They wereeverywhere. Inescapable.
How long had she been lying here, receiving this gentle shower of beauty? It had to be magic – a tremendous enchantment – for there were no thorns present on the vines, and no decay among the fallen blooms. But then, what peculiar magic was this? What purpose did it serve? The bed covers, she noticed, were at least an inch thick with discarded flora; given the unhurried flurry from above, she suspected she’d been here, in this curious place, for at least a matter of days.
Strangest of all: Alizeh realized, with a shock, that she was not cold.
A feeling of frost had lived in her limbs so absolutely that she existed always in physical distress.She was always tense; often rigid. To a lesser degree this pain had persisted in her veins since birth; in childhood she’d struggled with the cold, but she’d not experienced the full agony until her parents had died, after which the ice had claimed her utterly. It had taken a long time to learn how to live around this constant suffering, and Alizeh had never dared to hope she might one day live without it. But now – now she felt at rest inside her body for the first time since her parents were alive. The dull, welcome warmth in her veins was one she never thought she’d feel again.
She struggled then to assemble her memories – to understand where she was and how she’d arrived here – but Alizeh’s mind felt cobwebbed and dusty, her thoughts unsteady and slow to form. She pushed herself again for information, but her head, disordered as it was, instead dealt her a painful, unyielding blow of emotion. In quick succession she was delivered images of her mother in various states of heartache, the accompanying sounds and sensations so vivid she nearly doubled over in pain. Over and over the scenes changed, but the chords of agony only crescendoed:
Alizeh was six years old; she’d found her mother weeping on the kitchen floor, a letter clutched in her fist;
she was eight; awoken in the night by pounding at the front door, she’d tiptoed into the hall to find her mother sobbing in her father’s arms;
she was eleven; her father’s dead body had been discovered at the bottom of a well, and grief would not drain from their bodies no matter how much they cried;
she was twelve; everything was ablaze, her throat choked with smoke, her mother screaming, and she could smell it; she could still smell the charred flesh of her mother’s body as the woman slowly burned alive in her arms –
Alizeh made a sound like she’d been struck, as if the wind had been knocked from her lungs. The pain was in fact so extraordinary it shocked her. Tears had fallen soundlessly down her cheeks, and she swiped them away with trembling fingers even as she struggled to draw breath. These unsolicited visits from grief were cruel, but somehow comforting, too, for Alizeh had no desire to forget. Indeed she often felt that her parents had vanished to all but her. True, she could no longer see them, yet she seemed to carry their bones on her back, their pain on her shoulders, their hopes in her heart.
Often, she still felt she could hear them whisper.
Even then she thought she heard her mother, the words like a caress against her cheek –
Do not fear, my dear, the fall
– just as the massive windows blew open. They groaned, then slammed against the pockmarked walls with violence, the blow cushioned only by the thick of flowers on either side. Another gust of wind blew the panels back on their hinges with an eerie whine, and instinct blazed bright within Alizeh, who pushed off the bed with an energy she did not own. She was shaking.
Flower petals whirled about her in a small shower as she steadied herself on the stone floor, then reached for a bedpost to better stabilize her body. Even in the midst of confusion she was not blind to the beauty of the moment,the ethereal drift of roses all around her, the gust of wind that had sent it all into a frenzy. She stood there, caught in this slow-settling whirlwind when her mind finally shook off the worst of its dust. Her heart now pounding in her chest, she was bombarded at once by clarity.
Hazan.
Her thoughts went first to him. She knew there was more to recall, more to unknot from her mind, but for now the image of Hazan would serve as her North Star. He’d come for her, she remembered that now. Which meant he must be here, somewhere, in Tulan – But then, where wasshe?
Wasshestill in Tulan?
She spun around, searching once more for any indication of her whereabouts. The windows were too high; even if she moved the bed she might not reach their ledge. She bit her lip, considering. If she were to climb the bookshelves she might be able to capture a discarded volume, the contents of which might provide some illumination. She squinted at what few spines were legible, but they appeared to be ancient tomes, written in a language she didn’t recognize. Frowning, she studied her obvious escape routes once more: there was a door and a window.
But where would she go? How might she find Hazan? And there were others, weren’t there? Her friends, yes – Where did they –
She touched a hand to her mouth.
She remembered, with a spike of fear, the anger in Kamran’s eyes. She remembered the terror in Cyrus’s, she remembered – Heavens,she remembered it all. The chaos. The horror.
Thepain.
Kamran had shot her with an arrow meant for Cyrus. She’d felt it pierce through her back, felt the excruciating burn, the paralysis in her lower body, the drop to what had seemed a certain death.
Had she not died?
Of this final event she’d no strong recollection, nor could she recall what preceded it – but she was suddenly desperate for answers.
What had happened after she’d plummeted from the sky?
The sun, she noticed, appeared to have dipped into afternoon, but there was light yet in the heavens, enough for a half day’s journey. She could open the door or scale the wall; either path could be terribly fraught, and she was still trying to decide between the two, when, suddenly, there came a delicate knock at the door.
Alizeh froze; her heart beat harder.
Very slowly, she turned to face the noise. Always she hoped for peace, but never did she fear battle. Even in this thin shift, she would fight if necessary.
