Page 25 of Daughter of the Dark Sun
“Well,” Laisha paused as if thinking to herself. “Well, I don’t know, not anymore. The years melt together so easily, but I think it must be past three thousand years now.” She spoke so nonchalantly, a boring fact rather than something breaking apart Apattar’s reality. “You owe me two questions now. First, what is your name,neha?”
Apattar’s mind reeled, barely able to comprehend over threethousandyears of life. What power did this woman hold? How many thousands must have died at her hands, wills bent andbroken for whatever life she led? Apattar knew she should be terrified, should run away. Yet, the woman awed her. Power rippled off Laisha, the Shadow-weave coursing through her. The void consuming Apattar’s soul swam through her body, reaching forward, begging to escape and reveal her for what she was.
“No stranger has ever cared enough to ask my name before,” she heard herself saying. “Apattar, that is my name. Silent Dove, in my mother’s tongue. Though,evranenithis one they call me as well.”
The words startled Apattar as they came from her mouth, as if another spoke them instead. She waited to hear a scream or curse from the white woman, but her pale violet eyes only softened in response. For a moment, Apattar almost thought Laisha would run forward and embrace her.
Laisha took a step forward, a thin smile spreading across pale purple lips. “Yes, yes, it is you! Oh, sweetling, you came as she said you would!” A giggle erupted from Laisha; it sounded wrong, as if she had only heard the sound written in tales and never did it herself. The raspy sound faded. “I knew it, I knew it. Oh, the traitors, they cannot deny Her melodies forever. I have waited centuries to see your face!” The pale woman struggled to contain her excitement, her words rushed and filled with delirious joy.
She knows, she heard. My daughters, go together!
The silky, cool voice of her unseen guide flowed across Apattar’s mind, urging the woman toward the stranger. Apattar’s heart seized at the words.
“I-I don’t understand. You’ve been waiting for me? Wait…” Realization spread across Apattar’s face. Everything seemed to fall into place. Her birth, during the eclipse. Did Laisha think the cursed woman was special? “I am not a blessing. Have you not heard ofevranenith? I am cursed, the moo—”
“Cursed? Oh, no, this is a blessing, Apattar who calls herselfevranenith. The night is not feared, not where I am from. Haven’t you grown tired of the aching void inside, always hungering, always consuming? You have poured your sorrows and despair into the void, but it is not enough, is it? Let me help you, please. I… we cannot lose you again,neha.”
Laisha reached a hand out to Apattar, milky white fingers brushing a stray black curl out of the young woman’s face. Her touch reminded Apattar of Ninann, tender and soft. Apattar’s flesh crawled, begging for more.
“How do you know all this about me?” Apattar whispered, looking back into pale violet eyes nearly as colorless as the rest of the woman.
“I read your mind the first day you tumbled through your portal into the sea. I was… meditating on this island,” the woman paused, long enough to catch Apattar’s attention. “Imagine my surprise when a brown-skinned girl fell from the sky! My brother wanted to recruit you, but I knew. And now, here we are. Strange, isn’t it?”
The two stood in uneasy silence, taking each other in.
“I’ve been running from fate my whole life. I don’t even know why I’m here, I only knew I needed to run and find freedom, no matter the price. I… I am nothing.” Apattar’s voice quivered as she spoke, a wave of repressed emotions washing over the woman. The reality of her stark loneliness this past year crushed Apattar, a thousand hands squeezing the last life from her heart. Her throat seized, strangling each word.
“Then become something,” whispered Laisha, a crooked finger raising Apattar’s chin until their eyes met. “The world is broken. Would you fix it if you could? Or fade away, lose every hope and dream to the void eating your soul? I can help. I sense in you the same desires I have. Freedom, revenge… happiness.Very few are given everything simply for existing. You must take control or flounder.”
Apattar stepped back from Laisha, unsure what to make of the pale woman’s offer. On the surface, it seemed enticing. The woman who moved like a cat knew much and did not seem to harbor any ill-intents. However, years of guarding against the senseless cruelties of her father and nearly everyone else in her life rendered Apattar near incapable of trust.
The daughter of snow and shadow will not betray you. You are what she seeks, I promise. Trust me, please.
“Why do you care to help me when you enslave others? If you know who theevranenithare, you know I am not special. I hear the screams of a thousand dead in my sleep. Why leave them to die, why wait for me?”
Laisha huffed, soft violet eyes darting back and forth as if trying to decide what to say. After a long pause, she spoke.
“Even I do not understand fully the designs of my Goddess. She is the echo of a memory, even among my people. Once, we tried to learn the truth of the Discordance, but the past is cloaked in darkness we cannot untangle. It is impossible for me to save all, but our Oracle told me of you. You, the daughter born when the moon overshadowed the sun, touched with the blood of gods who once walked our land. You will achieve greatness, Apattar, who calls herselfevranenith.”
The breath caught in Apattar’s throat at the mention of her birth and heritage. Did Laisha know of her home? Apattar had not bothered to cover her blue doves and flaming suns, for who outside of the Madhira would know what they signified?
Her thoughts shifted to the mention of others like her, those slain as they drew their first breath or left to die in the cold and rain. Given back to the world unwanted and unloved. The practice left a gnarled hole in Apattar’s heart. Once, when sneaking out of the city on a dark and moonless night, Apattarheard the screams of a woman begging for mercy, asking for the child to be spared, all her others cruelly taken away by death.
The world feared the Dark Goddess and her children. Perhaps Apattar held the cold, endless void inside her fragile and broken heart for a reason.
“I have always run from fate,” she breathed.
Laisha closed her eyes and curled her hands in front of her face, muttering something under her breath. Apattar staggered back against the wall, the breath knocked from her body. Shadows formed in the pale woman’s hands, sinewy tendrils coiling around her wrist and racing up her arm. A dagger with a black sawtooth blade appeared in her hand. Apattar could feel the same crackling and hungry void tangled inside her heart on the blade. Laisha’s eyes opened, now black as night.
“Run toward it. Fate broke the world once. Maybe you are meant to heal it.”
The two women looked at each other in silence. Tendrils of black nothingness seeped from Apattar’s fingertips. The familiar coolness of the Shadow-weave curled around the young woman, wisps of black snaking across her eyes. A haunting song filled her mind, pulling every agony to the surface, every heartache and moment of torment until she collapsed into the void. The empty feeling consumed every crevice of her body, hollowing it out, all the torment and pain, self-loathing and hatred from years of denying desires she thought a sickness.
Apattar felt herself floating, pulled up by some invisible force. She looked down and saw Laisha on her knees, staring up with a look of awe.
fourteen
Fate Twisted
