The Lamb and the Gray Battle

February 1446

Aoibh sat on the cold floor and stared at the wall. She lost all sense of time and space. She screamed herself hoarse and she scratched the floor until her skin wore away. Water in the whole Fortress shivered and quaked. A gauze sheath covered Aoibh's body and tears streaked her face. A servant girl, the one with the reptilian scent, She-Meimei, came around with food, asked after her needs.

It was several days before Aoibh could croak out, "Where is my grandmother?"

Maybe it was only a few hours. It was all a blur.

The snake girl said, "She was put in Madame Long's old room."

"I want to see her," she moaned, rolled her head against the cold stones.

The snake girl stuttered and sputtered and Aoibh threw a sweet bread at her.

"Bring her to me!"

She-Meimei ducked out.

The room shifted. Perhaps Aoibh fainted. Her cheek was against the cold stone floor.

"I apologize for profaning your sight with my presence," Diyiren said.

Aoibh scuttled up, hid behind the bed.

"I have no reason to harm you," he said, his voice empty. His eyelids were rimmed with red and his hair was limp. He wore his formal robes, but he looked thin and haggard.

Aoibh screamed, "I want my grandmother."

"She's been imprisoned."

"What was her crime, you monster?"

"She kidnapped you, Banrion Aoibh," he said. He took several deep breaths before he could continue. "High treason. She poisoned your mind and turn you against your faithful Zhangfu."

Aoibh grabbed the slippers and socks from the floor, dashed them at Ren's head. "Perverted fiend!"

Ren sat unmoving on the bed. He made no move to avoid the objects as Aoibh found a brush and mirror to hurl at him.

Aoibh yelled, "I want to leave and I want to take my grandmother with me."

The chamber pot broke into dozens of pieces when she threw it at Ren and she took each shard she could find and pitched those at him too.

His body was covered in bloody spots, all healing as fast as they appeared.

He finally said, "No."

And left.

Aoibh closed her eyes, listened to the wind, called it to her. The mirror on the floor was shattered, as was the chamber pot. The mirror of the vanity smashed and those pieces too swirled around. She stabbed them into the wall, into herself. She had no tears to cry, but she cried anyway and screamed. She'd topple the Fortress into an anthill if he wouldn't let her go. The shards made a tinkling sound, sent all of them spinning and singing. The rocks crumbled against the fury.

If Aoibh hadn't been so absorbed in her own fury, she would have heard the servants scurrying and the army whispering. Sutekh raged against Ren and rain crashed down from the Heavens.

"Don't think you can threaten me, My King," Sutekh yelled.

"Go away!" Ren yelled, driving all from him.

Ren sank to his knees in the sanctuary of the ancestors. He prayed to his mother, because no one else listened him.