The morning broke over the high towers of the palace with a strange, breathless stillness. The air carried a sense of shifting tides, of forgotten truths stirring awake, of bloodlines rising after a hundred years of quiet.
Inside her chamber, Sakina moved quickly and deliberately. Scrolls were folded with care, ancient silk-wrapped maps placed into crates, herbs tied and sorted. Her hands never hesitated, but her mind wandered far ahead, toward the hidden truth she had revealed, and the girl she had sworn to protect.
She did not hear Sasha until the girl was already standing in the doorway. Sasha, sixteen now, was like a quiet breeze, soft, observant, and never intrusive, with curls braided neatly down her back. But today, the palace felt heavier. And Sasha knew.
She stepped inside. "Mother," she said gently.
Sakina looked up, startled. "Sasha," she exhaled softly.
"You are leaving?" Sasha asked.
"Yes. At dawn." Sakina attempted a small smile. "You should be resting."
"That's why I came." Sasha's fingers twisted in her tunic. "The guards are packing. Everyone's whispering. You're going somewhere important… and dangerous."
Sakina set the scroll down a little too slowly. "It isn't dangerous. You do not need to worry."
"If it wasn't dangerous," Sasha said, stepping closer, "you wouldn't leave me behind."
Sakina was about to offer an excuse, but Sasha continued, her voice growing steadier. "It's about Aeryn, isn't it?"
Sakina stilled. "She is her royal highness," she corrected automatically. "You cannot call her by, "
"She's changing," Sasha didn't let her finish. "I haven't seen her closely in years, but I remember her. The quiet girl. The one who stopped talking. And now everyone whispers her name with fear. They call her the Witch Queen." Her voice was aching, confused. "How did that child become this? What changed her? Why is she acting so strangely?"
Sakina sat down. "I remember Aeryn when she was ten," she said quietly. "She laughed easily then. But the court, and its poison, stripped things from her, piece by piece. She stopped smiling. Stopped trusting."
Sasha listened without blinking.
"They thought she was going mad. But I was there the first time her power broke through. A drop of blood, Sasha. One drop. And the earth trembled. She cried for hours, but the court never forgot the day they realized she wasn't just a child." Sakina took Sasha's hand. "She didn't change. She remembered."
"Remembered what?"
"Her blood," Sakina said softly. "Her fire. Her water. Her pain. And everything it cost the women before her. Something inside her simply refused to forget."
"But… how is that possible?"
Sakina gave a faint, almost bitter smile. "Take a child, kill its parents before its eyes, and then try to force it into submission. Some break. Some… break differently."
"Some break and some break?" Sasha echoed, frowning.
"Some break themselves trying to submit," Sakina explained. "And some learn to break others before they can be hurt again. Aeryn is… both. And neither." She looked toward the window, where storm clouds gathered slowly. "The blood in her remembers pain as a weapon. The fire remembers loss as fuel. And the water; it remembers everything."
"The court fears her because she cannot be bent. Not until she stops yearning."
"Yearning?"
"Yearning for a home," Sakina said. "For a family. For a life that wasn't stolen from her." The simplicity struck Sasha deeply.
"But why are you leaving? Where are you going?" Sasha whispered.
Sakina looked at her hands. "She's going to find others. Girls from the Azure Dominion, the Cinder Hegemony, the Vesper Plateaus… those with something hidden in their veins. She wants to train them. Protect them."
"Train them in magic?" Sasha asked.
"In truth," Sakina corrected. "In power. In the arts meant to stay buried. She wants to make sure no girl ever suffers what Hawasa did. What Anya did. What she herself survived."
"She's not doing it for power?"
"She's doing it despite power," Sakina murmured. "Because she knows what it does when greedy hands reach for it. Her father tried to hold it. But the trinity refused them. It found her instead. The first daughter in a hundred years."
Sasha clenched her hands. "Then… why not let her carry it alone?"
Sakina gave her a sharp, silent look, The answer is obvious, child.
Finally, Sasha said, her voice trembling but her eyes fixed: "I want to go with you."
"No." Sakina stood immediately. "Absolutely not. You are not trained for this."
Sasha rose too. "You taught me everything so I could help you one day. Isn't that day now? If there are girls out there suffering because of what they carry… I want to help them too. Please."
Sakina stared at her, then cupped her cheek. "You are braver than I was at your age," she whispered. "But the road ahead is cruel."
"Then teach me to walk it."
Silence stretched, tense and decisive.
"Alright," Sakina finally breathed. "But if you come, you obey her highness. Always. Without question."
"I will," Sasha promised.
"Go. Pack only what you can carry. We leave before dawn."
Sasha rushed out of the chamber, heart pounding. Left alone, Sakina allowed herself one small, tired smile. The journey ahead was terrifying, but Aeryn would not walk it alone, and neither would she.
.
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