I stared at myself in the mirror.
For months, I had avoided doing that. I didn’t like to look at myself
and see a stranger who was nothing but a mimicry of a person I used to be many years ago. Now, for the first time in a long time, I realized that perhaps there was more to see in myself.
Or perhaps I only felt it because I was dressed… well, like this.
My gown was long enough to brush the ground, sparkling ebony chiffon pooling at my feet. The fabric was dark as the night sky, woven with tiny threads of silver, so as the dress hugged the swells or dips of my body, the light did too. It was tight across my breasts, my waist, and my hips, before flaring out into loose layers of black over my legs, with a high slit that allowed me to walk somewhat easily. The neckline plunged in a sharp V that ended at my sternum, held up by silver straps over my shoulders. Two long strips fell down my back like a cape.
My face had been painstakingly painted, my lips colored with a tiny brush dipped in crimson, my eyes lined and powdered and lined again with shades of purple and brown and black. My hair piled atop my head, several strands of deep red dangling around my cheeks.
When the maid finally allowed me to look in the mirror, the shock of it stunned me into silence. In the week since we had returned from Niraja, I’d felt like an exhausted, walking corpse. Now, though my injuries had not fully healed, I looked like an entirely different person.
“Beautiful,” the maid said. She sounded a bit surprised.
At first, it seemed strange to adorn this body. Like decorating a prison cell. But…
I drew my eyes over my form. I had grown more muscular, my posture stronger. I no longer looked like someone inhabiting a vessel that did not fit me. This was a powerful body. I had used it to do incredible things.
Perhaps that was worth adorning.
Still, something here didn’t seem quite right.
The maid let out a strangled gasp of horror as I drew the back of my hand across my eyes, smearing the sharp perfection of my eyeliner, and then my lips, blotting down the bright red.
“Oh no, why would you—”
At last, I smiled at myself. My lips were stained as if by berries. Darkness now smudged my eyes, enhancing their size and downturned shape.
There. This was me. “Much better,” I said.
The maid looked like she was about to cry.
The door opened, and Meajqa and Luia entered. Meajqa’s eyes ran up my body, brows arching. “I suspected you’d clean up nicely, but I have to say, this exceeds my expectations.”
He looked magnificent himself. He wore black trousers that followed the shape of his legs and a long jacket made from threads of many shades of gold. A long swath of metallic bronze draped from his hip over one shoulder, hanging down his back between his wings. I’d seen many of his kind wear similar clothing, but I wondered if this style was chosen for reasons beyond fashion—the fabric partially covered the stump of his missing wing.
Luia was just as impressively dressed, donning embroidered trousers in deep emerald green and a long white jacket that flared out behind her with every step. Still, she looked unhappy. “We should be working,” she grumbled. “Not wasting time on festivals.”
Meajqa scoffed. “So negative. We have dead to send off. We have a victory to celebrate and a war to survive. It sounds like a perfect time to get uproariously drunk to me.”
What he did not say aloud still came to me clearly: Because we might not have the chance to again.
Tonight was the Eve of Occassus, the largest celebration in Ela’Dar all year. Meajqa described it to me as a festival of death and rebirth, intended to celebrate the cycle of life and bring forth a new year. The night would
begin with a ceremony to send off the dead and end with a feast to bring in new life.
“Along with all the other fun that entails!” Meajqa had said, with a sly smile and a pointed look. I did not understand what he meant and did not ask.
In some ways, it seemed strange to celebrate now. The casualties from Niraja had barely been laid to rest. The wounded were only just starting to heal. Even the shallowest of my own injuries had hardly begun to scab over. And of course, we all knew it was only the beginning. I had tasted blood and I wanted more, and I knew I was not the only one who did. I had watched humans kill my people. We had allowed a terrible and powerful
magic to slip from our grasp.
But with that defeat had also come victory. We had dealt a devastating blow to Ara’s forces. And we had reclaimed our own power—I had reclaimed my own power.
So perhaps I understood when Meajqa had said, “The dead should be mourned properly, and there is no greater collective mourning than the Eve of Occassus. And our victory should be celebrated properly, and there is no greater night of celebration, either.”
So even with our society in shambles, the festival went on.
“I, for one, expect this to be the best of our celebrations,” Meajqa continued. “Death is a powerful aphrodisiac, and it came closer than ever this week. Besides, if this war kills us, at least we will have had our fun before we go.” His smile stiffened in that way I could always recognize— when it shifted from something genuine to something forced. “During Occassus last year, I was locked up in that Aran bitch’s dungeon, getting my wing hacked off. I plan to enjoy this one to the fullest.”
He lifted his glass and took a long drink.
Luia eyed him, disapproval warring with concern. “You should slow down. You have scriptures to read.”
“I am perfectly fit for reading scriptures, thank you.”
I looked past Luia and Meajqa, to the empty hallway beyond them.
“Where is Caduan?” I had barely seen him since our return to Ela’Dar, save for a few brief appearances during which he seemed tired and disengaged.
“He has many required duties ahead of the festival,” Luia said, as we went to the door. “You’ll see him there.”
Meajqa again looked me up and down. “He’ll certainly be happy to see you,” he said, draining his glass.
 |
The funeral took place under the moonlight at the edge of the palace grounds, where the mountain rocks met the forest. The entire area, including the city streets, had been cleared and meticulously adorned for the occasion, with every inch of the walls covered in flowers and greenery, intertwined with silver fabric and intricate decorations.
Caduan and Meajqa stood by a stone platform, which was empty except for a small table with a ceramic bowl at its center. The rest of us gathered around the stage, the crowd so dense that it extended far into the city’s streets.
I stood near the front with Luia, watching Caduan and Meajqa. Despite the elaborate outfits worn by many, Caduan’s attire was relatively simple, yet he appeared more striking than anyone else. He wore deep green and gold, with a perfectly tailored coat and a bronze cape draping down his back. It complemented the shade of his stag-horn crown, which, though rarely worn, seemed perfectly at home atop his auburn waves.
I found myself wanting him to notice me—why did I want that?—but he paid no attention to the crowd. He simply ascended the steps with Meajqa, turning his back to us to face the forested hills and the distant moon. Meajqa held a large, leather-bound book from which he began to read. He recited a story about death and the forces it fuels in the world. I listened, captivated. But only a few lines into the speech, Meajqa’s voice wavered, and the words began to blur together like running ink.
paint. He needed to stop, then start, then stop, then start again.
Warmth crawled up my neck as I watched him, ashamed on his behalf.
He glanced up at the crowd just once, for a split second, and he looked like an embarrassed child.
But there was not a hint of judgement in Caduan’s form as he calmly turned to Meajqa, laid a hand on his shoulder, took the book, and began to read.
Meajqa turned his back and faced the sky, hands clasped before him, and Caduan took up the verses. His voice was smooth and melodic, like the sound of the wind through the trees—a part of nature, speaking of natural things.
“Is he speaking to the gods?” I whispered to Luia. She gave me a strange look. “The gods?”
“Is it prayer?”
“There are no gods, Aefe.” She said this as if it was obvious. “He is speaking to us.”
Caduan’s deep voice rang out with solemn reverence, speaking of the cycle of death and life the way one would address a power so much greater than themselves.
He is speaking to us.
Without thinking, I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my own heartbeat.
A power greater than ourselves.
Perhaps we didn’t need gods to find our place in something larger.
Perhaps it already existed in us.
When the verses ended, Caduan turned the book to its final page and withdrew a piece of parchment. He unfolded it as he and Meajqa gathered around the ceramic bowl, both looking out to the forest.
And then Caduan began to read names. The first one was Iajqa Sai’Ess.
It was, I realized, a list of the dead.
With each name, Meajqa threw a handful of ash into the sky. The ashes swirled against the stars for a moment, as if carried on an unnatural current of wind, dancing before the moon before falling into the trees below.
Caduan just kept reading, and reading, and reading.
The crowd grew so silent it was like we had all stopped breathing. “Normally this is only a few names long,” Luia whispered, her voice
slightly rough.
But Caduan read name after name after name. The floor of the forest must have been covered with ash.
