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Wonderful. I was now branded with words or symbols from some ancient temple that also happened to be copied all over the bodies of these religious zealots. That same rage and fury as before bubbled to the surface, it tangled around my spine and in my gut as it took control.
“Are all the tattoos written in these… marks?” I didn’t even try to hide my snarl. Those words should not be on me.
It was Ziah who answered, his head bobbing up and down furiously as he stepped forward
“Yes! They are given when we have milestones, need blessings, or when we accept the path that the Goddess has given to us.” He was practically bouncing up and down, the frantic nature of him reminding me so much of Amari, of Lily, that my gut clenched. All of that pain mixed dangerously with the fury that was absolutely everywhere.
“This one here,” he moved into a babble as he shoved his tattooed wrist out to me. “It says Ziah. Fighter. It was penned on me last summer after I got this one,” he pulled down his shirt, still bouncing up and down. The more he moved the more he reminded me of the girls, the more something inside of me cracked and broke.
“This one means ‘strength’ Ryndle himself gave it to me after–”
“I don’t care about the damn tattoos!” I snapped, all of that darkness ripping from me as I tried to stand again. Although this time I was successful, my massive bulk towering over the tiny boy below me. The boy who was now looking up with wide tear filled eyes.
I should feel bad. I should care. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Caring would lead me nowhere.
Ziah opened his mouth as though to say something, gasps and sputters mixing with the beginnings of tears before he turned and raced through the flap of the tent, a garden of tents and tattooed people mingling between them appearing for only a minute before the canvas fell back into place and left me alone with Lyani who was bristling with something beyond the anger she had before.
This look I knew.
This look I had seen far too many times before.
Hatred.
“What is wrong with you?” She was snarling.
“Nothing is wrong with me. I don’t care about his damn tattoos. I–”
“Only think of yourself?” she cut me off, that snarling hatred burning into me as she stepped right up to me.
She didn’t rise any taller than my collar bone, her frail frame like a feather against the boulder that I was. Neither of us moved, hard eyes locked on the other. My chest heaved as I tried to keep the rage at bay. Keep the magic that was suddenly alive and simmering underneath my skin, a shadow of what it was.
“I do not think of myself.” I snarled, lip curling. As if she had any idea of what I had lost, of what I had given up to save my sister. To save them all. She had no idea what was coming for them. She had no clue of what I needed to do to save them all.
Without me they would all be dead soon.
“Ha! Then I am sure you wouldn’t care that that boy lost his parents to raiders last summer. He held his Ma as she bled out, I couldn’t save her. He didn’t want to live after that. Ryndle himself tattooed strength on him so that he would keep going. So that he knew he could and that he was surrounded by those who loved him. That he would know the Goddess loved him and wanted him here with us. It was only after that that he knew his name was right for him and he got the tattoo of his name, of his true purpose on his wrist. But I guess you already knew that, didn’t you? Since you only think of others.”
“I don’t have to know everything about someone to think of them. I have done more for your people than you will ever know.”
“My people?” She laughed at that, one sharp sound that was more like a bark. I blinked at her, that thick magic still pushing against my skin. I played through the similarities, my heart clenching at the memory of Lily falling into the abyss of the ocean.
“Really? Tell me, what have you done for my people? Judging by the scars that line your chest and arms I would say there is too much blood on your hands to have done much of anything good for anyone in Okivo.”
“You do not know what I have done.” I was snarling now. This woman stood there with hatred in her eyes. I did not need her judgment; I did not need her approval. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know enough. I have seen enough. I know this, for someone whose name means light bringer you seem to have nothing but darkness around you.” She snarled, before she turned, the tent flap opening and swaying in the wind as she walked away from me and into the camp of laughing children, of tattered tents, and joyful people who were moving and dancing and laughing in the last light of the setting sun.
I watched her go. Watched the children laugh. Watched the smiling men and women with their swirls of tattoos until the tent flap softly fell into place and left me alone with her words; each and every one of them stinging a line right into my heart.
Chapter 26
Elara
“Wake up sleepyhead!”
I grumbled and tried to roll over, the heavy blankets not letting me move. Or, perhaps, it was the fact that I felt as though I had been both thrown from a high turret and run over by a horse simultaneously. Everything hurt, every bone ached, and somehow my muscles felt as though they had been scrambled inside of me.
I didn’t think it was possible to hurt like this. The blanket felt like a hundred pound weight against my chest.
