My name is Tisaanah Vytezic. I am from Threll. I am friend of Zeryth Aldris. I must speak to him.
I practiced those words obsessively, rolling the round Aran sounds on my tongue over and over again.
I whispered them to myself as my horse and I galloped across the plains in a frantic attempt to outrun the sunrise and my blood loss and the constant, looming possibility that Esmaris’s forces would come searching for me.
I muttered them under my breath as I fought fever dreams, when I was at risk of collapsing, tucking myself beneath rocks and into tiny caves that hardly fit my body.
My name is Tisaanah. I am from Threll. I am friend of Zeryth Aldris.
They echoed from the plains into the forests, where my poor horse tripped and snapped a leg, and I was forced to put the beast out of its misery. I ate what I could of it that night, apologizing to it profusely the entire time.
They circled through my brain as I staggered through the forest on foot, pressing myself to trees at any sound of voices or footsteps.
I repeated them as a distraction, a reminder, during nights when I would stare at the blood on my fingers with growing concern, binding my bandages tighter and tighter to quell the bleeding.
And they shouted in a cry of triumph when I finally, days or weeks later, dragged myself out of the forest to see the beautiful, vast, powerful sea for the first time. They were momentarily quieted as everything inside of me went still at the sight.
I am friend of Zeryth Aldris. I must speak to him.
Those words lingered in the back of my mind as I stumbled through awkward interactions with nearly every sailor at the docks, trying to find someone who could take me to Ara. They spoke a different dialect of Thereni than I did. If it wasn’t so frustrating, it would have been funny that I could understand them better if they were speaking Aran.
My name is Tisaanah Vytezic.
But then, they danced like a song when I finally boarded a boat, as I watched the Threllian shores shrink into the distance and let the salty air comb my hair.
I practiced them between bouts of vomiting when I grew relentlessly seasick.
I comforted myself with them when I dreamed of Serel, of the betrayal in Esmaris’s dying gaze, and woke up in sweats.
When those sweats grew hotter.
When a fever overtook my thoughts, plunging me into delirium.
My name is Tisaanah, and I have abandoned everyone I love.
And I am a killer.
And I am going to die before I make it to Ara.
But I didn’t die.
I was close by the time that ship docked in Ara’s harbors. I only vaguely recall dragging myself out of the boat and staring up at those glistening glass towers — one of silver, one of gold — in awe.
I must have barely made it to the Orders’ gates.
I’m told I collapsed when the door opened. That I choked out, in raspy, fractured Aran, “My name is Tisaanah. I am from Threll. Friend of Zeryth Aldris. I must speaking him.”
I remember the way the woman’s silver hair caught in the waning sunlight, how I let out a weak, shuddering cry when she touched my back.
But that’s all.
