And yet, a saddle isn’t even worth a life.
She’s just a saddle.
As if that made her less. As if she was so beneath them her death didn’t matter.
But it matters. It matters to me.Shemattered.
I wish I could’ve told her that. I wish, back at that garden, when she squeezed my hand in a rare show of warmth, that I’d have squeezed harder. Because she was strong and smart, and she deserved that new life that she wanted. The one she workedsohard for, and now, she’ll never have it. All because of me. All because I asked her to take a walk.
Tears stream down my cheeks in chunks, as if my sorrow is heavy. It feels heavy, like a weight pressed down on my heart, and I don’t know how long I cry for her, but I hope I’m not the only one. Because Rissa wasn’tjust a saddle. She was a saddle and she was also many other things too, and none of those things meant she didn’t deserve to live.
When my tears stop, I feel dried out. I don’t know if it’s just the grief or if there are still some aftereffects of whatever drug they used on me, but my whole body drags. They must’ve kept me unconscious for days to get to Second Kingdom. The thought that I was left vulnerable to them like that makes me shiver.
I might not have been in this place in over a decade, but I remember this heat. I remember the grit that seems to be all over me too, of traveling through the dunes, of being caked in its grainy wind and baked through by the sun.
Funny how, when I first came here, my ribbons had only just started to sprout from my back.
So painful coming in.
So painful taken out.
I hated them then, but now, I’d give anything to have them back.
Absently, my fingers go to my back, to the empty spots where only smooth skin now remains.
Every single one of them, gone.
My ribbons and I have had so many parallels that I never appreciated before. As if my whole journey has been exhibited through their presence.
Like the fact that my new beginning here in Second Kingdom also marked the new beginning of them growing from my back. After that, I kept them hidden, just like I kept myself. Resented them, like I resented myself. Then, when I was finally coming out of my shell, so did they. Just thinking of the way they caught me, flirted with Slade, wrapped around his ankle...
I’ll never have that again.
Just as I was coming into my own, so were they.
But then, I was cut down to the core, and with every strike, so were they.
That night marked an end for meandfor my ribbons. Yet it was an ending I badly needed. I needed to be forced to stand on my own two feet, without anything to catch me. I only wish they could have been spared that same journey. But I needed to be cut down to finally rise up on my own like a phoenix from the ashes.
I wish my ribbons would do the same.
But there is no phoenix, and the only thing resembling ashes are in the Ash Dunes that reside somewhere in this Divine-damned kingdom.
A noise jerks me out of my thoughts, and I drop my hand and turn around just in time for the door to swing open as a woman steps in. She has a white wimple draped over her head, the fabric thick, stiff, and perfectly creased on either side. It completely covers her hair, and all that’s visible is a square opening for her face that sets at the edges of her cheeks and the middle of her forehead.
Her figureless robe is much the same, with similar creased draping in the starch-white cloth, covering her from jaw to feet. A slight train is gathered behind her, and her sleeves are long and wide at the ends, swallowing her hands so that not even that part of her is showing.
She has a sharp, pointed chin and her eyebrows are gone, as if she’s shaved them away, while her eyelashes are so thin and fair that they’re barely visible. Her eyes snag my attention though. Both of her brown irises are cracked on the outer sides, split with light green. It’s a mirrored image from her right eye to the left, the green making her gaze look eerie.
“Welcome to Wallmont Castle,” she says, voice serene and tilted with a slight accent, her lips twisted into a pleasant smile. “The Conflux is about to begin. I’ve come to prepare you.”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” I say as I lean against the wall.
Her pleasant smile doesn’t falter, but she does turn her head to look over her shoulder, and that’s when two large men come through the doorway. They wear their own sort of wimples, only theirs are gray, the fabric shorter and thinner, in the same shape as chainmail hoods on soldiers. Their tunics are a cream color, not quite the stark white that the woman is wearing, and their gray pants are loose, the ends rumpled where they’re tucked into knee-high boots.
They’re both young, one with brown skin and one white and covered in freckles, and they both look at me without emotion as they stride forward. I press myself against the wall, anger curling in my stomach. I have a split second to decide if it’s more important for me to hide my magic or to get out of here.
I opt to get the fuck out.
