"No! Don't leave me!" Aeryn cried out in anguish, trying to hold onto her hands.
Anya's voice cracked with tears. "Promise me, Aeryn! You won't let this curse ruin you! Promise me that the future generation won't go through this same cycle of misery, revenge, and pain that me and my mother Hama passed!"
"No, please! don't leave me!" Aeryn sobbed, her hands slipping through empty light.
"Promise me!" Anya cried, her fading figure shining with grief and urgency.
Aeryn dropped to her knees. Her forehead pressed to the cold stone floor as tears spilled freely.
"I promise!! I PROMISE!" she wailed. "I won't let anyone face the calamity that you faced!"
A hard knock echoed through her skull.
Her eyes shot open. She was on the couch.
The fire still burned in the hearth, quiet and real.
Was it… a dream?
She wiped her face. Tears stained her cheeks, damp and warm. Her hands were shaking.
But the promise, the figure's voice, her face her warmth still lingered and rang inside her like a bell that could never be unrung.
She stood up and walked slowly to the door, her hand on the cold iron handle. She stepped into the hallway, the heavy door groaning shut behind her.
Outside, the torches flickered low, casting long shadows down the stone corridor. The castle was silent at this hour, cloaked in the kind of hush that only followed grief, or revelation or devils of course.
She paused, then turned; and there, just to the right of the door, sat Sakina.
Curled into herself, elbows on her knees, face buried in her hands.
Her shoulders shook in silence, not from tears, but from a sorrow too internal for sobs. Aeryn's throat tightened. The woman who had stood so steady, who had borne the weight of telling her the darkest truths; was unraveling, quietly, alone.
Aeryn knelt beside her.
"Sakina?" she said gently.
Sakina lifted her head, eyes red and rimmed with exhaustion. When she saw who it was, she immediately stood.
"Aeryn! My apologies, Your Majesty!"
Aeryn let out a soft chuckle, brushing her hand across her eye. "No apologies. Get up, Sakina; we have things to do."
She reached for Sakina's arm, helping her up, and led her into her chamber.
…..
In Aeryn's chamber, the fire was still burning warmly. They sank onto the couch beside it, the light catching in the folds of Aeryn's robes and casting soft gold across Sakina's face.
Aeryn leaned back, gaze thoughtful.
"I want to train girls," she said simply, without preface.
Sakina blinked. "What?"
"I want to train them," Aeryn repeated. "In secret."
Sakina looked aghast. Her eyes widened, head pulling back like she'd misheard.
"Why?" she asked, almost breathless. "Why would you want to do that?"
Aeryn smirked playfully, cocking her head. "Sakina, are you… questioning me?"
Sakina's back straightened like a snapped reed. "I wouldn't dare, my Queen!"
Aeryn burst out laughing. "I'm joking, Sakina! Lighten up, would you?" She nudged her gently in the shoulder. "So the plan is…"
She started to explain. The location she'd scouted once in a dream. The old stone sanctum on the edge of the Ashfen cliffs, where no one dared go. The scrolls buried beneath Hama's chamber. The whispers of water, fire, and blood that followed certain girls like shadows, waiting to be named.
She spoke with fire in her voice now; brighter than the hearth behind them. But Sakina wasn't hearing the words.
She was watching her. And only one thing was rhyming in her head. This can't be aeryn! She was devastated right now! It can't be. What happened to her so suddenly! Why is she behaving so strangely! She was thinking, and looking at her confused wilderness.
The way Aeryn's eyes lit when she imagined a future not built on vengeance but rebuilding. The way her hands moved when she spoke; urgent, tender, strong. Her laughter, soft but deep. Her strength, wrapped in grief, wrapped in hope. There was a grace to her pain now. And Sakina, caught in it, was scared yet completely smitten. Afterall it had been so long since she hopes, aims and valor in her young queen, that she brought up as her own daughter.
Aeryn didn't notice. She kept talking, voice alive with ideas and intent.
And then; suddenly; Sakina reached forward and hugged her.
Tightly. Fully. As if something inside her had broken loose and could no longer be held in.
Aeryn stiffened in surprise. "Sakina?! You good?"
But Sakina didn't answer.
She just held her, arms trembling, her face buried in Aeryn's shoulder as if trying to breathe in everything Aeryn was; strength, mercy, command, patience and pain.
A minute passed. Maybe more.
Then Sakina finally let go. She stood upright, eyes wet but determined.
"My queen," she said, voice steady now. "I don't have to know. I will obey whatever you say. I am confused as to see this sudden change in you, but even if you are preparing to die, I will not stop you, because you won't accept it so instead I will follow you, without a question!"
"Sakina, I want to train them," Aeryn repeated, slower this time.
"I want to train them because I want to protect them," she said. "Because I've seen what happens when power is buried instead of taught. When girls carry pain in their bones and have no name for it. When no one tells them they have a right to exist, to resist, or to fight back."
She looked at the fire.
"I want to protect what matters to me. And that means ending the cycle. No more girls like Hama, used and broken. No more daughters like Anya, hiding who they are. No more queens like me, forced to carry the weight of blood and fire without knowing where it began or where it ends."
Sakina said nothing.
"I don't want revenge," Aeryn continued. "I want something better. I want to gather girls from every nation and teach them to master what's inside them, not fear it. Because the echoes of pain are still alive, Sakina. They live in the boiling blood under the earth. In the memories passed through veins. In the hatred that simmers quietly until it burns down cities."
Her voice tightened.
"I want to stop that."
Listening this, sakina got on her knees.
"My Queen! I will begin preparing for the journey."
And just like that, she stood up and disappeared through the doors, her footsteps light yet quick, determined and loyal.
Aeryn stayed seated, her fingers lightly brushing where Sakina's embrace had lingered on her arm. The fire crackled quietly in the hearth. She closed her eyes. And a smile came on her face.
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