Page 21 of Daughter of the Dark Sun
The bright sun greeted Apattar the following day, warming her bones and returning life to the maiden. As the fogs lifted, Apattar realized where she had landed: the ruins of Andeshar, the black scar across the western hemisphere of Eás.
Once, the continent teemed with life, an ethereal emerald land and home of the most beautiful city known to the Elessí. A place where the Sisters were held as equals, a home built for them amongst the Seven Temples. Long had it stood as a place of peace and beauty, until the ambitions of the Dark Goddess sundered the world. Her greed disrupted the First Harmonic, and Discordance entered the World Song; Death Herself touched all.
Stranded on the small rocky island, Apattar’s thoughts turned toward the one who cursed her, the Goddess’s true name lost to time. For so long, Apattar tried to deny that the gods took part in her life, told herself they were better off dead and gone. Those who still followed the old ways would rather face delusion than the truth. As Apattar sat huddled under a ruined stone wall, shivering from the wind, she wondered,am I the delusional one?
If Apattar closed her eyes, she could almost feel the warmth of a godly presence. A peace unlike anything she knew, soothing her aching heart, telling the woman,you are loved.She knew she should feel repulsion. The gods broke the world, left their darkness behind for it to fester until parents hated their children simply for being born at the wrong time.
Yet, could the Dark Goddess be more than history remembered?
Apattar passed the second night on the island with little sleep. Numb from the cold, she opened a portal to the looming black mountain in the distance, following the strange music she hoped would lead to a friendly face. Blistering heat radiated from the shimmering surface like a mirage, a comfort reminiscent of the desert she had begun to miss. Apattar reached a tentative hand forward, ripples spreading out from her fingertips. The hazy mirage warped around her touch before a solid wall stopped her from moving any further. Defeated, damp with sea mist, and chilled from the biting winds, Apattar passed into a stupor, curled on the floor in front of the portal.
The faint sound of chanting and whispered screams echoed within the crumbling black stone walls the second night. Sleep did not come until the sun crested the horizon. When Apattar awoke, a thin broken chain of gold laid in front of the portal, blood smeared across half of it. Never fearful—perhaps to a fault—she spent the day studying the strange item, large enough to be a bracelet or anklet.
In the afternoon, she tried to cross the portal again, following the source of the chanting. The people there might help, send the lost wanderer back to the lands of Hylaea and across the river where she meant to go. Despite the mysteries, Apattar did not feel unsafe. Rather than flee the island and return home like a beat dog, she meant to press on, to find some sort of meaning for this rash decision to leave the meager comforts of home.
Now, three days after finding herself on one of the many rocky remains of Andeshar, a growing sense of urgency clawed at her mind. Traveling out of the Madhira had been difficult, slipping away from her family estate by far the easiest part. Everything before now paled in comparison to the frustrations the island brought.
Why did the failed portal send her here, of all places? Did some cosmic force pull her here, mean for her to find somethingin the desolated lands? Something or someone kept her away from the black mountain—what could be so enticing about the destination? Try as she might, nothing availed her attempts to cross. A heavy sigh deflated Apattar’s will, shoulders slumped forward.
I will die here.
She welcomed the thought. Lost without purpose, clinging to fragments of voices from a mind slipping into madness. Crumbs left for food.
What a stupid girl.
Apattar ran the chain through her bony fingers again and again, hoping something would spark within and show her the way forward. She leaned to stand when a muffled voice came from the direction of the portal at her back. A faint sound, it grew louder with each word, as if someone approached.
“… found enough, Ruarc. It’s time to leave. The girl’s powers are strong, I can’t keep her out for much longer.”
A woman’s voice floated past her ears. The stark white face seen in a haze came back to her. Her rescuer? Why would the woman save her, only to let starvation take the girl? Apattar crept behind a half-crumbled pillar, reaching for the Shadow-weave as she listened. Her skin grew cold as the shadows awoke.
A man grunted an unintelligible curse in response. “There are fivefasnialive. Five more expeditions for fireglass.” An edge of malice undercut every syllable he uttered, voice sharp like a dagger. Apattar imagined him with a thin, angular face that never smiled, the same as the woman she tried to erase from memory.
Tela.
A shiver ran up her spine as the man spoke. “Besides, if you had let the girl drown, or even better yet put the chain on her, we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion. Why even bother coming when the Queen granted…” The man’s voice faded away.
Apattar gasped, then clasped her hands over her mouth, desperately hoping the power allowing her to hear the two strangers did not work the other way. If this woman’s powers could keep someone from entering a portal of their making, she had no desire to meet either of them. Apattar crouched in a stunned silence, staring at the gold chain still clutched in one hand.
Her blood ran cold, realization of what the chain in her hand was washing over Apattar. Rumors came to the desert in her father’s youth brought by the far winds: an ancient power had awoken in the West. People were seen with golden chains around their ankles, crying and weeping as they wrought destruction with their own hands, compelled by their masters. Searching the northern lands in the name of the Dark Goddess for something unknown, taking children as they went.
Rumor passed into a tale told to scare young children; shadows and slaves moving in the dark of night, killing parents and stealing children. Apattar never feared the tale, for being stolen seemed a blessing as a child.
But now it seemed all too real.
With a single thought, Apattar severed the weave of music keeping her portal open. The shifting mirage snapped shut as a final wave of heat burst through the blackened ruins. A flurry of questions ran through her mind as the man’s voice rang in her ears.
Put the chain on her, we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion… put the chain on her… put the chain on her…
Why would a slaver spare Apattar? Surely the woman did not have morals when it came to runaway youth. Why would the music compel her forward to meet these people? The faint screams and chanting from the night before now made sense: souls condemned and dying under the hands of these strangers. Yet, for what? What was this fireglass the man spoke of, and whywas it precious enough to kill for? These could not be the ones who would help; this land stank of death and withered hopes.
The guiding voice whispered in reply.
Yes, yes, these people know, they hunted for the truth, once.
A frustrated scream erupted from Apattar’s throat. “No! Why can’t you tell me what to do? Is my life a game? Am I already insane, pulled toward delusions and death?”
The winds screamed and howled in reply, racing through the black ruins. A low rumble seemed to split the sky open. It began to weep, soft at first. The gentle rains turned to a torrential downpour assaulting the land below. The half-collapsed roof offered meager shelter.
