IrateRapScallion
patreon
Chapter 42
🕑 Added 2018-08-27 16:55:14 +0000 UTC Soft, warm light filtering through her eyelids melded with the musical chirping of birds off in the distance to pull Gabriela Carreno back into wakefulness. She let out a relaxed, sleepy hum. She felt better than she’d felt in as long as she could remember. A pleasant scent wafted into her nostrils. Some sort of flower. Lavender? No, it wasn’t that. Where was the smell coming from? She shifted her head. Why did her pillow feel weird?Memories came flooding back and Gabriela’s eyes shot open. Pushing herself up in a panic, she turned back to find Chitra sitting on the bed beside her, a quiet smile on her immaculate face.
“Good morning, Champion,” the woman said.
“W-what are you doing here?” Gabriela stuttered.
“You fell asleep on my lap and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You stayed there all night?” asked a mortified Gabriela. “Did you even sleep?”
Chitra giggled. “Please do not worry. I had plenty of time to rest given how long you slumbered. It is already past midday. You must have been very tired.”
Gabriela hung her head, embarrassed, as she recalled the events of the previous night. “Why... are you being so nice to me?” she asked timidly.
Chitra’s head tilted to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Well... I’m not used to people being...” she stammered, her gaze still pointed towards her own lap where her hands clutched her pants in anxiety, “like... what you did... ummm... especially pretty people because I’m not pretty... and you... I mean... you’re... you’re so beautiful and-”
“I am incredibly beautiful,” Chitra agreed, nodding matter-of-factly. “That’s to be expected.”
The rest of the Gabriela’s bumbling explanation died in her throat and she just stared at the other woman. Chitra brought up her hand up to cover her mouth as if she’d just committed a terrible faux pas. “Oh, of course. How rude of me to forget your circumstances.”
The woman stood up beside the bed in a single smooth motion. There was an grace to every one of Chitra’s movements, as if she breathed elegance. “Let us start with the basics. My name is Chitra Batranala. I am a Batranala, one of thirty in the palace. Only the most beautiful women in the Empire are selected to be Batranala. So it would follow that I must also be beautiful, or I would not be here at all.”
“So being a ‘Batranala’ is your job? Do people here take their last name based on their job?”
“Not normally, no. We are a special case. The name ‘Batranala’ literally means ‘claimed by Batra’, which is the Emperor’s lineage. When you are chosen to become a Batranala and serve the Emperor, your surname is replaced with ‘Batranala’ as a way of telling others that you are now no longer eligible for marriage or courtship.”
“So you’re a bunch of... umm... trophy wives?”
“Trophy wives? I’m not familiar with the term.”
“Beautiful women that men of power marry to show off as status symbols.”
“I see! What an interesting phrase. I like it,” Chitra said with a laugh. She shook her head. “But no, we are not married to His Highness. In fact, Empress Nesta, during her reign seven centuries prior, created the tradition that the ruler of the Empire is forbidden to even covet us.” She giggled. “I suspect it was to protect us from jealous Imperial spouses. I dare say it may be the only thing protecting us from Empress Shanti’s ire today.”
“Then what do you do all day?”
“Oh, a Batranala has many responsibilities. We are in charge of most of the day-to-day operation of the palace, entertain guests when the Emperor is occupied, and many other important tasks. It takes years of training to be a Batranala.”
Gabriela didn’t feel all too convinced about any of this. Thirty of the most gorgeous women in the country, forbidden from forming marital relationships? Even if the Emperor didn’t have sex with them, they were still basically removed from normal society, dolls to be looked at but never touched. It felt like a massive power play by the Emperor, taking away these women just to make them into glorified servants, a reminder that what would be treasured by others was nothing special to somebody with his power.
“Are you okay with being a Batranala?” she asked the other woman hesitantly.
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?” she answered with pride, holding her head high. “To be a Batranala is one of the greatest honors in the world.”
Gabriela decided to drop the subject. Regardless of Chitra’s thoughts, it still made her feel uncomfortable. She clambered off the bed just as a loud gurgle echoed off the walls.
“Oh my!” Chitra gasped. “My apologies, Champion! You must be starving!”
Gabriela grimaced. “Please stop calling me that.”
“But you’re the Champion! It would not be proper!”
“My name is Gabriela Carreno. Please just call me Gabriela.”
“Oh my, such an exotic and interesting name! Gabareala... Gabreela?” Chitra frowned. “It’s surprisingly difficult to say.”
“Just Gabby then. That works too.”
“Are you sure?”
“Every time you call me ‘Champion’ it bothers me.”
“If you insist, Gabby.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course!” She smiled her pretty smile again. “Bringing you comfort is why I’m here, after all. Now how about we change your clothes and go for a meal?”
“Okay...”
Chitra grabbed her hand and led Gabby to a nearby dresser, opening it up to reveal a rainbow of color inside. “I apologize, but I had little time after your arrival to arrange for everything and only a description of your general size, so your wardrobe may not fit perfectly.”
Turning back to Gabby, she grabbed the bottom of Gabby’s cheap cotton shirt, rubbing her fingers along the fabric. “This material... it’s so nice! And down here as well!” She squatted down, eying Gabby’s worn denim jeans with awe. “What does this do?” she asked, grabbing hold of the zipper and pulling. “Oh, how brilliant!”
Gabriela let out a squawk of protest as Chitra unzipped her fly, unbuttoned the top button, and pulled down her pants. “Hey, stop! What are you doing?”
“Dressing you, of course.” Chitra replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“I’m not a child, I can do it myself!” came Gabby’s indignant reply.
“Champi- Gabby, only commoners dress themselves.”
“I am a commoner!” She pulled her pants back up and held them in place with her hands.
“Don’t be silly, you are the Champion. You have a title, given to you by His Imperial Majesty himself. Now hold still.” Without waiting for an answer, Chitra proceeded to strip a defeated Gabriela of her Earth clothes and dress her up in an ornate green outfit. Gabby wasn’t a big fan of her new clothing. The pants were too baggy and loose and the tunic, or whatever it was, had too many extra bits of fabric hanging off that would flap and flutter as she moved. Chitra ignored her protests, simply telling her that the outfit was in fashion and that it looked great on her. Gabby didn’t believe a word of it. She felt like an idiot.
Guiding her charge down the maze of hallways, Chitra deposited an uncomfortable Gabriela inside a lavishly appointed room featuring a large table in the center and told her to wait while she brought the food. The sudden quiet felt unnerving. Chitra had kept up a torrent of chatter even since Gabby had awoken, keeping Gabby’s mind too busy and distracted to start pondering the horror of her circumstances again. But as she sat in an ornate chair and stared at her reflection in the polished wood of the table top, Gabby couldn’t help but begin to spiral downward once more.
Everything was wrong. She shouldn’t be here, surrounded by luxury, while her children suffered. Had they been found? Were they even alright? The ambiguity was the hardest part of all of this. It was so much worse to not know. Her emotions churned as hope and grief warring within her soul, neither able to overcome the other. She felt like she was going to fall apart at any moment. Tears began to stain the table.
Why her? Gabriela’s mind kept coming back to the question. She’d grown up being taught that God had a plan for everybody. That knowledge had helped her keep going after Juan’s passing. But this... this was beyond her ability to understand. Did God want her children to suffer? Was that his plan? Or was her removal from their lives His way of saying that she wasn’t good enough? That she didn’t deserve them? She’d always been a loving mother and a devout Catholic. What had she done to deserve this? What had her children done?
The thought crossed her mind that perhaps the answer to those last questions was “nothing”. Did the Lord even exist in a different world? Surely He must; He was God. But still, this revelation had shaken her beliefs more than she wanted to admit. There was never any mention of other realms like this in the Bible, unless this were Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, and for some reason she was sure this place was none of those. Was the Bible wrong? Was everything she believe in a lie? She shied away from the question. The mere suggestion was already too much for her.
Before Gabby knew it she was having trouble breathing, her breaths coming quick and shallow. Her hands began to shake and her head pounded with every beat of her heart. A crippling nausea formed in her gut, doubling her over in her chair.
Chitra entered the room, arms burdened with a large tray covered covered by bowls and plates, to find Gabriela on the verge of another meltdown. Quickly placing the platter on the table, she rushed over to the downward-spiraling mother and hugged her close, whispering soothing words into her ear, telling her that everything was going to be alright. Gradually Gabriela’s breathing slowed.
“I’m sorry,” Gabby mumbled.
“No, don’t be ashamed. You’re going through a lot of pain. It’s only natural. That’s why I said I would be here for you. You don’t have to bear this on your own.”
“Thank you,” Gabby sniffed.
“Come now, let’s eat. I’m sure there’s something here you will enjoy.”
Gabriela sat with Chitra and ate for the first time in what felt like a century. The selection was vast and everything tasted incredible, but she was far too deep in her own problems to really notice.
* * *
Three days later, Gabriela sat on the edge of her bed, drying off after a bath. The last three days had gone by in a flash, which was surely all according to Chitra’s plan. The gorgeous servant dragged her all about the castle and beyond giving her tours of everything there was to see and keeping her mind off of her terrible situation at all possible times. Even that was not enough however, especially at night when the pain of her loss would threaten to overwhelm her. But Chitra kept her vow, staying with the tortured mother through thick and thin. Every night, Gabriela would cry herself to sleep on Chitra’s lap and the servant never once complained.
“Chitra, can you explain something to me?” Gabriela asked as the servant ran a comb through her hair.
“Of course.”
“The way the Emperor described it, me coming here and becoming the Champion was a secret that only he and the other Emperors knew would happen. But you and everybody else I’ve met act like you’ve heard of it before.”
“Oh, there have been other Champions,” Chitra replied. “There just haven’t been any from other worlds. The Champion is named by the Emperor and there can only be one at any time. It is perhaps the most revered position in the Empire. Everybody knows of the Champion. In fact, we had a Champion as recently as about twelve years ago. He spearheaded the conquest of Ofrax.”
“Then what’s so special about me?”
“I’m not sure, but the Emperor believes you to be worthy for a reason so there must be something.”
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Chitra answered the door and had a short, soft conversation that Gabby couldn’t make out before returning, a hint of concern in her eyes.
“Let us get you dressed,” she said. “The Emperor has summoned you.”
Gabriela’s heart skipped a beat. This was the first time that Emperor Haidar Batra had reached out to her since that first terrible day. Could he have found something?
The next few minutes were some of the most tense of Gabriela’s life, so much so that Chitra had to scold her because her impatience was actually making it harder to get dressed. Chitra claimed that the request had not mentioned a reason, so all Gabby could do was twist in the wind as raw, unchecked speculation ran rampant through her mind. As much as she pushed Chitra to run as they walked through the palace, the servant refused to do anything so “unrefined”.
“Should we have made a right back there?” Gabby asked as they walked. “I thought that was the way to the throne room and Emperor’s quarters.”
“The summons said to meet not there but down the Forbidden Stairwell.”
Gabriela gasped. “Is that-”
“I assume it is where you arrived, yes. I’ve never been inside, myself. After all, until just a few days ago it was forbidden to enter unless you were one of three people. This way.”
Soon they passed by four guards surrounding standing outside of an inconspicuous entrance in the back of the palace. Inside were stairs. Gabby recognized those stairs as the first ones she’d sprinted up during her panicked “escape”.
The room below was as she remembered it, strange metal doodads all around the outside of the room. She noticed that somebody had cleaned up the blood and felt a wave of guilt wash over her.
“You are here. Excellent.” A voice pulled her from her thoughts and she turned to find the Emperor entering the chamber, followed by his bodyguard and several other people she did not recognize. Some of the followers were carrying things, though she couldn’t get a good look. “I trust that Chitra has been to your satisfaction?”
“She has been wonderful,” Gabriela replied.
“Good to hear. Let’s not waste any more time. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my scholars believe that they have found a way to send you home.”
It took Gabriela everything she had to keep from crying upon hearing those words. She hadn’t dared hope, for she would not have survived should those hopes prove false.
“Show them,” the Emperor commanded to the people behind him. Three of them stepped forward, and she saw now that they each carried strange crystals inside a complex grey metal frame. One by one, they placed the frames into slots in the machines on the left side of the room. Gabriela’s eyes widened as each machine began to glow once its slot had been filled. Soon after, a pulsating light began to flow down the cables the machines were attached to, following the lines towards the stone platform where she’d first appeared.
“Greetings, Champion. I am Ezika Qenot, Chief Scholar under the employment of his Imperial Majesty,” said another man. He bowed to Gabriela before walking towards the stone platform. “While we still do not understand the vast majority of how these devices operate, we were able to discover that by rotating several of the crystal arrays we could effectively reverse the function of the entire system. That was the easy part. Observe.”
From his pocket, the scholar produced a coin and placed it on the stone. Backing away, he signaled to another man in the back, who did something to a panel behind the machines. Gabriela didn’t pay too much attention to that. Her focus lied squarely on the coin sitting on the stone. The light from the machines began to shine brighter and the flow of the pulsing light down the cables increased dramatically. Then it happened — for a fraction of a second, reality seemed to bend around the coin... and then it was gone.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou-” Gabby sobbed. She couldn’t hold her tears back anymore. Relief flooded through her as she rocked back and forth. He knees felt weak, threatening to dump her on the floor. A strong hand gripped hers and kept her on her feet.
“What’s the bad news?” Chitra asked, straight to business. Oh right, there was more, wasn’t there? Gabby had been too overcome to remember.
The scholar sighed. “That is the most that we are able to send.”
“W-what?” Gabby stammered as her spirit cratered. Now her knees felt weak for an entirely different reason.
“As you can see,” the man explained, “there are twelve devices. We believe each one supplies the apparatus with energy drawn from these relics.”
“These are the Eyes of Pirath, relics created by people from a time before the Empire,” the Emperor chimed in.
“The more of the Eyes of Pirath we put in, the larger the object that we can send,” said Qenot. “We believe, however, that it would take all twelve to allow us to send something as large as a person.”
“Then put the rest on! What are you waiting for?!”
“We do not have all of the Eyes,” Emperor Batra admitted, glumly. “They were lost during a period of great turmoil just before the founding of the Empire and have since spread around the world. We only know the whereabouts of a few, the closest being one held by the Droajan Confederation to the south.”
The revelation rocked Gabriela to her core. She staggered back as if struck, and only Chitra’s quick reactions kept her upright.
“Can we acquire it from them?” the Batranala asked.
“As one of the few surviving relics of the past, the Eyes are considered to be of immeasurable value,” the Emperor said, his face grim. “No nation will willing give one up. I should know, I’ve been trying to buy the Droajan’s Eye for the last fifteen years. There is only one way we would be able to get our hands on all the Eyes, and that it to take them by force.”
This time is was Chitra’s turn to rock back. “Your Eminence! Are you suggesting...”
The Emperor nodded and looked Gabriela in the eyes, his gaze gravely serious. “I believe I understand the prophecy now, my Champion. When the wording said that you would be chosen by the spirits to bring salvation, I had always assumed that it meant for the Empire. But now I see that I was wrong. You were brought here to bring salvation to the world! Become my Champion in both word and deed, and in time we will be able to send you home!”
“Y-you... you want me to help you conquer the world?!” Gabriela asked, aghast.
“It is the only way to get all the Eyes. Some are likely hidden away for safekeeping. Without an army of people searching for them, we might never find a single one!”
“But you want me to... lead an army? To kill people? I can’t do that. I’m not that kind of person!”
“Think about it,” the Emperor suggested. “I do not need an answer now. Just know that without these relics, there is likely no way to return you to your world. Not even I, the most powerful man in Scyria, can change that.”
* * *
Everything felt worse. The moonlight’s glare stabbed harshly into her retinas. The air seemed to cling to her skin, stagnant and humid. Even Chitra’s soft lap felt hard and uncomfortable. Nothing had really changed, she knew. But still, the world felt far less pleasant than it had that morning. It felt heavy — heavy with responsibility.
Gabriela stared off into nothingness, her mind consumed with the Emperor’s offer. There were so many factors to consider that she felt paralyzed. She’d spent the entire rest of the day pondering what to do, and now, in the deepest part of night, she remained completely lost.
On one hand, there was a way home. She’d seen it. It worked. If she wanted, given time and effort, she could see her children again.
On the other hand, that way seemed downright impossible. She wasn’t a killer. She didn’t know how to fight. And even if those things weren’t true, to conquer an entire world was an absurd proposition. Nobody could ever conquer the entire world. It was too vast. And that was if she even survived. No, an ice cube on a sidewalk in the Mexico City summer stood a better chance than she.
It was hopeless. This was worse, somehow. Before, she’d felt helpless, a victim of circumstance, and that had been bad enough. But now she was forced to choose. That made everything from here on out her fault.
“I don’t know what to do, Chitra,” she sighed.
“Hmmmm...” the Batranala responded. After a moment, she lifted Gabby’s head off her lap and stood up, walking away from the bed. “Come with me.”
Confused, Gabriela complied. Chitra led her towards the balcony, stopping just before doorway and reaching into the gap between a nearby bookcase and the wall. To Gabby’s shock, the woman pulled out a long length of rope with a large hook on the end from the gap.
“Wha-? Where did that come from?”
“Mmmmhmmm... that’s a secret,” Chitra hummed as she sauntered out onto the balcony. Gabby followed, emerging out into the glare of the three moons.
Gabriela looked around. Taking up a vast area, the palace grounds stretched off into the distance, the palace walls far enough away that individual people walking the wall were hard to make out. Nearly all of the palace laid dormant in the dead of night, with nobody awake save the random guard making the rounds.
With deft hands, Chitra hooked the rope to the side of the balcony and lowered the rest down, and Gabby’s blood went cold. She could see where this was going, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“You climb down first,” Chitra said.
“N-no thanks. I’m good,” Gabby replied, taking several steps back.
“You can do this no problem. Don’t worry.”
“I can’t. I’m afraid of heights.”
“What? But you’re the Champion.”
“I can’t do it, I’m sorry.”
“Just come over here and look down. It’s not very high at all.”
“I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Come on.”
Biting her lip, Gabby hesitantly approached the balcony’s edge and looked over the side. Immediately her vision spun as vertigo assaulted her mind and she twisted away. Not very high?! The balcony was easily over twenty meters off the ground! “Nope! Nope nope nope. Can’t do it, sorry.”
“Gabby, this is the only way. What if you close your eyes?”
“How is this the only way? Why can’t we just use the doors like normal people?”
Chitra stepped in close. “Because if we leave that way, they’ll know,” she said just loud enough for Gabriela to hear.
“Who?”
“Gabby, this is the palace. Everybody watches everybody in here. Even if you think you’re alone — especially if you think you’re alone — you have to assume that somebody is watching and listening to what you’re doing.”
Gabriela paled. “So they saw the-”
“You are a subject of prophecy, a being from a different world. Do you really think that the Emperor wouldn’t keep track of your every word and action?”
Gabriela’s head swam, mortified at the notion that everybody knew of her moments of weakness.
“This is the only way in and out where nobody can see us. This side of the balcony the view is blocked from whoever is watching over there.” Chitra pointed towards the building nearby. Looking around, Gabriela couldn’t spot any nearby windows where somebody could be watching them at this very moment.
“I’m sorry, Chitra, but even so, I can’t. It’s too much.”
Chitra put her head in her hands and groaned. “What if I tie you up and lower you down? All you’d have to do is close your eyes.”
“I... we could try, I guess. Can you even lift me?”
“Don’t worry about that, I’m a Feeler. Not the strongest, but strong enough for this at least.” She winked. “Helps with the housework.”
“...okay I’ll try.”
“Great, hold still.” Chitra retrieved the rope, taking the other end and tying it snugly around Gabriela’s waste.
“Oof,” Chitra muttered as she lifted the smaller woman, “how are you so heavy when you’re so small?”
“Hey!”
“It will be over before you know it,” Chitra assured her as she began to lower her down. Gabriela closed her eyes and focused on keeping her breathing steady, trying to ignore what was happening like one tries to ignore a needle about to stick into a vein. Then suddenly the rope went slack and her butt touched the floor. Opening her eyes, Gabby found herself sitting in the courtyard, none the worse for wear. That hadn’t been so bad after all.
Like a monkey, Chitra climbed down after, reaching the ground in under ten seconds. Gabby felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight, something she’d been feeling about the other woman fairly regularly. Was there anything the Batranala couldn’t do?
With a strong flick of her arm, Chitra sent a wave along the rope, dislodging the hook latched to the balcony railing and catching it cleanly with her free hand. Gabby grumbled. Now she was just showing off.
“This way,” Chitra said, wrapping the rope around her torso and pulling Gabriela into the shadows. Together they began to navigate the twisting hallways of the palace. They moved slowly and quietly, every so often stopping to hide as a guard came by. Chitra seemed to know when the guards were coming before there were any signs of them, almost as if she’d memorized their routes and timings. Knowing her, that might have actually been the case.
Soon enough they were climbing what felt like an endless spiral of stairs, going up and up and up. Gabriela didn’t recall taking this many stairs during any of the tours. Where were they headed? Just moments later, she had her answer as they emerged from the stairwell atop a large tower.
Gabby staggered backwards at the sight of the land far below, nearly tripping and falling down the stairs. Her fingers dug into the side of the stairwell as she clung to the rock for dear life. Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her throat. They were so high up! Looking out, Gabby could see for kilometers in every direction. Even given the palace’s massive size, how out of sorts she must have been the last few days to never notice such a structure?
It wasn’t until Chitra walked up to the edge, the hooked-end of the rope spinning in her hand, that Gabriela realized that there were no railings here; four columns reaching up from the corners of the tower’s square floor were the only structures higher than the floor itself. That didn’t seem to bother Chitra as she eyed something above her, the rope spinning faster and faster. Following the other woman’s gaze, Gabby brought her eyes skyward and her jaw dropped. It was shaped a bit differently than what she was used to, but Gabby could still recognize the massive metal object hanging above her for what it was: a gigantic bell, easily four meters in diameter.
A soft “clack” brought her attention back to Chitra, who had somehow thrown the rope all the way up past the bell and hooked it to something above. “Come a little closer and we’ll tie you up again,” the Batranala said.
Gabriela grumbled and tried to walk towards the edge, but her body rebelled against the thought. She settled for crawling slowly instead. “Won’t somebody see us doing this?” she asked as Chitra wrapped the rope around her waist.
“You’d be surprised how rarely people look up,” the woman replied before clambering up the rope.
Gabby closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was anywhere else but the jerk of the rope as Chitra pulled her up didn’t help. Neither did the way she swayed in the wind. Slowly but surely she felt herself going higher, until finally she felt Chitra’s soft hand lifting her and depositing her on solid rock once more.
“What is it with you and high places?” Gabriela asked as she opened her eyes. She sat in the middle of a flat square the same size as the one below, though there was at least a small lip a quarter meter high around the outside of this one.
“I guess I just like looking down on people,” Chitra replied. “Come on, lie down.”
Gabby gladly complied, watching her partner as Chitra yawned, stretched her arms up towards the stars, and then fell backwards onto her back with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. The action caught Gabby by surprise. It was the first awkward, unrefined thing she’d seen the beautiful refined woman do since meeting her.
“This is my secret hiding spot,” Chitra said with a smile. She scratched her nose with her whole hand. “This is where I go when I need to get away from all the bullshit in this place. The bell isn’t used except for special occasions, so nobody comes up here, and even if they did they wouldn’t know we were on the roof. Pretty fucking brilliant, don’t you think?”
Gabriela just stared, not quite believing her eyes and ears.
“What?” Chitra asked, her grin widening. “Did you think I was some sort of perfect model of female elegance?” She giggled. “Nobody can keep that up forever. It’s a lot of work, you know. You have to keep the mask on at all times when you’re in the palace. That’s why I started coming up here in the first place. Here I can be myself, if only for a little while.”
“Thank you,” Gabby said, her voice sincere.
“For what? Dragging you here against your will?”
“For showing me your true self.”
Chitra didn’t say anything for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words — another first. After a beat, she turned back to stare at the sky, and Gabby thought she caught a hint of emotion in the servant’s eyes.
“I, uh, wanted to give you an answer to your question. The one about why I was being so kind to you.”
“I thought you already did?”
“No, that... I mean, yes, it is my job to help you and support you as much as I can. But that’s not...” She swallowed, her eyes staring straight up at the night sky but not seeing it. “I never knew my father. He was killed before I was old enough to remember him. My mother, however, I do remember. I remember her well, how she fought furiously, never backing down even as they killed her and everybody else in my family. I’ll never forget the fire in her eyes as she held back a dozen people, buying me time to escape. Even now, all these years later, the sight of her bloody corpse lying on the ground as her murderers laughed and cheered around her comes to me unbidden when I close my eyes.
“For a time after I lost everything, I lost myself as well. I was nothing but a bundle of anger and rage that threatened to explode at any moment. I truly believe that, if I had gone on that way even just a little longer, I would have torn myself apart. But I didn’t, because my sister saved me.
“She’s not my ‘real’ sister, not by blood, but she will always be family to me. She showed me how to deal with my fury and was there for me no matter what. Whenever I needed help, there she was, offering guidance or a hopeful word or even just a body to lean on. She made me what I am today, and I will always be grateful to her for everything.
“I know it’s not the same, exactly, but when I saw you I saw myself, in a way. I saw somebody on the tipping point, and I had to do something about it, like what my sister did for me all those years ago. There just was no way that I could just stand by and watch you fall apart.”
Gabriela sniffed, her eyes welling up with tears at her friend’s tale. Friend? Yes, she decided. Chitra was her friend. Her first real friend in a long time. “Do you still feel it? The anger?” she asked.
“...all the time.”
For a good while they stared up at the star-filled sky, basking in the celestial glow of the two moons. Neither spoke, for there was nothing that needed to be said.
“It’s here,” Chitra announced eventually.
“What is?”
“The thing I brought you here to see.” She pointed a finger off towards the horizon, where a third moon was rising into the sky.
Gabby hadn’t even known there was a third moon, or even a second moon for that matter, given that she slept indoors surrounded by curtains to keep the light at bay. Looking closer, she inspected the moon, comparing it to the others. High in the sky hung a large moon, it’s path beginning to take it back down towards the horizon. Following close behind it was a smaller moon about a tenth of its size. The new moon was perhaps two thirds the size of the largest moon and seemed a tad bit darker than the others, though that could be simply a product of its current position.
“You seemed to be really agonizing over the Emperor’s offer, so I wanted to tell you a story,” Chitra said. “A story my mother told me when I was young about the three moons — a legend from my people called Nartrill’s Chase.”
She pointed up at the new moon. “That’s Nartrill. The story goes that Nartrill was a great and mighty huntress, known throughout the land for her beauty and her ferocious might. Many desired her but she refused to consider anyone who could not beat her in a battle or a hunt. Many tried, but none succeeded until one day a great warrior named Reyquar defeated her in a close fight. They fell in love, became a couple, and had a child, Chera.”
She pointed towards the smallest moon. “That one, there. Sadly, Reyquar died in a battle soon after Chera entered their lives, but Nartrill raised the child on her own, showering her with love. Now that Nartrill was single again, however, more suitors appeared, each seeking her approval. One of them was Treuvax.”
She pointed towards the largest moon. “Treuvax was another powerful warrior, somebody used to getting his way. But he lost to Nartrill, defeated soundly. Unable to bear the shame of losing, he turned his ire on the one who had defeated him, and so when she slept he stole away her child in an act of revenge. Ever since then, Nartrill gives chase in an effort to rescue her only child, the one remaining gift of the one she loved.
“Every night she rises, pursuing Treuvax with everything she has, and every morning Treuvax just barely escapes, eluding her clutches. Nobody has ever seen Nartrill catch Treuvax, or so the story goes. Yet the next night, Nartrill rises once more, flying across the sky after her child and the one that stole her away, refusing to give up. Refusing to falter. Because she knows that, while she has never once succeeded, in the future there is always hope. There is always a chance, no matter how small. And the only way that she will ever truly fail is if she stops trying.”
Gabriela felt shame burning at her soul. Chitra was right. Nartrill was right. To think that she’d entertained doubts, that she’d considered declining her one opportunity to see her children again. Hadn’t she declared that she would do whatever it took to see them grow up healthy, happy, and loved? How could she abandon that vow as soon as it became difficult and still call herself a mother?
An ironclad determination filled her, powerful and resolute. She knew now what she had to do. If she had to kill, then so be it. If she had to conquer, then so be it. She would not rest until she had her children in her arms again. Because she loved them and they needed her, more and more with each passing day.
“Javier, Anahi, please don’t worry,” she said to the stars. “Mama’s coming.”
