Girl of Myth and Legend (26 page)

I watch her mumbling to herself. The words her father said resound in my head:
‘What she is doesn’t determine who she is.’
My face softens. Yes, she’s infuriating.

But
… she’s different.

‘Are you ready, my Lady?’ asks O’Sah.

‘Give me a minute!’ she shouts, turning her back on him.

‘Your fingers will go into your skull if you keep rubbing it,’ I comment.

‘Shut up. Moron,’ she adds. ‘You have no idea what I’m going through. How many times have you done this, old man? Like a thousand! I’ve done this zero, zilch, nada. How can this be happening? Soul-binding. Binding my soul to you, old timer. How could I do that? Ack! The whole thing is cliché and, to be honest, slightly pervy. Just saying. And why the hell do I have to even wear this? I’m itching all over! And I mean
all over.
I can’t even move! God.
God
. This whole thing is stupid! I don’t even know what to do, how to begin, how to end it. Yeah, yeah, I know O’Sah explained it but, OK, I wasn’t listening! I admit it. I switch off whenever
he
talks. And what if I give you too much energy? What if I spontaneously combust or something? Poof. Just
poof
, and I’m gone, while you get to be energised for the next 84.5 years or whatever the hell it was. It’s just this is too weird for me to handle! What if I mess up—what if, what if, what
if
? I just… I-I don’t know! I just—I just—!’

I grab her arms and pull them, because she’s digging her fingers so much into her temples that she’s left red marks there. ‘It’s all right.’

She gapes at me.

‘It’s… it’s all right,’ I repeat, rubbing my neck and looking away. ‘I’ve dealt with this before. It’s no easy feat to bind your soul to someone you don’t even know. So just…’ I hesitate. ‘Just take your time and you’ll be all right.’

She stares in a stupor, and I can feel my face growing hot. So I was nice. Surely it’s not that big of a shock? But she keeps staring at me in wonder. I grit my teeth, and snap, ‘And what was with all those
old
references? I’m not old!’

Her surprise soon changes to a grin and she folds her arms. ‘Age complex?’

‘I think that we should begin now, my Lady,’ interrupts O’Sah, coming to us.

Since the beginning of soul-bindings there has existed the
harusi
, a scripture that came into existence when the Chosen who would later found the Imperium, Imperi Atum, and Ehlmand made their promise. It’s said that Ehlmand infused Her magic within each word, and it acts as Her summons. Magen are trained to learn the harusi’s unique language so that they don’t need to carry the scripture with them to a soul-binding, so O’Sah must have had to be a quick learner.

As the last traces of sunlight flicker away, the clouds slowly disperse, uncovering the great white moons. Yesterday they hung in the sky as they do every night. Tonight, however, they bring with them a mystic glow, which to me is such an ominous sight, swathed in beauty. As O’Sah recites the harusi’s words, I feel a piercing but familiar pain in my chest. The girl cringes as she too feels the pain. It feels like your whole heart, your whole being, your whole self is being torn from you, and you yearn for it to return, for without it you are nothing, just a hollow soul with no purpose, no meaning. A wisp of silver vapour, beautiful like silk, reaches out of me and entwines with the little lion’s, which glimmers like gold. I feel her soul brushing against my own like fingertips, and I shiver as if she’s actually touching me. The colours coagulate into one before bursting out. The forest melts away and we are standing upon the shimmering surface of a lake, immersed in stardust and light. We’re alone, and even the moons have vanished from the star-dotted ocean above us. She looks around in wonder, and I notice she’s naked.

Now I know where the moons’ light has gone: she is their light, and the moonshine around her body glows with such divinity. Her hair curls down her body in the same chaotic way, but instead of a copper colour, it is red as if flames have lit the moons on fire. Her burgundy eyes are shining, reminding me of the first night she visited me, and that
pull
I have felt many times comes and holds my gaze, rendering it impossible to look away from those windows of mystery. She is magnificent. I cannot deny it.

Most times, Chosen know what to do at this part, having been prepared for a soul-binding from youth, but she looks at me helplessly, an expression I’m not accustomed to. Her clumsy hands reach out to me in confusion. I grasp them in my own. Her hands are warm. I feel as if I am holding an ethereal being.

I can’t run from this. To run at this point is to face death as a punishment by the Imperium. I can’t die yet, not without making an impression, not without destroying something that the Imperium hold dear. I have to live in chains in order to break them.

She
comes to us in the form of an orb, bright and as powerful as a star. We turn our gaze from Her, momentarily blinded. When the light dims we see the outline of a woman. She is transparent, a ghostly being, so Her features are indiscernible. The little lion is staring at Her, mouth open. I, however, stare at Her with both loathing and adoration. It courses throughout my body in an unclear disorder.

Ehlmand, stargod of kytaen, greatest of comforts to kytaen—and our greatest traitor. She knows of our suffering, yet, She, a supreme being beyond that of the Chosen, only acknowledges our pain and pities us, weeps for us—nothing more.

Since the beginnings of the kytaen and soul-bindings, Ehlmand has been the one to initiate them. The harusi is Her summons, and She comes without fail, without considering who She may be binding the kytaen’s soul to. I haven’t seen Her for over two hundred years, but at the sight of Her I’m aware of how insignificant I am, and of all the thousands of kytaen who’ve been bound in the past by Her. I’m nothing, really. How could I ever have hoped to escape my fate?

I notice that She is directing Herself towards the little lion, which is unusual, as with all my bindings Ehlmand has never been hesitant. Hesitant. Is that what it is? No, I’m probably thinking too much.

She raises Her arms as if to embrace us. I look to the girl. Her gaze remains on the ethereal being before us, her brilliance unnoticed by her. I swallow. My fate is about to be set in motion, like a pawn brought upon the chessboard by its master.

Ehlmand places Her translucent hands on our own, and warmth spreads through me—warmth and rightness. After a moment, Her form fireworks in a flurry of stars that flicker and disappear into the star-glinting lake.

There is a great silence and I find my eyes meeting the little lion’s, hers innocently scared. How can my very being be so willing to entwine with hers? Is it not like this every time, over and over? Yes, but this is the first time I’ve experienced such
intensity
. Those eyes, they have me under some sort of spell. My hands hold hers tighter, and I can feel her breath against me. I can hear her heart hammering in response to what I’m doing. What
am
I doing? I don’t even know myself.

Water shoots from the lake below us, soaring into the air like birds in flight, spiralling around us. The silver water explodes into thousands of cherry blossoms, scattering and then accumulating into a whirlwind. Hundreds settle on our linked hands and begin to glow. I try to pull away, because this is
wrong
. Suddenly, I would rather die than be bound to this girl, but I can’t move: our forming bond is holding me here. The blossoms on our hands glimmer until they fade, and we are no longer standing on moonlight but on snow, and the cold wind is buffeting against us, and she is no longer magnificent or ethereal but mortal and flesh.

O’Sah comes between us and separates our hands, which are joined like stone, prying them apart. Both of us hardly register the touch. Awe and marvel brighten the little lion’s eyes. She is looking at me
differently
, so differently, as if I am a changed being. I too must mirror her look, because though I know she’s the same girl from before, even though nothing has really changed,
everything
has changed. Now we have a connection. Our hearts are bound by an impossible wonder, and we can feel each other as if we
are
each other. One being. One force. One heart.

Strength. I feel it once again, coursing through my body. I’m not the same strength as I was in Aris: I am stronger, stronger than I have been in two hundred years. I feel as if I could battle against ten thousand maidens. I feel as if I could tear apart this whole world until it was nothing but a wasteland.

Fear. I feel the little lion’s fear and astonishment, and every breath she’s taking is also as if it were mine. I don’t know her memories, I don’t know her thoughts, but it’s as if I can peek into her heart and know her, just as she will know me. If she were to turn from me now, I would not bear it. I
need
her. Without her I cannot exist, because I am no longer an independent entity. I am hers, body and soul, just as it is with every soul-binding. She is my light, she is my air, she is the heart, the soul, the essence—she is
home
. I may not want to feel this way, but the binding has entwined us in an unshakable bond that no being can tear apart.

Her burgundy eyes pin me in place, and I feel unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to think. How
lost
can I become in those eyes? How can they cause such a spark to catch fire inside my long forsaken heart? It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t be feeling these things. There is an ache in my fingertips, and my hand involuntarily brushes a loose strand of hair from her pallid face. Those eyes. Those eyes.
Those eyes.
I’ve seen them hundreds of times, the same shape, the same colour, but never the same intensity, never the same mystical gaze as hers. I feel like I’m drowning in them, and, more disturbingly, that I wouldn’t mind if I did.

‘Korren, come meet me…’

The breath I’ve held escapes, the magic ends and I turn from her, unable to comprehend so many things, so many, so many. The emotions tug at me, pull me and drive at me.

The cherry blossoms.
That is Nara’s vengeance. Her reminder of my unforgivable sin. They speak to me as if saying:
never forget, never forget, never forget.
On and on, endlessly, because for two hundred years I made myself forget, and being with the little lion made forgetting all the easier. Did I think I was free to move on? Did I think I was redeemed enough to feel something again, to feel
anything
other than pain and guilt and despair? If I thought that, if for even a moment I thought that, then the cherry blossoms that bound the little lion and I are a desolate reminder that I am not redeemed, that I never will be.

‘It is now your kytaen until you die,’ I hear O’Sah say, ‘and you its keeper, my Lady.’

Hearing those words, I instinctively turn to my new keeper, regretting it, because for only the third time in my entire existence, tears are streaming down my cheeks.

_________________

The blossoms are fluttering around me like butterflies. I see myself standing before a cherry blossom tree, another me from a long time ago, and next to him is a smaller figure swathed in robes. Her back is to me, but I know… I
know
who she is.

‘What are they called?’
I hear myself ask, my voice an echo
.

I remember how her eyes had settled on me, warming my very core.

‘They are called cherry blossom trees, Korren. They exist only in the human realm.’

She had smiled at me, I remember. Ah, that smile. That was the smile that made me hope in this hopeless world. That was the smile that taught me how to dream. In me, you awoke something I didn’t even know was. All my existence had been a blur, for I had no thoughts, no will or conflict in my mind. I was unconscious, and yet in reality I was wide awake. You, though, you were the one who made me open my eyes, you were the one who made me aware, a sentient. It is because of you that I desired an alternative ending to my story. It is because of you that I dared to hope for a better life.

Nara. My Nara.

‘Then why is this one in Duwyn?’
I ask her.

‘’Tis special, this one, Korren. It grew from the souls of my family who died long ago.’

‘How can something so beautiful be born from death?’

‘Because death is a wonder of this world, and when I die I desire to become part of the cherry blossom tree, as did my family before me. I will bloom in the spring and sleep in the winter, and I will watch forever as life moves on.’

‘Who would want such a fate,’
I scream,
‘a fate so different from the one we planned, a fate just as confined as the life you led?’
But she cannot hear me. I am not here.

‘Korren, come meet me at the cherry blossom tree, to remember me.’

I can’t say I’ll go to her—I know that may be a promise I can’t keep. If only I’d speak the words I conceal. If only I said: forget you? You think I’d forget you? How could I ever? You think I need to see some tree to be reminded of you as if you were some fleeting memory? I may have lived a long, long life, but you were the only significant part of it, the only unyielding brightness I’ve been blessed to watch grow.

I didn’t think that light would ever fade as we stood before the cherry blossom tree. I thought it would last forever, because I would always be there to protect it. How wrong I was, how terribly, unforgivably wrong I was. That light did fade. It wasn’t slow or gradual; her light just disappeared, because of me.

I open my eyes, dissolving the dream. I almost laugh. Did you really believe you would become part of your family’s legacy, you hopeless dreamer? You’re not the roots of a tree, the blooming of the blossom, you’re just a body rotting in the ground.

But now I’m with another Chosen, and you don’t want that, do you, Nara? You’ve come back because you fear I will kill her as I killed you, and because you hope the cherry blossoms that bound the little lion and I are a prelude to your revenge. You shouldn’t have betrayed me then, should you? If you had remained loyal to our dreams then, you wouldn’t have died. But you conformed, didn’t you? You grew frightened of the Imperium without me noticing, and you pretended you were merely fulfilling your duty. What nonsense. You were afraid of our dream, you were afraid of the consequences, and you turned your back on me.