The Blue Desert

Epilogue

Anan was made to sit down and tell her tale, first for the emperor and his wife and then for their advisors and then for the council. The emperor's wife was certain that she was telling the truth and it didn't take the woman long to convince the rest of the people who had a say in running the kingdom. Soon the whole palace was in an uproar over the sudden appearance of the long lost empress's daughter.

Aunt Leis, as the empress's wife quickly made Anan call her, barely let Anan out of her sight for a week. Most often, she had her arm hooked through Anan's and was constantly talking to her about one thing or another. She never had her fill of answers about Anan's mother or her other siblings.

For the first time, Anan really mourned the death of her brother, and Leis joined her, giving Anan comfort in her company. Anan also met her cousins, of which there were four; Thalmeas, Elesa, Bel, and Lespona. Thalmeas was only a year older than she was, and Elesa was her same age.

Anan was given everything she asked for and much of what she didn't. When she was given her own rooms in the palace, she asked if they could face toward the city, though she didn't explain that she wanted them to face Vasda. Few people wanted to hear about her home, they quickly passed over the topic if anyone, including herself, brought it up. She understood that it was a difficult topic for most people given the history between Tria and Vasda, but it didn't take her long to start missing all the familiar things that she no longer had.

After the initial surprise of her arrival had died down some, and a routine was just starting to emerge from the chaos, Anan would often find herself alone in her rooms. Many nights she would stand at her window and stare hard into the distance. If she squinted just long and hard enough, she could imagine that she saw the lake in the distance, the blue desert as her brother had called it.

One night, a few moons after her arrival, she stood at the window. She was dressed as a Trian with a gown of pearly gray that fell to her slipper-clad feet. A belt was secured around her waist with its ends dangling in the middle of her skirts. The sleeves of her dress were long, ending in a triangle shape on the top of her hands. Her hair had grown out to her waist and the lady her aunt had insisted help her dress each day had braided it in a crown atop her head.

In the time since her arrival, Anan had gotten used to Trian ways but occasionally, like as she stood staring into the distance, she felt her clothing pinch in places where she used to feel freedom. The glass in her window that was supposedly to protect her felt restrictive. She knew the feelings would pass as they had come, but while she felt them, she nurtured them fiercely. For once she understood what Kevresh had told her about not forgetting home because these feelings would not let her.

Anan smiled a little sadly at her reflection that was getting in the way of her view. Blinking and squinting, she thought that she could just see a little glimmer of blue in the distance. She sighed at her reflection that had gotten in her way again and told it, "I have left all that I love behind with the blue desert."