Prologue
A Thousand Eyes
What does time recognize? A coat of a thousand colors~a coat of eyes.
Nine years since her arrest. Ta'a Chume Ad'Ahy is on the death seat. The only reason the Erenada is postponing her execution is her hope of her repentance.
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Well, I won't surrender. My mother used to tell me that I was a block of earth~born to be stepped on. I think of myself as a diamond among jewels. Compared to Teneniel Djo's nineteen years, I have stood on the throne of Hapes for twenty-nine years. Yet I am not being judged fairly. Even if I do abide by the rules, I am considered a demon, while Teneniel Djo is hailed as the true jewel. I have ruled these same people for twenty-nine years. The number is twenty-nine.
I watch Isolder. All my anger have gathered itself to simmer, forever watching, barred by fate. I had expectations of Isolder, too many perhaps. No, Mother. The tone is firm and obstinate on that infamous day when he refused Chume ta' Organa's proposal to wed the barbarian. That's what killed his spirit. He drops what I like and picks up what I do not. It's been that way since he saw how they treated me. How can one live by the sea and never see it's waves? Isolder just doesn't see the whole picture. He doesn't know that I was once Hapes' sunshine. Neither can he imagine his mother as an innocent. I don't blame him for that. There was no trace of the child I once had been after filling Ni'Korish's seat to become the Ta'a Chume. No trace that I once stood on the light side.
The hands come to strangle me. I can feel them pulling me down. Yet I am not afraid of them. I do not fear death if my words live in the pages of fine-lined flimsiplast, for the lips of generations to come. After all, how much they tell of me is true?
It is dark outside. A luminous night without stars. The guards have put me on the watch, but they cannot break my spirit. I look out towards the Soraya, the ever flowing river of time. It's glassy surface reflected the times before: Light, dark, and neutral. In it's depth, a burning bow. The heat feels like warm water pouring over my face; the surface is an giant bowl and I am walking in it's bottom~unable to climb and unable to get out. Am I sad? No, not really, for I have lived an extraordinary life...