The book closed with a soft, final sigh of old pages. The memory still clung to her skin; Hama's cries, the blood-soaked cell, the child torn from her arms. Aeryn rose slowly from the stone pedestal, her hands shaking, eyes wide and haunted. She did not know how long she had sat in that chamber below the throne room, how long the bookish ghosts had whispered. But she carried them now, in her very marrow.
The torchlight flickered along the winding halls as she made her way up. Her body felt heavier than it ever had, as if the blood within her had thickened with revelation. She was staggering across the corridors. When she reached her private chamber, Sakina was already waiting for her. The elder woman stood by the hearth, her back straight, her gaze patient, as if she'd known Aeryn would come.
Aeryn entered silently, her foot streaked with ash and dust. She didn't look at sakina, and sat down on couch.
Nor did sakina ask anything. One look at aeryn and she already presumed what she had just underwent.
Finally after a few minutes aeryn simply looked up, her throat dry, and eyes full of questions.
Sakina stepped closer and sat neat her knees. "You saw it, didn't you? You found the voices."
Aeryn gave a faint nod. "She was raped," she whispered, the words foreign and violent on her tongue, she was disgusted of the mere word. "She tried to kill the child... and they took it. She never saw her child again."
Sakina closed her eyes, her expression unreadable. "Yes. That is the truth buried beneath the years. Tried so hard to be kept from you"
"Why? Why no one ever told?" Aeryn asked, voice rising. "Why was this hidden? Why does no one speak her name? Why me? Why Now? Why? Sakina Why?"
Sakina got on her feet and turned toward the hearth and tossed a handful of black powder into the flames. The fire crackled, shifting to an eerie blue, casting strange shapes on the walls.
"Because power rooted in pain is often feared," she said. "And this power; your power; is not only old. It is cursed. Twisted through generations. You, Aeryn, are the first to carry all three veins of it in nearly a century. And no one knows it. They thought that it had extinguished. That it had died…but…"
Aeryn blinked. "Three veins? Died?"
Sakina nodded slowly. "There are ancient blood magic tomes hidden deep beneath the citadel. Buried by women who once ruled when men could not even comprehend the depth of magic they wielded. Your ancestors. Hama's daughter was one of them. A legacy born of both the Water Nation and the Fire Nation. A child of fire and ice, blood and bending. A royal prestige."
Aeryn's breath caught. "You mean... Hama's child? It was a daughter? She survived? How? What happened to her?"
Sakina turned to her. "Yes. The child lived. Raised in secret by a barren concubine of the fire dynasty at the time. The guard was killed after he stole the baby away from her mother's arms, because he knew whose kid it was. She was named Anya. Concubine got prestige and was promoted to the position of royal consort because everyone thought she bore king's daughter. But when anya came of age, she uncovered her truth. That she was born of rape. That her mother after decades of suffering and captivity ran away and got her freedom. That the gift; no, the curse; of bloodbending ran in her very veins. Who told her? Well the very consort who stole her. She tried to control her saying you are nothing but an illegitimate child of a woman who didn't even want you. Anya did her own research; it was easy for her to find it out afterall she was a beloved princess and finally found out the truth. She wrecked havoc afterwards and that's history."
Aeryn sat down, knees weak, her hands pale.
"Anya," Sakina continued, "when she found her mother, she was recaptured by the fire nation because of her heinous murder acts as a bloodbender. She was hurt. She was confused. She knew her mother didn't want her. But finally when she had the spirit to meet her, to come face to face with her; hama died. Without even knowing that her blood and flesh was alive, carrying her very legacy that she so eagerly transferred to katara. Anya was the one who founded the Sigil Dynasty. With nothing but fury and inherited pain. She unlocked the art that her mother had begun in torment. And from it, she shaped power so raw, so terrifying, that three nations knelt before her. She didn't take the throne. She built it."
"I don't understand sakina… everything is mixing up!" aeryn held her head tightly. Then after a while asked.
"how hama got her freedom, how she ran away?" Aeryn asked quietly.
Sakina's expression darkened, the fire casting sharp lines across her face. "She killed the guards who tried to touch her again. She waited until she had mastered her art in secret. Then one full moon, she broke free. She escaped the prison and vanished into the Fire Nation. For years, she lived as an innkeeper in a quiet village, hiding in plain sight."
Aeryn listened, barely breathing. "then why she was re-caught?"
"Your highness, she ran away but she never forgot," Sakina said. "Every full moon, she used her gift to kidnap villagers. She dragged them to a cave in the mountains, where she kept them imprisoned. She told herself it was justice. Revenge. For the chains they once bound her in. Her pain had grown so sharp it no longer recognized innocence."
"And then?"
"Then she met Katara," Sakina said. "A young waterbender from the Southern Tribe. Katara didn't know what Hama was. At first, she thought her kind. But Hama taught her the bloodbending art; and Katara, horrified, refused it. Until she was forced to use it against Hama herself. To save her friends."
Aeryn frowned. "Katara..."
"Yes," Sakina said gently. "The very girl Hama entrusted her secret to. She studied it, modified it, and then buried it. She feared it would destroy more than it could ever protect. Then after their battle, Hama was captured by the village. The Fire Nation released the other waterbenders, but Hama was too dangerous. She was sent to the Southern Water Tribe with one condition: she must never leave Wolf Cove."
Aeryn's brows furrowed. "So she lived?"
"For a while," Sakina answered. "But she was targeted. Veterans of the Fire Nation, still bitter with scars she had left behind, ambushed her on her journey. She fought. But she was old. Eventually, they captured her again. She died in their custody; of old age; quietly, forgotten by most."
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