Ryana would never remember the war. But she would always remember the wave that ended it.
She remembered the dream she was having before they came to wake her. In it her father, mother, and uncle were teaching her to fly. Together they swept above an endless ocean, laughing as they urged her onward. Their wingtips combed the waves, tracing fleeting silver lines across the surface of the sea. There was no beginning to the ocean, nor end to the sky. To them, this was just another day out. Her father winked beside her. Her uncle answered with a wink of his own. Her mother only had to smile and kiss her cheek as she flew upside down beneath her. Cold sea mist kissed both their faces in turn. She giggled and chased after them up into the clouds, wanting to finally see what was up there. She wished she could have flown just a little longer to find out.
Then the dream ended.
Someone was shaking her shoulder for her to wake. When she opened her eyes, she saw that she was on the ground with her mother. Only she was not smiling as she had in the dream. Her mother said they were going somewhere. Before Ryana could tell her about the little details of her dream and ask when they were going flying for real, the doors burst open, and people flooded inside with even paler faces than her mother's. It startled her. She clutched the fat little polar bear knight doll against her chest tighter as they hurried about packing things. The sudden light momentarily blinded her as she squinted at the curtains being drawn then at a large brown mass approaching her.
"We're going on a little trip her nanny said with a reassuring smile. "Away from the coast, but its not forever."
Ryana believed her.
The old walrus continued smiling as she helped Ryana with her shoes, her hands were trembling. Normally Ryana believed that smile. Yet today something felt different. Every few moments, her nanny's warm brown eyes drifted toward the windows.
She watched atop her bed as mother and the servants packed in a hurry. She remembered watching the jewels fall before the cases slammed shut. She was tired and groggy and still not understanding of everything around her that was happening. All this chaos. She began to ask question after question as she rubbed her weary eyes awake.
Why is everyone scared?
No one answered. Only her mother looked to ease her worries.
"Ryana."
Her mother knelt in front of her. Wrapping her scarf around her and hugging her close.
"I need you to be brave."
Ryana nodded. She promised she would be. She didn't know why.
Really she just wanted to go back to bed.
Growing bored while the adults hurried about, she wound her favorite music box and watched it play with her arms folded atop a nightstand. Two tiny birds began to circle one another as their gentle song filled the busy room as people started to argue behind her. She paid them no attention and pulled the music box closer to better hear it. For a moment, everything felt normal again.
Then another sound intruded. This one louder.
She couldn't hear the birds anymore.
The noise was too loud, she complained. Her nanny said the air raid sirens were just to keep everyone safe as she continued working. It would pass. She just had to be patient. She tried to be. But it was distracting.
As Ryana waited for The little birds to complete one final turn, her mother than seized her hand. She forgot to bring the music box, and watched it hit the floor as she left it behind. One bird cracked and slid under the nightstand while the other continued its dance alone.
She wished she could have taken it with her.
Guards surrounded them as they hurried through the palace halls. Ryana didn't know where they were taking her. She had never seen so many soldiers before. The polar bears in silver had always seemed like gentle giants.
But the giants of stained glass were bigger still.
As they ran She glanced up at the great colored windows that watched over the hall. Father's portrait was among them at the very end still not finished. His painted eyes followed her as she ran, but they weren't his eyes. Not really. Her father had always smiled more when he looked at her and held her close. She kept asking when he would come home. Uncle as well. But no one would tell her. The old stern glass faces just stared at her. It frightened her. But not as much as the terrible sounds outside. She wished it would stop.
Then it did.
Everyone stared, confused and frightened, beyond the cold glass windows. Ryana looked out at the vast icy city landscape for a moment. Far away, a lone speck dropped into the sea from something overhead. Hardly anybody saw it. She could barely make it out. She had to squint.
There was a blinding blue light.
Beyond the harbor, the sea slowly stirred awake. Then it came alive.
The wave rose on the horizon. Stretching from east to west. Until there was no horizon at all.
Only a wall.
The shadow swept across the land. Ryana didn't understand as the water climbed higher and higher until it blotted out the clouds she had dreamed of touching. The same sky she still so badly wanted to explore. It wasn't supposed to do that. Why was it doing that? She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. The halls of the palace went dark around her. Daylight gave way in an instant.
It finished eating the sun. But it just kept eating.
First the shore. Then the docks. Then the city. Then it kept coming and coming toward the palace walls. Toward her. She could only watch as the monster swallowed the only world she had ever known. She wanted to run. To fly away. But she didn't know how. No one had ever taught her.
She was too young.
She wanted so badly for this to be another dream. To wake up safely back in her bed beneath her covers.
She closed her eyes and opened them again. The wave was still there.
But the roar hit them all first. It brought with it the wrath of six years of war. It said one thing only.
Enough of this.
The world shook. A sound louder than thunder hurled everyone to their feet. Made their ears ring and the windows rattle. Cracks raced through the white marble walls of the palace and across her father's face. The sound rumbled deep inside her bones as chandeliers shook overhead. The air raid sirens blared louder in the distance as the wave grew closer and closer, eating everything in its path.
Then they went silent.
There was no point any longer.
It all happened so fast, yet to her it seemed forever as the only world she had ever known crumbled around her. She clutched her varangian doll so tightly its stitched shield nearly tore loose as the wave ate the city. Hoping it would protect her. It could not protect her from this.
She lost the doll the moment water engulfed the palace.
Ryana watched as her world ended. And it claimed her as well.
It entered through the windows. Flooding the palace halls she had played through a thousand times, filling every room, every bedchamber, every crevice it could reach. Her music box was carried out to sea still playing it's last song with no one to hear it. Ryana remembered the fear etched on her mother's face as she flew towards her, her hand outstretched, begging her daughter to take it. She really tried to.
She remembered the ceiling collapsing in on itself and falling. Her nanny shoved Ryana aside. A falling pillar struck her instead. Her mother told Ryana to look away from the window. She did not listen. The wave broke the stained glass windows and sent them to hurl through the air towards her like a thousand reflective knives. For a single terrible instant, she saw her own frightened reflection in every shard. Then her father's eyes staring back at her.
Watching.
Smiling.
Shattering.
Her eyes went wide.
Ryana simply stared. She tried to look away. Too late.
Her father's smile would be the last thing she would ever see.
Then came the darkness. The feeling of weightlessness. Losing her doll.
Her back hit something as the current carried her.
She reached out for something, for anything. She clung to what felt like a pillar.
The water tried to tear her away. To drag her under. But she held on. Held on until her nails split. Until her arms burned. Until she could no longer hear everything collapsing around her.
Finally, the current weakened.
She fell from the ruined pillar, trembling and alone in the ruins of what had once been her family's home.
The first thing she then noticed was the pain. Everything hurt.
Something warm was running down her face. She touched her cheek.
Her fingers came away wet. But it didn't feel like water.
Strange.
Her head hurt. She didn't remember hitting her head.
Around her came muffled cries that slowly went silent. Splintering wood. Cracking walls. Distant sounds of ice breaking and waves thrashing. Something big sounded as if it had just toppled over. Or part of it had. She wasn't sure. Her head hurt too much to make sense of anything.
She blinked, trying to check.
Nothing changed.
She blinked again.
Still nothing. Perhaps dust filled the air. Perhaps the lights were out.
Perhaps—
A terrible realization crept into her thoughts.
She slowly lifted a trembling hand toward her face.
She froze. Blood ran from her eyes like tears as she felt the shards.
She called out for anyone to hear her who was left. For her mother. For her nanny. For anyone to come and save her from this new darkness that frightened her. Someone had to be there. Someone had to hear her. She couldn't be alone. She cried until her voice hurt.
No one answered.
Time passed. But she kept trying anyway. She felt her way through the darkness. Using whatever she could to guide her back to her family. She stumbled, she climbed aimlessly only to lose her grip and tumble back down. She climbed again.
Her fingers traced along a wall.
The air smelled of salt and fish.
Somewhere nearby, something flopped weakly in a puddle.
Something sharp bit her foot with a crunch.
Ryana recoiled and felt for another way around. Her fingers felt something above her. She crawled through a narrow opening, tucking her wings in after her. She could hear ocean waves getting louder the further she went. When she reached the end of the tunnel. She felt it.
It was half buried beneath the rubble beside her. She waited beside the sleeping hand in the darkness for what felt like forever. "She squeezed it every so often, hoping it might squeeze back"
It did not.
Curling her wings and knees into herself, she waited for someone to come.
No one did.
Water dripped somewhere overhead.
...plip.
...plip.
The sound echoed across the empty halls.
Then even that stopped.
The silence lingered and stretched on, until it felt as if the whole world had forgotten they both existed. She searched for the hand and found it again. She scrapped aside the snow and gripped it tighter, refusing to let go. It helped. It was becoming colder now. She clung to the fading warmth it had left behind, tracing the grooves of their skin with her fingers, wanting them so badly to wake up. Even after it became cold. She held on anyway. Not wanting to be alone in the dark. Beyond the shattered cliffs, the last of the city broke away into the sea, leaving only pillars of the palace at the very edge to be spared. The waves slowly grew quiet as she waited for someone to save them both.
At last...
Everything was still.
She began to sob at the silence around her. The red froze to her face. Snowfall slowly descended. She could feel it settling over her and encasing her still alive. It was becoming so cold. Colder than she had ever felt. She thought there was no one left but her and the hand.
But there was.
Someone came.
She's over here!! She heard a mountainous voice cry out. I found her! Heavy footsteps thundered closer. Rubble shifted as it was thrown aside to clear a path to her. A pair of paws then slipped beneath her and lifted her gently from the ruins as snow fell from her shoulders. She was freezing. Like ice in his arms.
"I've got you, Snowflower," the great voice rumbled. Glass cracked beneath his feet as the giant stood over her to shield her. "Just hold on."
She did. She let go of the hand that had kept her company. She did not want to. She wished the voice could have carried them both. Her fingers slipped from the cold hand's fingers as the voice carried her away.
Just her.
Cold metal pressed against her cheek as he held her closer, softened by thick bristled fur that kept her warm. Glass crunched beneath each hurried step as the voice broke into a sprint. Beneath it all, she could feel his heavy breath and feel the beat of the soldier's heart. Hearing the sound of his heartbeat against her hand made her less afraid. Soon she could hear someone wailing in the distance as well. The sound grew closer and closer as The paws placed Ryana into a new pair of arms that cradled her like the infant she had been not long ago, refusing to ever let her go and risk losing her.
"I've got you," the new voice whispered as she fell to her knees, the words trembling with promise as she made her vow. "As long as I breathe, no one will ever hurt you again."
She knew that voice.
Mother.
She began to cry as she clutched her mother. Both of them did. Neither could stop. Neither could let the other go as the last heartbeat of an empire fell silent around them. Ryana wept. Wept for the tears she could no longer shed. For her nanny. For her lost music box. For the home she had loved so much that was now gone. But most of all for her mother's face. For the warm smile she knew she would never see again. All that remained were memories of it. She would carry them forever. And never let them go. Always.
With trembling hands her mother tore a strip from the hem of her own white gown and wrapped it gently over Ryana's eyes as a bandage—not to heal them, for she knew she could not—but to shield them from the blowing snow and drifting ash. It was a vain attempt she knew. She did not care.
As her mother collapsed onto her knees, she could only feel guilt. Guilt at not having been able to save her fully. Guilt at not having done more. She couldn't bear to hear her daughter cry. Please don't cry. She muttered again and again. Ryana kept crying regardless in small choking sobs. The music box that had lulled her to sleep and soothed her was lost forever. Taken by the waves. So she would become what she needed her to be. Her warmth in the darkness.
Her mother brushed a strand of white hair away from the blindfold. Took a deep breathe to muster the last of her courage to recall what she remembered of the song, And with a quivering frightened voice, Veodora Aurelia held her daughter to her chest and began to hum the melody the sea had stolen from her.
The song was imperfect. Fragmented. Nothing like how it should have been. She did not care. She swallowed hard before pressing on. Her voice trembling and stuttering from her tears that would not cease as she wiped the blood from her child's face. But she had to keep going. She had to. For her. Only her. From this day until forever. She had to keep fighting.
Ryana would never remember what came after. But she would remember her mother's voice as it fought to keep her tethered in darkness. As the dust and ash settled through smoke and snow. And the cries and searches continued long into the night. That song would stay with both of them as the dawn rose across a broken world. Forever.
But she was not the only one to survive.
Far across the sea, word had already spread to even the most remote places.
On a lonely little island, An emperor starving beside his men in a last holdout had just surrendered. There was nothing left to fight for he knew.
People are crying with joy because of it. Exhausted Soldiers who had dreaded going south instead wake to learn they are going west instead. Some cheer. Some cry. Most are in disbelief. Everyone had said this would be over before winter. That was six winters ago. They could not believe they were going home. But they were.
The war was over.
Ships sound their horns and headed home.
Along green ocean coasts, of blue, teal, and grey waters church bells rang.
newspaper boys shouted themselves hoarse.
Newspapers announced:
War over!
Soon it wasn't enough to read it. It had to be shouted in the streets.
Peace was a word that had long felt unfamiliar. This was long over due.
THE WAR IS OVER!
Strangers embraced strangers in the streets. People cheered. Parents pushed through crowds huddling toward the docks, searching for familiar faces among the hundreds of returning ships.
At one harbor. A young shark who had spent years waiting beside her mother finally saw the rest of her family coming down the gangway, the sunrise at their backs. She could tell who they were. She always knew. She ran to embrace them with tears in her eyes as her father spun her around and around. For the first time in years, her family was complete once more.
But one family wasn't.
Ryana could hear or see none of it. No bells. No cheers. No smiles. No sunrise. Only her mother's song remained against the silent snowfall. Here and now. Collapsed in the snow, clutching each other for warmth beneath entangled wings. A few paces away, the giant lowered his helmet in shame. He had sworn to protect them and their home. Now there was nothing left for him to protect but them.
So he stayed.
Beyond them all, the ice simply ended. Where a city had once stretched toward the horizon, there was only sea. Farther out, fragments of home drifted away as newly born icebergs. The sea claimed them as well. They were not the victors. Only the defeated. They had nothing to celebrate. So they would hold on to what they had left.
Each other.
And together they endured.
It was enough.
The children who lived through this day would inherit a different world.
What they chose to do with it would become the story that followed.