Author's Note: Trigedasleng in italics, translations can be found at trigedasleng dot info
Every inch of her hurt. The crushed fingers on her left hand. The shallow but dirty cuts across her shoulder blade, down her forearm. The skinned knees and scraped palms. The deep ache in her legs reminding her that she had fought hard for what had felt like a long time. Days. Years. But it had only been hours. From one opponent to another. From one brother, one sister, one lukot, to another. They were gone. She was all that was left.
It was the way of her people.
A wave of warmth washed over her bare back. One of the devoted, a wichen, stood over her as she lied face down on a long table. The wichen had placed a folded blanket under her head. "Rest," she had said. "This is just the start. Rest every moment you can." The girl opened her eyes and strained to look up at the wichen, who smiled gently. Not a wichen smile—the devoted weren't known for their kindness or their harshness. They simply were. Measured, quiet, usually on the edges of a space. Silent but never invisible. And yet here was a smile, motherly, full of concern and pride.
"Lay your head down, Heda," the wichen said quietly as she washed the girl's back with a warm cloth.
"I'm not Heda yet," the girl said quietly.
The wichen ignored her. "Rest. Your days will be hard. Long. You must know how to rest. To quiet your mind and remember who you were before this day."
Before this day. The girl rested her head on the blanket, closing her eyes and biting her bottom lip instinctively. (You must not do that, Titus had said, they'll see your doubt and know your weakness. They will be watching you always.) There had been nothing before this day. Just stories about this day. Training for this day. Preparing for this day. The girl heard grief in the wichen's voice. Of course the devoted knew this. They trained the natblida in the rituals of The Flame, and they tended to their wounds after their training. The wichen saw everything, watched silently, faithfully.
"What is your name, wichen?" the girl asked.
"Heda, you know that we let our names go when we walk through the faya."
"I am your Commander." The girl was surprised by the strength and weight in her voice. She had been trained to hold her voice steady, to articulate her words with brutal clarity, but she had never actually used her training. The wichen stopped washing her back and stiffened. The girl bit her lip again, felt tears pushing at the sides of her eyes. She counted her breaths until she was sure they would stay back. "What was your name?" she asked gently.
The wichen fell quiet, her face returning to that trained stillness. She dipped the cloth back into the bowl of steaming water and wrung out the excess. She took a deep breath in, held it, and then let it go in a long breath out. Her face loosened into a sad smile as she softly stroked the broken skin around the cut on the girl's back. "I was called Inna."
"Inna," the girl repeated slowly, letting the wichen's presence wrap around the name as she said it. She strained again to look into Inna's eyes. "I was called Lexa."
Inna continued to wash the wound. "But Heda, you are still called Lexa."
"You know that no one will call me that anymore. Not after I receive The Flame." Lexa put her head back onto the blanket and said quietly, "You don't call me that anymore." She couldn't count breaths anymore. The tears pushed through in a torrent, dripped off her nose and onto the blanket. Her body heaved with every sob, and every sob seemed to open her cuts and scrapes even wider. She welcomed the pain, let it fill every part of her. Inna was gone. The blanket was gone. The table was gone. All that was left was this day, shrouded in the white blindness of this pain. Mosha was gone. Emul was gone. Luna was gone. All that was left was this day, that had gone exactly how it had always gone. How it was supposed to go. The Commander chose Lexa. All that was left was this day. And her.
Inna lifted the girl into her arms and held her as she shook and shuddered. She's so small, the wichen thought. So young. Other children her age were learning to sharpen tools, to gather roots and hunt for food, and, yes, to fight. Eventually. But this girl was already deadly, had already killed with skill that left the veteran warriors in the crowd holding their breath. She would not need to command respect, even as a girl not yet full-grown. Her performance in the conclave had left no doubt who the Commander had chosen, who would lead them next. She would only grow stronger, wiser, harder with all the memories of past commanders handed down to her.
But for now, she was a small girl, covered in battle wounds, who had lost everything.
The girl's breath slowed, her heaving body stilled. The wichen recognized the shift in the girl when it happened, the walling off that she herself had been so carefully trained to do like a wave across the body that leaves everything placid, at least on the surface.
Inna took the girl's hand and took a breath to the very bottom of her stomach. The breath that dismantled her own wall. "Lexa. You don't have to do that. Not yet." The girl looked up at the wichen without lifting her head and pulled her hand away. Her body stiffened, and she lied back down on the table, face down.
"Thank you, wichen," Lexa said without a hint of feeling. "You can finish now."
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