The Matriarch's Daughter

Chapter Thirteen: The Assassin

"What will you name her?"

Thepa tried to move, but struggled. Her body refused to listen. Her limbs pressed against her, weighing her down. The space around her stretched too wide, too cold, and too unfamiliar in every way. Her eyelids felt impossibly large. Flecks of light shimmered beyond the blur of her irises. They were too bright. Everything about her world was too much.

She did not like it.

She longed to return to the softness that had cradled her before. It was both warm and safe. Instead, she gave in to her eyelids' demands, squeezing them shut, but the brightness still pressed against them. In the distance, a soft and familiar sound broke through the discomfort. It wove through the cold, pulling her close.

She knew this one. It was a calm in the bright and scary world. It's hum wrapped around her as the warmth had. She had yet to name it, but knew it as a voice of love.

"I have some thoughts," the voice of love answered.

Thepa reached for the voice, though she did not know how in her new world. At least for the moment, her limbs still refused to move.

"It will have to be strong," said the first. This one was firm. Like most of everything in the new world, it was full of something she did not understand. 

"Stories and legends will be told about her someday. Her name must resonate among our people. They will follow her into battle. She will be an example for all the Sisterhood."

"Like me?" The voice of love grew tight. Thepa didn't like that. The wrongness of it twisted inside her. She tried to stop it, but all that came was a thin and helpless cry.

At once, the voice responded. Shuffling happened in the wide open space. The light changed, and with it came warmth. Not the same as before, but it was real. It shrank the open space into something she preferred. When she pressed against it, it filled her with something she could not name.

"Love makes us do dumb things."

"I don't regret her."

The warmth lifted and fell, a slow, steady rhythm beneath her. For a moment, the cold no longer mattered. She did not understand the words, but she felt them curled around her, sinking into her tiny bones.

"Nor should you." The weighty voice again. Thepa did not like this one. It spoke to the voice of love in tones that conveyed hurt.

"I have told you before, she was always meant to be. She was not your mistake."

Thepa whimpered, a small sound, but the warmth shifted, pressing something soft against her lips. A new instinct took over, allowing her small body to surrender to its invitation. She drank.

"You don't have to worry about him anymore. He's gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone," the voice of love confirmed. "Three days ago. I met him at the Goldale outpost, gave him all the gold I had, and pushed him onto a boat headed for the mainland."

"And he just left?"

"With protest."

Silence. Thepa drifted in the space between voices, half-listening, half-falling into sleep.

"It may be too late. I've heard whispers—"

"I've heard the whispers, too," the voice of love spoke again. "Matron Zelphina is gathering a following. The new Matron, Matron Vivian, seems eager to please."