Page 94 of Dark Shaman: Eternal Hope
They cleaned everything meticulously, removing any trace of their work. The glasses would need to be returned to the kitchen somehow, but that could wait for later. For now, they had what they needed.
"We should keep to our normal routines," Tamira said. "We need to be visible." She looked at Tula. "You can stay here if you want. You have a good excuse."
Tula shook her head, and Eluheed caught a sheen of tears in her eyes. "I'm never going to see them again," she said. "I might as well spend the last day here with my sisters."
38
TAMIRA
When the bathroom door clicked shut behind Eluheed and Tony, who'd left to continue their work on the indoor garden, Tamira turned to find Tula gripping the edge of the vanity, her knuckles white against the marble.
"Tula? What's wrong? Are you really feeling nauseous?"
Tula shook her head, and then a sob escaped her. "I don't know how I'm going to do this." Her shoulders started shaking as tears streamed down her face. She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds, but they came anyway—raw, desperate gasps that seemed torn from somewhere deep inside.
"Oh, Tula." Tamira wrapped her arms around her.
"I'm never going to see them again," Tula choked out between sobs. "Areana, Sarah, Beulah, Liliat, Raviki. They're my family. How am I supposed to just leave them behind? Can we take them? I mean all but Areana. They can sit on our laps. He wouldn't miss any of us. He only cares about Areana."
The words hit Tamira like a punch to the gut, and suddenly her own eyes were burning. While she'd been focused on the escape, on the logistics and dangers, she'd managed to shove her feelings aside, but now they crashed over her, amplified by the tsunami of Tula's emotional turmoil.
"We can't take them," she whispered, her own tears falling now. "I hate to say it, but we can't trust them with this secret. They might complain, but they are content to be here. They are like birds who forgot how to fly and are afraid of the sky."
Tula nodded. "I know. I was like them until this." She put a hand over her belly. "The outside world terrified me, and I had much less reason than you to fear it. You are so brave."
Tamira shook her head. "I'm not brave. I'm desperate. I need to get Elias out of here and find my son."
They stood next to the vanity, holding each other as grief poured out of them. Grief for the family they were abandoning, for the relationships that had sustained them through millennia of captivity, for the familiar rhythms of their lives for the past five thousand years.
Something about what Tula had said didn't sit well with Tamira. What had she meant by having less reason to fear the outside world? But Tamira didn't have the energy to examine her words.
"I'm afraid that Navuh will take his anger out on them," Tula sniffled.
"He won't," Tamira said, though she wasn't sure of that. "They're too valuable to him. And they are innocent. They don't know about our escape plan, and they won't know where we've gone. Even we don't know where we are going."
"Areana suspects something." Tula moved to sit on the edge of the tub. "She gives me the look. The one that says she knows more than she lets on."
Tamira sat beside her, their shoulders touching. "If she knows, she's choosing to let us go."
They sat in silence for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts. Then Tula let out a shaky laugh. "Look at me, falling apart. It must be the pregnancy hormones. I'm usually more resilient than this."
"They are not making this any easier, that's for sure," Tamira said. "But we have no choice." She glanced at Tula's belly. "You know why you are doing this."
"I know." Tula closed her eyes for a moment. "I can't let them take my baby. If it's a boy, they'll turn him into another one of Navuh's monsters, raised to conquer and destroy. And if it's a girl..." She touched her stomach. "She'll grow up in this prison, age like a human while I stay young. I don’t want to watch her wither and die while I remain unchanged."
"Darien isn't a monster," Tamira felt offended on her son's behalf. "Kalugal isn't a monster either. Some of them managed to retain their souls."
Tula's eyes widened as she realized that she'd hurt Tamira's feelings. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"It's okay. I understand what you're trying to say. This is so your child will have a life worth living. So he'll have freedom."
Tula nodded, taking a deep breath. "Thank you for giving me this chance. For including us. That was very brave and very generous of you."
Tamira smiled. "As it turned out, we're stronger together. Tony knows a lot about a lot of things."
"He deserves to be free too," Tula murmured. "He was stolen from his life, his dreams. Maybe he can even find that blonde bioinformatician he was in love with."
Tamira's eyebrows rose. "Do you want to get rid of him? Don't you love him?"
