Mindless

Chapter 20 Sihya

She only returns to the clearing. She wraps the cot blanket around herself in her tree and knows why Vahela said what she did. The affection she had been accused of doesn't exist. Affection, yes: Vahela saved her and her brother, she had given them a home, jobs, a purpose beyond hiding in the forest, begging for life. What the queen believes, what she knows Jonah too believes, is an exaggeration of worship.

She was saved. Her brother was saved. What hurts is knowing she will never be good enough to give what she's been given.

But the truth isn't so easy. Sihya freed Vahela. She ended the king. She found Invidia. Sihya had found Invidia.

The woman had been emaciated, barely able to lift her own head when Sihya came to the bars with her light. She had seen the former queen only once before. At the time, knowing only as much as any other villager, the queen upon her horse had been as beautiful and as distant as the stars themselves. Looking at her, Sihya had felt a bitter unyielding. She knelt because she couldn't afford the price of not kneeling, but in her self, she remained as tall and firm as the chestnuts.

Finding her in the dungeons, knowing what more she did, Sihya had felt an ugly satisfaction. The stars had fallen from the skies themselves and Sihya had clawed her way above the clouds.

She had known what she had done at once, in finding the woman. Thought she hadn't known of the relationship between the two queens, she had known of the king's mistreatment, and she had seen the woman as a way to end it. Broadly, she had found a political end.

But, taking such news to the queen, she had seen the personal. Vahela could not hide herself well enough from Sihya. In such a way, she had known she had leveled the ground between them.

A maiden, Sihya had been given her own continuation and returned the reasons one might want it.

But what she wants... what she wants is something unconditional. Something like that which bridges between her and Jonah, expanded beyond their isolate tether.

Someone had carried them, under layers of their own skin. Had endured the disconsolate pain of birthing them. Had held them, most likely. When they could not walk or speak, someone had fed them and kept them warm.

Sihya pulls the blanket tighter around herself. The trunk digs hard and uneven into her back. She is between the few remaining leaves enough to watch them shake and steady, enough for them to slow the wind, and resting against the tree, she gives more of her warmth to it than the wind.

When had they been left behind? Only one must have known of them. Had their father refused them, or had he simply remained in ignorance? How far had their mother gone to hide them?

Most and worst of all, she wonders when that decision marked them. Did their mother know with the first rounding of her abdomen that she would leave them to the pity of others? Did she carry them, birth them, raise them those first few years in knowing she would not keep them? Perhaps.

Perhaps also there was a single moment. A moment their mother had held them in her arms, and first felt that lack which had been inherited by her children.

She has convinced herself,* this would make it better. Knowing this. Knowing when she went from child to orphan. Knowing which part of her, in ignorance, had driven the unconditional away.

It fills her chest as suddenly as her breath. The simple pain. Might she have done something different? Utterly dependent, might she have risen herself so young and convinced them to be kept. Could she have prevented the rift.

She would never know.

Jonah announces himself with the snapping of a twig. Sihya climbs down and drops to meet him.