that immortals like her and her...
