"Razo's dead."
With those few word, my whole world stopped. They echoed in my ears, repeating the two little words that destroyed my life and broke my heart into a million pieces. I stiffened, my hands frozen in the middle of brushing Rinna's hair away from her eyes. I barely heard the rest of Rin's sentence. I felt numb, frozen. Razo. Dead. I didn't want to believe it. I refused to believe it, but I knew Rinna would never lie. Not about this. Not to me.
Tears slid down my cheeks and I crumpled to the ground. Razo, the man I was in love with, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, was dead. Everything I dreamed of, everything Razo and I had planned - our future together, disappeared. An image flashed in front of my eyes, of Razo and me sitting together by one of the rivers in Ingridan, children running around us. Some with my orange hair, some with his brown – but all of them ours. Then it was replaced by another, darker image. Razo, lying on the floor of a forest, blood on his tunic.
The pain tied to those two images filled me. I sobbed harder, clutching Rinna, Isi and Enna, trying to anchor myself to this world, afraid if I let go then I would float away. I wondered how I could sob so hard and not break apart. I wished I could just fall asleep and never wake up, fall asleep and join Razo. My sobbing slowed and quieted, tears still running down my cheeks, but the pain was still there. I dimly heard Isi ask Rin about Tusken. Rinna answered, and explained Selia's plan. She wanted Isi to make her ruler of the eastern provinces.
I took a shuddering breath and asked "Why the eastern provinces?" Isi explained that if the king of Bayern were to die without a direct heir, the rulers of the provinces would combine to select the next monarch, and that if Selia could then convince two other rulers to stand by her then she could make herself queen.
"I don't understand that woman!" I burst out. "She had Tusken. Why lure you here as well? Why not just send you word of Tusken's kidnapping along with her demands?" If that had happened Razo would still be alive. He wouldn't be gone. The others continued talking, and figuring out Selia's plan. I sat in silence. They discussed how, once Isi was dead by Selia's hand, Geric and Tusken would be in constant danger.
"And if they die," I said, my voice flat. "Selia will become queen of Bayern."
"I want to kill her." Enna said. Her voice was hard despite having cried fiercely for the past hour. "I want to kill her, Isi. Sometimes killing is justified, isn't it? I wish I didn't ... I wish. But Selia is Selia, and she killed Razo, and I want to -" She broke off, a fireball popping briefly above our heads. A small amount of light lit the room, but it quickly died away.
"Tomorrow." Isi said, "I'll talk to her tomorrow. I'll figure it out , Enna, and you won't have to kill her. Besides, if she touches even one hair on my boy's head" Isi paused as if trying to find enough breath to speak, but then her face hardened "then she'll answer to me."
I stayed silent through this exchange, thinking to myself. I knew how Enna was feeling. For once we had something in common. I also wished I could kill Selia. I wanted her to pay for what she did to Razo, what she did to me. Enna's words had filled me with anger, a need for revenge, but Isi's words filled me with a deep sadness and longing. Tears began to fall from my eyes again. I would never have a child. No. The chance for all the children, mine and Razo's, that I had seen in my dreams were gone. I would never marry. Razo was my love, my heart's true and forever partner. Without him, it was like half of me had been ripped away. I felt empty and hollow.
Hours passed, dragging by slowly. They came to take Isi away. Enna tried to go, but the guard wouldn't let her and neither would Isi.
"I think it's better that way, Enna. If you or anyone else comes too, Selia might use you to get to me. She'd threaten you, hurt you, and she knows I couldn't stand it. For now, she needs me, but to her, you three are expendable." Isi said.
"As expendable as Razo" I thought bitterly. A wave of pain rushed over me, and I was reminded again of how much I depended on Razo. He was my sunshine, and without him, my life was a rainy day – dark and dreary with no purpose and no chance of the rain stopping.
Through my misery I heard Enna say something and Isi respond teasingly, saying "Who Selia? Come on, she's a pussycat. Besides, what's the worst that can happen?" there was a silence, and then Isi and Enna burst out laughing. They laughed harder than the joke was funny. They laughed because they had to, or go mad with grief. It was so absurd a statement that even I nearly laughed but I couldn't bring myself to join them.
The guard took Isi, despite our paltry attempts to stop him. Rin spoke to him, asking him to let us go. I felt a power behind her words, something that made me want to do whatever she said. Unfortunately the same couldn't have been said for the guard. He sneered at her words.
And so we waited. Nobody brought food or water, so I pulled some water out of the air for us to drink. The dungeon floor was sticky with moisture, but I dried it all up. There was barely any water in the air anymore – I could barely feel it.
As we waited, Rinna told us of her time with Razo and Tusken. With everything she said, I crumpled more. As she spoke, I could see Rin watching me, understanding in her eyes. She understood how much I loved him, that I loved him just as much as she did in my own way.
"Say something hopeful. I can't stand all this ... just one light thought." The words burst out f my mouth before I even acknowledged what I was saying.
"I think its my birthday." Rin said.
Enna half-laughed, her voice croaking "That's just sad, Rin."
"Happy Birthday." I told her. The sentence hadn't given me much comfort or distraction but it was enough. I realized that everyone was suffering. We were all Razo's friends, we all cared about him. We were all coping with the pain of his death.
I realized, no, we weren't. They were coping, and I just wasn't. Enna spent the time pacing, banging on the bars occasionally. She thought she heard something on the draft from under the door and refused to move from the bars. Sometime later I heard a door slam and Selia shouting.
"What did you do? What did-no! Curse you, idiots!" and then she screamed. When she spoke next, she was much closer, just outside the door to the dungeon. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine. Too late now. Get rid of it. Throw it to her friends, tell them that Tusken is next if they lift a finger against me. Tusken is next!" All three of us were on our feet, watching the door.
They can't have meant...," I began, a sense of dread creeping up on me. "She was not talking about..." the door to the dungeon opened just enough for us to see two soldiers holding a body. Long yellow hair covered the face, hair that could belong to only one person. When they dumped her on the ground, she didn't twitch or groan. The guards fled, but I had eyes only for Isi, on the ground. I knelt by her side, silently begging her to be alright. I knew that I couldn't bear to have another of my friends die, and not do anything.
Then, my fingers were on her neck, searching for a pulse, and hovering over her mouth, searching for a breath. "She's ... she's not breathing. I don't see a wound, but her hands are ice cold, and she's not-" Enna shoved me out of the way, begging, demanding that Isi be okay. Rin backed away from Isi's body, but I crouched over her. I was crying again, crying for all I had lost in the past day. Razo and now Isi - a love and then a great friend.
"She's only just stopped breathing, she's cold and airless, only just." Enna gasped at her words and her sobbing stopped. I looked over at the two of them and saw Rin's had on Enna's arm in comfort. How I wished for some comfort too. Enna worked furiously, sending heat into Isi, causing her chest to rise and fall. Isi's eyes still stared unlinking but Enna didn't stop. She grabbed me and pulled me closer.
"Do what I'm doing. She needs water too, and more fire. Easy with the heat, just enough to wake her up." Enna demanded.
"I...I...," I stuttered. Isi was dead, and nothing would bring her back. She was dead and so was Razo. I couldn't do anything.
"Do it!" she yelled, and I did. I let my heat flow into Isi, and pulled water from the air. I let the water flow into her, I poured my strength into her. Rin was speaking softly to Isi, reminding her of who she was before she decided to slip away and disappear into the unknown forever, and Enna was urging her to breathe, to live.
A breath - a gasp. Isi's heart was beating do fast I could hear it. I swept the hair off of her forehead. Isi's eyes fluttered, and then opened. She coughed dryly and I moved water into her mouth. She spoke, and we laughed, sobbing, hugging each other. I was exhausted, we all were. We curled up on the ground, Rin's head on my side, my hand clutching Isi's, Enna's arms wrapped around Isi to keep her warm. For the first time since Razo's death I didn't dream.
After we were all rested, we were all thirsty. I said there wasn't much water in the air anymore, but I pulled what I could out of the air. Isi told us about the day before. About how Selia had wanted her to sign the document, but how Isi refused to sign anything without seeing Tusken. How Selia's fire-speakers poked and pulled at Isi's life heat, and how she tried to use wind to resist it. How Nuala, Selia's favourite, accidentally pulled all of her heat out of her.
"Do you want to tell us? I asked, concerned. I really didn't want to know about it, but I knew it would help Isi to talk about it. She explained everything she remembered, and when she was finished, guards came. We pretended she was dead, but moving. They opened the door and peeked in to see. They didn't leave much room, but enough for Rin to sneak out. I wished her luck and safety with my whole heart. I knew that it would not be long before someone brought Selia to inspect Isi. I just hoped that Enna and I could hold them off.
I was right, before too long, Selia was back with her guards. We fought as hard as we could, but they proved stronger. They took Isi away, and all we could do was watch. I felt my own uselessness. I felt is deep as my bones. I lay crumpled on the floor, crying. A page came just outside the door and said to the guards that he had heard fighting I realized something, something important. I had spent more than enough time crying in the past few days. It was time for me to act. To do something, instead of sitting there uselessly. Over the past few days I had been sending water into the walls to see if I could weaken them, I had remembered something my grandfather had once told me, before he died. He said "Water is a powerful weapon. Even stone caves to the pressure of water soon enough."
"Enna." I said. "Enna. We are getting out of here" I pulled all the water I could find. I pulled our tears, the water from the hems of our dresses, even the water that dripped from the ceiling. I pushed it into the walls around the door, wearing it down with the constant pressure. Enna saw what I was doing and started to help, pushing heat and wind at the walls.
Finally, one of the rocks right by the door was weak enough. Enna and I started pushed at it, kicking and shoving. It groaning and moved. The noise called the guards. I took them out, heating their weapons and pulling enough water out of them to weaken them. It also meant that I had more water at my disposal. We crashed the door open, and ran. Enna searched for pictures on the wind, and I listened. We ran through the castle, following the wind. We reached a set of stairs. Smoke billowed out of it, fire licking the door at the top if the stairs. I kicked through the door and we rushed in, searching for a place to attack. Soldiers ran up the stairs behind us, but Enna heated their weapons, and I filled their clothes with water. Isi's wind pushed them into the others, in the pile of furniture in the corner of the room.
"Watch them" Isi yelled, pointing at the group of people in the cage of furniture. We nodded and moved over to them. I poured water over them, drenching the fire workers so they couldn't attack. Enna stood on one side, and I stood on the other, fingers twitching, prepared to attack at any moment. My eyes kept flickering towards Isi and Selia, trying to determine if things were finished yet. A soldier moved as if to pull the dagger out of his boot, but Enna cut him off, kicking him in the chest.
"Try that and this fire-haired Tiran fiend will drown you where you sit." I started pulling water out of them. It dripped down their faces, out their mouth and nose. They started spluttering and coughing, looking at their mistress for help. I looked too, just in time to see Selia climb onto the windowsill and throw herself over. Enna and Rin ran to the window, but I stayed where I was. My eyes never left the captives.
"Dasha, if they so much as twitch" Isi said, and I nodded tersely.
"I'm in such a mood. I feel positively unhinged." I said, thinking of Razo. This was my revenge. "Did you know I can fill your lungs with water? It's a trick I long to show the first of you who twitches aggressively." I looked back at the window, anxious to see if Selia had survived. My friends were talking in low voices. Rin looked over her shoulder at me and nodded yes, Selia was dead. I relaxed. Selia, the person who had caused me so much pain, taken away my love, nearly killed my friend, was dead. She could never hurt me again.
The captives started pointing at the window, wailing. Their queen was dead. They shouted at Isi saying "She is gone now, you are never finding her. And she will be coming for us and we will be her chosen again!" Isi looked at them, and she shook her head then she turned and headed to the burned out door.
"Rin, come with me please. Enna, Dasha, can you...?" She inclined her head towards the pile of prisoners.
"Yes, of course," Enna said, confused "But-"
"She's going to get Tusken" Rin explained. " We'll be back in a few hours." They ran out the door and down the stairs. Enna and I started moving the prisoners towards the dungeons. I kept them nice and soaked so that they wouldn't try to burn, and Enna moved fire around them so that they wouldn't escape. They saw Selia's body and started wailing. "The queen is dead!" They screamed. Suddenly, one of them got too close to the window and threw herself out of it. Four of them flung themselves out before Enna could get enough wind coming through it to keep them back.
"We have to join our lady" they screamed, over and over again, moaning and hitting their heads. They were as crazy as their mistress. When they couldn't jump out the window, they burned themselves up. Between my water and Enna's wind, they couldn't throw heat away from their body, but it would seem they could still pull it in, and keep it in. They died really quickly and it was not nice. It happened really quickly.
Finally Enna and I decided we had to do something. We got them down to the courtyard and we set up a funeral pyre for them. Then Enna and I walked through the castle, wandering into the kitchens. We had some food, and then wandered into the garden. We had walked into the courtyard when I heard a voice call my name. I looked up to see Rin waving, Isi beside her. Enna and I started walking towards them, when I realized that the person beside Rin wasn't Isi. I didn't even dare to hope. I started running, Enna behind me. As I got closer, I saw his face, and I began to hope. He began to run too.
"Razo!" I said as I ran, panting as if I had been running from far away. "Razo! It had better be you. If it just looks like you, I am going to kill you. It had better-" I ran into his arms. He swung me around, lifting my legs in the air, my tunic swirling around my legs. I laughed with joy and relief. He was alive. He wasn't dead! It wasn't possible but it was true! He was standing right in front of me, his arms around me. and then I was kissing him, kissing his face, tears running down my cheeks. I was crying and smiling and declaring all of his perfections to myself. I nearly had to pinch myself to make sure it was real "Well, this isn't half-bad," said Razo laughingly. "I think I'll die more often."
"Don't you dare!" I whispered in his ear. "Once was quite enough for me." I hugged him again, squeezing until he said "Love the lips, not the ribs." I pulled back anxiously, scared I had hurt him. He just kissed me again, long and lovingly.
And everything fell into place.