Silence at Daybreak
By: Amber Michelle
Turns out this isn't right for the comm I wrote it for, so up it goes!
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Sanaki can't remember her mother. The earliest recollection she can grasp and put words to is walking hand-in-hand with Sephiran down a wide tile walkway in a place with very tall, wind-sculpted trees - Persis, where they took refuge for a time while she grew old enough to take her place.
'Old enough' was five summers, and even with his arms holding her up above the rail to see Begnion, the weight of the crowd made her shrink back and cry. So many stares. So many hopes. She still hasn't learned to bear them gracefully. She remembers burying her face in Sephiran's shoulder when he took her to the audience chamber, where he wiped her tears dry before the senators came in and told her with a solemn face that she must never cry in front of them.
They made it so difficult, the senators. Their discussions were dull, their debates were loud. It was battle enough not to doze on the throne while they went back and forth about national policy, enforcement of the Emancipation Act, and sometimes even argued over the location of the next year's holiday fete. She would be so tired afterward, so dulled by their endless drone, that walking back to her rooms to change for lunch felt like climbing to the top of the Tower of Guidance. Kilvas would join her at times to speak with Sephiran, and she remembers tripping over the hem of her robe like a simpleton on those occasions, something he still hasn't stopped teasing her about yet.
Sanaki remembers the day they were attacked in the corridor between the cathedral and her living quarters, when Sephiran took a hit meant for her and was brought to his knees. She remembers the taste of his blood, and her tears.
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It didn't stop there.
Every year at the dawn of spring Sanaki ascended to the platform outside the goddess's chamber where she knelt, paid her respects, and tried year after year to hear something - anything. A whisper, a hum, the sound of breathing. The stone tiles were cold and hard, her knees hurt, and Sanaki heard her own breath and the shift of Sephiran's coat, but nothing of Ashera. She hates me, Sanaki said once when he helped her up, and all he said was, sometimes her most loyal servants are left in the dark.
Outside, on the very steps of the cathedral where there was no shelter, not even a column to hide behind, someone threw a knife, and to this day she isn't positive which one of them it was meant for. He deflected it with the wind and called for Sigrun, but she doesn't remember the arrival of her guards because he swept her into his arms and ran into the cathedral, to a small room that would be easy to defend if necessary. What she recalls is that he smelled like sandalwood, and he wouldn't let go of her until Tanith was on the other side of the door calling, all clear.
The assassin was sent by a general retired to Asmin. They watched his execution, and it was the utter calm of Sephiran's expression, the absence of sympathy, that made Sanaki grip his hand tightly and feel cold inside.
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When she was thirteen summers, he gave her a tome penned by his own hand. The pages are yellowed at the edges now, but she treasures it to this day because he gave it to her - because it was the last he ever composed to her knowledge, and he is still the best. The librarians at Persis, ignorant of his true origin, copy and shelve his work with reverence formerly reserved only for the Goddess. Sanaki does not intend to enlighten them.
Cymbeline was the first object she noticed missing when she awoke one morning to find herself in confinement. For your safety, Empress, of course - we have discovered a plot to kill you in Sephiran's name. She remembers feeling sick, feeling her hands and face chill, thinking, it's your allies that have potential to hurt you most-- before she snapped back to herself and told the guard exactly what she thought of his accusation. He was a Valtome man, incapable of schooling his expression for long. If she had needed anything more to confirm her suspicions, the sharp slap to her face before he left would have put an end to reasonable doubt.
She did nothing to help herself. All Sanaki could think of was what happened to Sephiran - what had to have happened for her imprisonment to be possible. What of Sigrun, Tanith? The senate kept her fed and watered, or tried, but they changed their tune so quickly - moving from the empress is ill to she is a false apostle installed by the traitorous Duke of Persis - that she was positive they would poison her any day. It had happened once before, when she was eight, and Sanaki had no desire to repeat the experience. She stopped eating. If Sigrun hadn't arrived when she did, things might have happened differently.
Sometimes, though not often, Sanaki wishes they had. It would have been so much easier not to walk out of the Tower of Guidance, watch her city stir as her people breathed again, and acknowledge their suffering as the responsibility of the person she trusted most in the world.
.
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At twenty-five summers, Sanaki marries a minor nobleman she met in Persis during a visit to see the progress of the memorial to her Minister. He is tall, quiet, has fair hair and eyes, and does not press her for a declaration of love. She can't bring herself to say it. There is only one person to whom she has ever uttered the word love, and she will never say it again.
When she is twenty-seven she gives birth to their first daughter. The child's hair is dark, a deeper shade than her mother's, as if to remind Sanaki the father is not who he should have been. Her name is Yoram, because she is Marked.
They have two more children, a boy and a girl, before Sanaki decides it is time she and her husband part and remain distant. He says he understands, though she suspects he doesn't. Since he stays in the capitol and the children are not required to grow up without their father, she tells herself there is no reason to feel guilty. He will be happier seeking love elsewhere.
In his absence, Sanaki takes on the mantle of storyteller for her children. Her first-born especially likes to hear of the war against the goddess, before Ashera and Yune became one and learned to laugh again. Thus, it is often Sanaki is obliged to remember Ashera's face, and the ice-cold depth to her eyes that did not reflect the light of her own aura.
They are on the divan in Sanaki's parlor, she and her eldest, when morning breaks on the anniversary of Ashera's defeat. Her daughter wakes, arms still wrapped around the book of fairy tales they read the night before, and asks, who is that singing?
Sanaki tells her she must be imagining things. Nobody is singing. The dawn is silent.
.
There are times - quite often, if one is to be honest - when Sanaki feels she has been a fool. The day of her husband's memorial service is one of them.
She speaks, as do her children, though she doesn't remember a word of it later. Her eldest sings the Hymn of Sorrow and her voice resonates with the wind, the shift of tides in the bay, and Sanaki tastes the bitter salt of the air on her tongue with each breath. Her own song was never so beautiful, and yet the one she mourns for was infinitely more worthy.
As soon as she thinks it, the bitterness turns to bile, and she has to turn her back on the service and run. Overcome by grief, the others say later, and their gazes are sympathetic. Her daughter pretends not to know the truth afterward. It is only one more pebble on a mountain of regrets.
Sanaki was the second daughter, when she needed to be the first.
She let Sephiran rule her life without giving it a second thought, always trusting he knew best.
And even then, though she was the sun and moon and hung the stars in his sky, she was not good enough to have his loyalty in return. She was not Altina, or Ashera.
She watched - that was all, she simply watched. Watched when he dodged Ike's swings, only to fall to Micaiah's spell, and it was the bright red of blood that unlocked Sanaki's voice and had her shrieking stop, stop, get away from him! until she reached his side and gathered him up. He coughed flecks of blood - she tasted the iron on her lips. And then she let him waste his last breath apologizing while she cried. It was always his blood on her conscience, her tears falling, useless - it should have been the other way around.
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Inspiration:
How sad that I hope
to see you even now,
after my life has emptied itself
like this stalk of grain
into the autumn wind.
-- Ono no Komachi