Probably a little of both.
"Tula." Areana kept her voice low, but not low enough that she wouldn't be overheard. "What are you doing out here?"
"I can't sleep." Tula's voice was raw, pitched slightly too loud. She was playing her part. "Tony is asleep, out like a rock, and I have no one to talk to."
"Come inside." Areana moved closer, careful to position herself at an angle where any watching guards would see her trying to coax Tula away from the edge. "It's late, and you are only wearing a nightgown."
"I'm cold." Tula wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm always cold. Inside, I mean. Like I'm frozen in time."
The words were scripted, but the emotion behind them was real. Areana could hear it—the genuine despair that Tula had been hiding for months, years, millennia.
"I know." Areana reached out, let her hand hover near Tula's shoulder without quite touching. "Come back inside. We'll talk. I'll make you some warm tea, and we can?—"
"Talk?" Tula laughed, bitter and broken. "What is there to talk about? I'm trapped here. We're all trapped here." She put her hand on her belly. "I can't have this baby here. I just can't."
It was the first time Tula had admitted that she was pregnant for anyone to hear, and it was part of the script, the explanation for her wish to end her own life.
"Yes, you can." Areana took her hand. "Everything will be okay. You are not alone in this. You have Tony, me, and the other ladies."
"Tony's human." Tula's voice cracked, and she pulled her hand out of Areana's grip. "He'll be dead in fifty years, and I'll still behere, while our baby will be out there, fighting senseless wars in a senseless world."
Areana saw the guards now, two of them standing at the perimeter of the garden's lit section. Too far to hear the specific words, but close enough to see the tableau—a distraught lady and Areana trying to help.
She needed to give them a show.
"Tula, please." Areana let urgency creep into her voice, let it rise slightly. "You're scaring me. Step back from the edge. We'll figure this out together."
"There's nothing to figure out." Tula moved closer to the drop, and Areana's heart clenched despite knowing this was planned. "There's only one way out of here, and you know it."
"That's not true." Areana reached for her, catching her arm. "There are always options. Always hope. You just can't see it right now because you're tired and scared and?—"
Tula jerked away. "Don't! Don't touch me. Don't try to save me. There's no saving any of us."
The guards were moving closer now, alerted by the raised voices and dramatic gestures. Areana could see them from the corner of her eye. Good. They needed to witness this. Needed to see that Areana had tried to stop it, that there was nothing she could have done.
But her heart was racing, and her palms were sweating, and some part of her was terrified of the charade going wrong and becoming real.
"Tula." She pitched her voice a little lower now, sounding both intimate and desperate. "Please. For the baby, if not for yourself. Please don't do this."
Tula turned then, and their eyes met.
In that moment, Areana saw everything—the fear, the gratitude, the crushing guilt, the desperate hope. All the words that they couldn't say aloud, all the emotions that were too dangerous to voice.
Thank you, Tula's eyes said.I'm sorry. Tell Tony I'm sorry. Tell them all I'm sorry.
Be safe, Areana's eyes replied.Live. Be free. Let that be enough.
Then Tula's face crumpled, and she turned back to the ocean.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Loud enough for the guards to hear. "I can't do this anymore."
6
YAMANU
Yamanu pressed himself against the wet rock face, finding purchase on a narrow ledge barely wide enough for his toes. Three hundred feet of slick basalt stretched above him, and every inch of it was a death trap waiting to happen.
The ocean crashed against the rocks below—jagged formations that would shatter a body, any body, even an immortal's. That's why Navuh didn't bother guarding the cliff.
